Quite a few years ago I read an excellent novel called "The Huntress". It told the story of a teenager in post-war Boston who is delighted that her widowed father has remarried. But then she begins to suspect that her German stepmother might be a Nazi war criminal.
On one of my trips to the used book store, I found another novel by the same author, Kate Quinn, called "The Alice Network".
Since I had enjoyed her other book so much, I picked it up. It sat on my bookshelf for a long time, and it made the move to my bookshelf in Mexico, still unread. Finally, when I was deciding which book to read during my flights to and from Europe this summer, I picked out "The Alice Network". This novel turned out to be every bit as gripping as the other book.
The story deals with two women whose lives intersect. The chapters switch back and forth between the two main characters.
Evelyn is an Englishwoman who worked as a spy behind German lines during World War I. She was part of an organization of female spies known as the Alice Network. Although Evelyn is a fictional character, the Alice Network did in fact exist. Several of the characters are historical figures, and the women spies were unsung heroes of the war. Thirty years later Evelyn is still obsessed with tracking down a sadistic French collaborator who had left her physically and psychologically damaged
Charlotte (Charlie) is the teenaged daughter of a wealthy family from the U.S. She is expecting a baby, and her mother is taking her to Switzerland for an abortion. Charlie however gives her mother the slip, and heads off on her own to find her beloved cousin Rose who disappeared in France during World War II.
Evelyn and Charlie end up joining forces and traveling together across France on their personal quests.
It is a fascinating novel that I highly recommend.
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