As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. One of the girls has a chance at survival. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. But it’s outstanding in all its features - its warm, ebullient characterization its engagement with historical facts its ingenious plot and dramatic suspense and its intelligent, vivid writing.įrom the May/June 2012 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.Oct. This novel positively soars, in part no doubt because the descriptions of flying derive from Wein’s own experience as a pilot.
Wein gives us multiple doubletakes and surprises as she ratchets up the tension in Maddie’s story, revealing Queenie’s joyously clever duplicity and the indefatigable courage of both women. Spoiler: unbeknownst to Queenie, Maddie survived the crash part two is Maddie’s “accident report” and account of her efforts to save Queenie. Sounding like a cross between Swallows and Amazons’s Nancy Blackett and Mata Hari, she alternately succumbs to, cheeks, and charms her captors (and readers) as she duly writes her report and, mostly, tells the story of her best friend Maddie, the pilot who dropped her over France, then crashed. Queenie has bargained with Hauptsturmführer von Linden to write what she knows about the British war effort in order to postpone her inevitable execution. Lady Julia Beaufort-Stuart), a spy captured by the SS during a mission in Nazi-occupied France. Wein gives us the story in two consecutive parts - the first an account by Queenie (a.k.a. Wein’s exceptional - downright sizzling - abilities as a writer of historical adventure fiction are spectacularly evident in this taut, captivating story of two young women, spy and pilot, during World War II.
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