A Real Female Spy

I finished "The Tiger Claw" yesterday, a book I mentioned previously with a complaint about the author using French phrases I couldn't understand. Despite the aforementioned minor flaw it is one of the best books I've read in recent history. I won't detail the story because you can click on the book title above to read a better review than I could write, but I would like to express how shocked I was to find out that the main character was a real person who really was a spy in France during WWII.

How do you go about reading a book? Do you read a lot about the story before you actually begin the book for yourself? I don't. Of course I read enough about it to know I want to buy/borrow/mooch it and read the reviews of people who've read it already, but once I lift the book from my shelf I begin reading it as a blank slate. I want to be surprised. I want to read it as if I'm the first person ever to read that book. I want to discover on my own.

Because of this habit I had no idea that the main character wasn't fictional. Imagine my surprise when I went online to find out more about the author's reason for writing this particular story and found out that Noor Inayat Khan was a real woman who was given two awards for her services as a British secret agent. The last few chapters of "The Tiger Claw" elicit great emotion in the reader as the horror of the heroine's outcome is revealed, but imagine my sorrow when I understood that the sacrifices Noor made were genuine. What an incredible story.

My sister gives me all her books when finished knowing that if I don't like one I can always put it on BookMooch to give away. But because she doesn't use BookMooch I only give her books I think she'll like; she'll be getting this one. I also plan to read Khan's biography to get a more accurate account of Khan's life.

Thanks, Shauna Singh Baldwin, for writing yet another fantastic novel.