Purnell's first book, Just Boris: A Tale of Blonde Ambition (2011), was longlisted for the Orwell prize. Winston Churchill (2015, published as First Lady in the UK) was chosen as a book of the year by the Telegraph and Independent, and was a finalist for the Plutarch Award. Her previous book, Clementine: The Life of Mrs.

Sonia Purnell is a British biographer and journalist who has worked at The Economist, Telegraph, and Sunday Times, all UK publications.Ī Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win the War, is Purnell's most recent book and was published in 2019. Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall-an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. But she plunged back in, adamant that she had more lives to save, and led a victorious guerilla campaign, liberating swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day.Ī Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.

She finally escaped through a death-defying hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown. Even as her face covered wanted posters and a bounty was placed on her head, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. Virginia established vast spy networks throughout France, called weapons and explosives down from the skies, and became a linchpin for the Resistance. She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and-despite her prosthetic leg-helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it. The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's 'Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.' In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: 'She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

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