by Cara Black
Author’s Note
Hitler spent only three hours in Paris in June 1940. Fact. Two of the men with him, Albert Speer and Arno Breker, recorded different dates for this visit in postwar accounts and memoirs. Both men attested to contradictory dates for the rest of their lives.
Why?
The historical discrepancy grabbed me, and the what if wouldn’t let go.
This is a work of fiction, but it is drawn from a range of real-life inspirations.
In World War II, over two thousand Russian women were trained as sharpshooters and deployed in the defense effort against the Nazis. Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko was the most successful female sniper in history. When asked how many German men she had killed, her reply was “I killed three hundred nine Fascists.” She toured the US in 1942, when she was twenty-six years old, and met Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House.
Section D, the precursor and forerunner of SOE (Special Operations Executive), was formed in 1938. Section D commenced active operation in March 1939 and was absorbed into the SOE in September 1940. Many Section D and SOE records were destroyed in a London fire—an accident, it was reported. The Lee-Enfield No. 4, Mk. I (T) sniper rifle was in development from 1940, when this story takes place, but was first used in the field in 1942. Starting in 1940, the British special services designed and manufactured the S-Phone that went into documented use in 1942.
Operation Sea Lion, the planned German naval invasion of Britain, was real. Documents, maps and plans have survived. But it never happened. Historical theories exist as to why. This book posits one hypothetical scenario.
Acknowledgments
This book owes more gratitude than I can express to so many who encouraged me to write this, to keep going, and to not give up. I’ll try with huge mercis to: Jude Callister of the Scapa Flow Museum, Lyness, Orkney Scotland; the Churchill War Rooms of the Imperial War Museum, London; Maureen Battistella of Ashland, Oregon; the librarians at the Cecil. H. Green Library, Stanford University; in Paris to Gilles Thomas; the Ministére de la Marine; Jean-Baptiste O.; Naftali Skrobek, Résistant; Musée de la Libération de Paris; Musée du Général Leclerc; and Musée Jean Moulin; Blake Leyers, J.T. Ellison, and Denise Hamilton, who shifted my view in the best way; Tony Broadbent; Mary Volmer, who shared her family story; Jacqueline Winspear, for her generosity; Rhys Bowen always; Desirée McWhorter; Susanna Solomon; J.T. Morrow; Jean Satzer, my alpha and beta; patient Libby Fischer Hellmann; Dr. Terri Haddix, who answers every medical question and then some; plotmeister James N. Frey who wouldn’t let me quit; my agent, Katherine Fausset, who is in my corner every time; my editor, Juliet Grames, for her patience, insight and dedication to making this book better, along with the incredible team at Soho Press, who I’m lucky to work with: amazing Bronwen Hruska, Paul Oliver, Rudy Martinez, Rachel Kowal, Monica White, Amara Hoshijo, Steven Tran, and Janine Agro. To those who lived under the Occupation and shared their experiences; and to the unsung members of the short lived Section D forerunner of the SOE; and to Hannah, my son, Tate, and Jun, always.
