Story of a secretary in the 1940s who becomes a spy for the Allies in World War II.
Linda Voss was not as lovely as her beautiful mother. But she was still quite attractive with her fluffy blonde hair and sparkling brown eyes. And unlike her rather dim mother, she was intelligent and had an inquiring mind. Due to the untimely death of her father, Linda had to get a job right out of high school to help support her mother who never got over her husband's death and turned to alcohol to ease her pain.
Because Linda's grandmother on her father's side was originally from Berlin, Germany, Linda grew up to be fluent in ordinary German, which helped her land a job at a law firm as a bilingual secretary. Her boss, lawyer John Berringer, was also fluent in German and dealt with the firm's overseas customers in Germany and Austria.
John was the subject of many broken hearts among the female members of the staff. He was devastatingly handsome and had his pick of the ladies. But he was completely, deeply in love with his wife, Nan, who was the daughter of his boss, Edward Leland. Linda was one of the smitten ladies of the law firm.
Then Nan runs off to Las Vegas for a divorce, having decided she was in love with someone else, leaving John heartbroken. Linda saw her chance to be closer to John and did her best to comfort him. Eventually, they became lovers and she became pregnant and he married her. But she always knew Nan would be the one he held dearest.
After she has a miscarriage, Linda came home early one day and caught John and Nan snuggled up together on the couch. And John declared he was thinking of getting back together with Nan. Linda finally admitted to herself that her marriage was over and she volunteered to be a spy in Berlin, where she was employed as a cook in a German official's villa. The official was known to bring home important papers and Linda was supposed to get hold of those papers and send any information that might be helpful to the Allies.
In some ways I really liked this story. But in another way, it was disappointing. Because I thought it was an espionage story about a woman spy. But the spy part doesn't appear until the last quarter of the novel. Most of the book is about Linda and John and their relationship. The spying part is practically an afterthought to the rest of the story.
But on the other hand, the love story of John and Linda is sad and complicated and interesting. As Linda explains to John's boss, Edward:
"I was carrying on with Mr. Berringer—"
"This really isn't necessary."
"I know, but please listen, anyway. I got pregnant, Mr. Leland." His black eyes widened, not because he was surprised; I'm sure he wasn't. He was surprised I was talking about it. "I know it's something people don't discuss in polite company—but I'm not polite company. Anyway, I'm sure you've already figured out Mr. . . .that John didn't marry me for my money or my great mind. He married me because he had to."
So even though this story is not really a spy story at all, I still enjoyed it a lot.
On a side note, Linda's father has an interesting opinion on American Republicans. This book dates from the 1980s, but his opinion of Republicans applies to them today:
"Pal, there's only one group in the world richer and rottener than the Yankees—Republicans. They don't care about anything but holding on to everything they got. They don't give a damn about the little guy, and don't let anyone con you into believing different."
Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.
No comments:
Post a Comment