Forced to flee France for England, Nancy is trained by an elite espionage group under the codename Hélène. When Nancy falls in love with a handsome French industrialist, no sooner has she become Mrs Henri Fiocca than the Germans invade and Nancy adopts another name, a codename – the first of many.Īs the elusive Lucienne Carlier she smuggles people across borders and earns the nickname ‘The White Mouse’, along with a five million franc bounty on her head courtesy of the Gestapo. In 1936 intrepid young Australian journalist Nancy Wake is living in Paris after witnessing firsthand the terror of Hitler’s rise in Europe, firing her resolve to join the fight to defeat the Nazis. (Apr.A rollercoaster ride full of danger and intrigue based on the extraordinary true story of Australia’s most beloved war heroine, Nancy Wake, now optioned for a television series starring Elizabeth Debicki.

This entertaining tale does justice to Lawhon’s larger-than-life subject. Lawhon’s vivid, fast-paced narrative will keep readers turning the pages, and a detailed afterword makes plain how much of the account is factual. Frequent jumps in time draw out the arc of Wake’s remarkable life despite her statement early on that women’s weapons of warfare were limited to “silk stockings and red lipstick,” by the end she’s proven herself skillful at physical combat as well. After she lands, the story flashes back eight years, as Nancy struggles for respect and recognition as a journalist despite her firsthand observations of Nazi brutality in 1930s Vienna, her editor is reluctant to publish a story about what she’s seen. Lawhon throws readers into the middle of the action, as Nancy, under the alias Hélène, prepares to parachute from an RAF plane into France to help the Resistance in 1944, carrying in her head memorized lists of vital data, including bridges targeted for destruction and safe house addresses. Lawhon, who masterfully combined fact and fiction in I Was Anastasia, does so again with this gripping thriller based on the life of Nancy Wake, an Australian expat who worked as a reporter for Hearst in Paris just before WWII and later as a spy for the British.

Code name helene