The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville
by Clare Mulley (Goodreads Author)
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The Untold Story of Britain’s First Female Special Agent of World War II

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessed colleague in a hotel in the South Kensington district of London. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising; that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable.

The daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and his wealthy Jewish wife, Granville would become one of Britain’s most daring and highly decorated special agents. Having fled to Britain on the outbreak of war, she was recruited by the intelligence services and took on mission after mission. She skied over the hazardous High Tatras into occupied Poland, served in Egypt and North Africa, and was later parachuted behind enemy lines into France, where an agent’s life expectancy was only six weeks. Her courage, quick wit, and determination won her release from arrest more than once, and saved the lives of several fellow officers—including one of her many lovers—just hours before their execution by the Gestapo. More importantly, the intelligence she gathered in her espionage was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort, and she was awarded the George Medal, the OBE, and the Croix de Guerre.

Granville exercised a mesmeric power on those who knew her. In The Spy Who Loved, acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley tells the extraordinary history of this charismatic, difficult, fearless, and altogether extraordinary woman.



The Spy Who Loved: the secrets and lives of Christine Granville, Britain's first female special agent of WWII' is was published in the UK in 2012, and in the USA and Poland 2013. Photo shows me outside Christine's childhood home in Poland. Despite missions that saw her skiing into occupied Poland and being parachuted into occupied France, Christine survived the war, but was murdered for love in 1952...

My last book, 'The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of Save the Children', won the Daily Mail Biographer's Club Prize. Then PM Gordon Brown called it 'a truly brilliant book', and Paul O'Grady said 'pick up this book and be inspired'... All the book's royalties are donated to Save the Children.

I live in Saffron Walden, Essex, with my husband and three daughters. When possible I review for 'The Spectator' and 'History Today', and every 28th of the month I contribute a blog to 'The History Girls' website which is linked to my Good Reads page.