FLAME OF RESISTANCE: American Beauty, French Heroine,

The details of Josephine Baker's espionage for the Deuxieme Bureau, the French Military Agency during the war, makes for pulse-quickening history. Music hall diva renowned for her singing and exotic dancing, her beauty and sexuality, Josephine Baker was the most highly-paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city of Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all 'negroes and Jews'. Yet instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and fight the Nazi evil and overnight she went from performer to Resistance spy. Teaming up with a most extraordinary cast including Wilfred 'Biffy' Dunderdale, the MI6 spymaster and a role-model for James Bond, and Jacques Abtey, the daring French secret agent who became her partner in espionage, Baker was a fearless champion of the Allied cause, and a hero of three countries. Her secret war embodies the tale of unbounded courage, passion and devotion and sacrifice, and of deep and bitter tragedy, and a powerfully moving portrait of a woman who fought prejudice and hate in all its forms. One glaring error the editor did not spot was that her 1935 trip to New York's Cotton Club could not have at the time starred Judy Garland! Otherwise a gripping read, 466pp, many photos including colour.