BEAUTIFUL SPY: The Life and Crimes of Vera Eriksen

Often described as the most beautiful spy, Vera Eriksen could almost rival Mata Hari and the Bond girls who followed her as the archetypal femme fatale of the Second World War, but her story is perhaps less well-known than it should be. When she set out on her spying mission in September 1940, her husband has just been killed, albeit accidentally by one of their fellow conspirators, yet was he the love of her life or someone else? A German film made in 2013 portrayed Vera as a prostitute blackmailed into spying for the Germans; while she was undoubtedly blackmailed, there is no evidence to suggest that she was promiscuous. Vera arrived by seaplane and rubber dinghy on the shores of Scotland, accompanied by two men - one of Germany's many attempts to penetrate British defences and infiltrate spies into the UK. David Tremain reveals glimpses of her career as a dancer in Paris, a tumultuous and violent dalliance with a White Russian officer of uncertain identity, her time in England with the Duchesse Château-Thierry, an Abwehr agent, the suspicious and untimely death of her husband, and a rumoured pregnancy. The biography grapples with perhaps the biggest mystery of all - what happened to Vera after she was released by the British? Her story is as entrancing as her looks. List of abbreviations and terminology, 368 pages.