The Alice Network – Kate Quinn

I’m a bit of a World War II fanatic, and rarely do I find myself as engrossed in literature on other wars. Recently, though, I dived into a book and it transported me straight to World War I. Kate Quinn’s historical novel about the actual Alice Network in France during WWI intrigued me enough to buy the book and proceeded to enthral and educate me about the bravery and enormous contribution made by female spies during that war.

Quinn uses a clever writing technique to span two periods in history – 1915 and 1947 – to create a thrilling story of courage and redemption. It reads like a thriller, filled with colourful characters and unlikely alliances.

A young American college girl, Charlie St. Clair, finds herself in the undesirable position of being pregnant and unmarried in 1947, and subsequently gets whisked off to Switzerland by her mother to ‘get rid of the little problem’. But Charlie has her own plans for the trip – she is desperate to find her beloved cousin Rose who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war. With a name and an address of someone that might help her in her search, she breaks free from her mother along the way and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to Rose.

The 1915 story line takes you back to the time of the Great War, where Eve Gardiner is recruited to join the fight against the Germans as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the ‘Queen of Spies’, who is the mastermind behind the Alice Network.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal and guilt of her role that led to the demise of the Alice Network and the destruction of many of the brave women who had sacrificed so much to help the cause, Eve spends her days drunk and reclusive in her crumbling London house. That is, until Charlie barges in uttering a name that shocks Eve to the core and breathes life back into that inherent bravery and chutzpah that made her such a good spy in her younger years.

The pair forms an unlikely alliance and together they set off to France with the help of a quirky Scottish war veteran to pursue their respective missions: Charlie to find her cousin; and Eve to settle old scores.

It is a fast-paced read full of wonderful characters and vivid descriptions of the cities and towns in war-torn France, and it shines a brilliant light on the role that women played during the Great War. Quinn’s knack for historical fiction paired with the remarkable yet true material of large parts of this story, meant she could strike the perfect balance between fiction and non-fiction. It is frantic, inspiring and unputdownable.