Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Spy Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Woman

With evident sympathy, Loftis (Into the Lion’s Mouth) tells a well-researched, novelistic story of a heroine and patriot whose face recently graced a postage stamp in the U.K. This exciting portrait of Odette Sansom, a French Mata Hari at the forefront of the Resistance, vividly captures her years in occupied France, complete with lively dialogue. Marriage to an Englishman finds Odette raising a family in Somerset when, at age 30, she is recruited by the spy branch of England’s War Office, known as Special Operations Executive, or SOE, to help “set Europe ablaze.” Loftis follows Odette as she undergoes rigorous training, assumes a new identity (“Lise”), and is shipped abroad. Guided by a strong moral imperative in her fight against Nazis, Odette risked her life on multiple occasions yet managed to cheat death each time; at one point she opines that nothing she endured could compare with the pain of being separated from her children. Meanwhile, she became entangled with her supervisor, Capt. Peter Churchill (no relation to Winston), and their love is the stuff of romance novels. Swift and entertaining, Loftis’s work reads less like a biography and more like a thriller. Photos. Agent: Keith Urbahn, Javelin. (Jan.)