Customer Reviews

The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville

I have to admit that I didn't warm to Krystyna Skarbek in the early chapters of this biography. Perhaps it was the aristocratic I-don't-give-a-damn impression, perhaps I was jealous of the beauty. Anyway it didn't matter as Clare Mulley wasn't asking me to like her subject, just to become aquainted with this unusual personality. I like Mulley's narrative approach throughout. She stands back and describes events with the quiet assurance of thorough research. This enables the reader to stick with Christine (as Krystyna became) through the ups and downs of her extraordinary life. It also makes it easier to see her in context - both the close context of the people who worked with or managed her and the wider historical context. I felt I had learned a great deal more than the story of a life - I had a new angle on WW2 and its aftermath and an unexpected insight Polishness and the quality of extraordinary bravery.

Clare Mulley's 'The Spy who Loved' is the very compelling story of Christine Granville, Britain's first female special agent of WW2, who was born Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbeck, in Warsaw in 1908, the daughter of a dissolute Polish aristocrat and his very wealthy Jewish wife. Although the daughter of a count, Christine was never really accepted in the upper echelons of Polish society, due to her being half Jewish and she often felt on the margins of that society; however this only served to make her the ferociously driven and independent individual that she was.

Christine was beautiful, resourceful, courageous, highly motivated and highly sexed; she was fiercely determined and addicted to danger, excitement and adventure. Married to her first husband when she was twenty one years old and married for a second time when she arrived in England after the outbreak of war, Christine presented herself to the British Secret Service and offered to ski over the Tatra Mountains, (with her one-legged lover) into occupied Poland and return with a first-hand account of the situation in Warsaw. And, surprising as it may seem, she was commissioned to do just that, and this hazardous journey over the frozen mountains into Poland, was just one of many dangerous missions undertaken by this rather amazing woman. Apart from skiing into Poland, she served in Egypt, parachuted into occupied France, and saved the lives of many British, Polish and French officers. She made a significant contribution to the war effort by managing to infiltrate her way into the enemy camp and then smuggle information into Britain sewn into the lining of her gloves, with a cyanide tablet sewn into the hem of her skirt in case she should get caught. Highly decorated, Christine was awarded the George Medal, an OBE and the Croix de Guerre, so it is surprising to read that at the end of the war, this amazing woman who, it is believed, inspired Ian Fleming's spy stories, was dismissed with one month's salary and then virtually ignored by the British Authorities.

This is a very well researched biography where the author has drawn on a varied range of resources to produce an excellent life story of a rather exceptional woman. We know before we start reading this biography, that Christine met her death at the hands of the last of her many lovers, as he stabbed her to death in a Kensington hotel after she rejected him, and Clare Mulley deals with this in a vivid, but sensitive manner. One of the women who knew Christine well commented on her death by saying: "One cannot help feeling that her early death was somehow inevitable and the manner of it in keeping with the many dramas of her life". Christine's murderer was obsessed with her to the end, and his last statement when he left his cell was: "To kill is the final possession". But, as Clare Mulley says, he was wrong; he had never possessed Christine; no one had ever possessed her - she was possessed by her own mission to free Poland.

5 Stars.

Once again Clare Mulley has produced a wonderful biography about a woman I wish I had known a lot more about a long time ago. The remarkable twists and turns in Christine Granville's life are beautifully described in this book. It seems that the author has captured the essence of Christine's intriguing personality in this page-turner. Clare Mulley's scene-setting is such that I could feel my heart racing at key points during Christine's WWII experiences.

Of all the books I have read this year nothing comes close to this wonderful story of Christine Granville, who served as a secret agent throughout the Second World War. Born Krystyna Skarbek into an aristocratic Polish family, at a time when women were typically not expected to aspire to anything except becoming wives and mothers, she began her intelligence work for the Allies long before they had set up organizations for this purpose and travelled across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in pursuit of her work, returning with invaluable information. Beautifully written, this fast paced book is full of danger, intrigue and tragedy but also gives an excellent insight into the character of a supremely courageous yet vulnerable woman. This really is a book not to be missed!

This is a well written/researched book that takes you on an incredible journey. It is not for the faint hearted. It is daunting to read and be reminded of everything that happened during the War, the politics, the savagery. Great book, but not one you read before bedtime.

A fascinating story about a very brave woman. It is, moreover, very well written and as such is a great credit to the author.

A good read, a insight into what the polish people went through during the second world war.
Would recomend it

Enjoyed the book enormously. I remember her reported death as a friend of my parenta had been one of her Cairo lovers. He had admired her and felt she had been let down by the country she had helped during the war. A fascinating story, well told.

I loved this book. It was well written and thoroughly researched. Clare brought this brave woman to life and reminded us of the bravery shown by so many during the war. I think it would make a fantastic film.

The Second World War threw up countless people who thrived in the stress and the unusual topsy-turvey situation of global conflict - they seem to have been born for those difficult circumstances. The subject of this book is clearly one of those people.
Clare Mulley's book, which I came across because of my Mother who knew Krystyna Skarbek (Christine Granville as she became) is a beautifully crafted pen portrait of this extraordinary lady's life and times.
Clearly a difficult woman, Christine shone in the odd world of war and she displayed huge courage along with reckless abandon and a lack of overt fear in the most terrifying situations. The George Medal and Croix de Guerre demand acts of great bravery and she was awarded both.
Her passions and her flaws were more than matched by her practical grit and her strengths. I don't think she would have been easy to spend too much time with but she generated love and sustained others with a life force that must have been extraordinary to experience let alone witness. That captivating nature could unhinge people and, in the end, it led to her untimely death at the hands of a broken man.
One the one hand this is an engaging and interesting book that tells us the story of an engaging and interesting woman. On the other it is a scholarly and well researched biography that perfectly illuminates previously unknown, to me in any case, aspects of the war.
I think this is a fascinating, elegantly written and empathetic book. I recommend it to anyone interested in real people, real celebrity and a world where truth really is stranger than fiction.