The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville
In January 1941 Krystyna Gizycka, and her lover and resistance partner Andrzej Kowerski, were on the run from the Gestapo and Hungarian military police. They had just been thrown out of jail after Krystyna faked the symptoms of tuberculosis by biting her tongue so hard she was able to ‘cough up’ blood, but they knew they were still under surveillance. Having momentarily shaken off their tail they raced round to the British Embassy where the Minister, who had a soft spot for the beautiful and courageous Krystyna, agreed to smuggle her over the border in the boot of the Embassy Chrysler. As the Minister pressed his guests, urgently, for details to put in their false passports, Krystyna calmly took the opportunity to knock seven years off her age with a new date of birth. The legendary Christine Granville had been created.
In many ways a difficult woman, with an almost pathological love of danger, Christine was one of the most daring, successful, and most loved of all the Allies’ female special agents in the Second World War. A willowy dark beauty, Christine was born into the Polish landed gentry and was used to commanding respect and adoration. When Germany invaded Poland, on 1st September 1939, she embarked on her own patriotic endeavours and made several illegal crossings, skiing over the hazardous Tatra mountains between Hungary and Poland to rescue Polish prisoners of war, and bring back intelligence on the German occupation. Swearing allegiance to the British government in their fight against the Nazis, Christine’s missions took her through Hungary and Poland; Palestine, Egypt and Algiers; France and Italy, saving the lives of several of her lovers and fellow officers en route. Her huge contribution to the Allied war effort included providing early evidence of Hitler’s planned invasion of Russia, and securing the defection of a German garrison controlling the alpine passes between France and Italy. In many ways the prototype beautiful female special agent she was awarded the George Medal, OBE and Croix de Guerre for her outstanding courage and achievements.
This book explores the remarkable life of the passionate woman who broke all the rules when she chose to exchange comfort and security as a diplomatic wife, for being shot at while fighting the Nazi advance across occupied Europe. From the wild days of her childhood to her brutal murder at the hands of an obsessed stalker, Christine’s life was littered with daring exploits, exhilarating love affairs and tragic loss. But it is only now that her SOE files, the court papers surrounding her murder, and the unpublished memoirs of her many lovers and admirers have become available, that her remarkable story can be told in full.
Book Author
Clare Mulley's first book, The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of Save the Children, won the Daily Mail Biographers' Club prize, and was widely praised. She is now working on a biography of Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the first woman to work as a secret agent for the British in the Second World War. She has also recently contributed to the Arvon Book of Life Writing.
Clare has worked at several NGOs including Save the Children and the national charity Standing Together Against Domestic Violence. She is now a popular speaker at literary ...
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