The Limping Spy of Lyon

 Demetrios, Heather.  Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall.  New York: Atheneum 

           Books for Young Readers, 2021.  ISBN: 9781534431874

Who was the "Limping Lady of Lyon?" "The most dangerous Allied spy in France?"  That would be Virginia Hall, a member of both the British SOE and the American OSS, not to mention being a volunteer in the French Army, and later the CIA.  So who is Virginia Hall?  Read Code Name Badass to find out.

Heather Demetrios was wandering around the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. when she came upon a display of Virginia Hall memorabilia and was intrigued when she learned that Virgina Hall had made the Gestapo's most wanted list while operating with an artificial leg!  This was a story worth writing in grand style!

Demetrios opens Code Name Badass with Virginia "Dindy" Hall in context, i.e. providing information on her early life, her love of the outdoors, and her cheese-making skills not to mention her language skills.  She attended Harvard for a year, then transferred to Barnard College, and then studied abroad in Paris and Vienna.  After college, Dindy got a job with the Foreign Service as a clerk in Warsaw, Izmar (in Turkey where she had a hunting accident that cost her a leg), and later in Venice and Estonia.  In 1939, she left the State Department and moved to Paris.  With the beginning of WWII, she joined the French Army as an ambulance driver.  After the fall of France, Dindy made a strategic withdrawal to England, There she ended up in the Special Operations Executive and was back in France as an agent in Lyon.  That lasted until 1942 when Vichy France was occupied by the Germans and she dashed over the Pyrenees on her artificial leg. In 1944, Dindy left the SOE and joined the Office of Strategic Services as an agent in France where her cheese making skills provided her cover while she recruited, organized, and armed Resistance forces.  When the war ended, she was planning on infiltrating into Austria.  After the war, Dindy joined the the Central Intelligence Agency in the covert action arm.  She finally retired in 1966 and returned to the Maryland farm of her childhood with her husband whom she had met during her service in France.  She died in 1982.

 

In Code Name Badass, Heather Demetrios provides an interesting take on Virginia Hall and the role women played in the French Resistance during World War II.  She documents the facts, provides the juicy details and worships how Dindy succeeded in fulfilling her missions despite all odds.  Do not let the publisher fool you, this is a tale for all ages to enjoy!