A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE : THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE AMERICAN SPY WHO HELPED WIN WORLD WAR II
by Sonia Purnell 

While France was in the throes of Hitler's invasion in 1940, with bombs screaming down all over the place, Private Virginia Hall was an ambulance driver. Everyone around her was either fleeing from the debris or trying to take cover, but not Virginia. She was quite willing to jeopardize her life, and to take risks against the Third Reich. But this would be baby steps compared to the next role she would take on.
Virginia, an American woman from Baltimore, would help the Allies win the Second World War. She worked for both the British and American secret services and set up enormous spy networks of volunteers who heeded her commands. Virginia equipped, trained, and directed her secret armies of men (she basically built the French Resistance) behind enemy territory. She mastered the art of spycraft. And she accomplished all of this with a prosthetic leg (she called it Cuthbert). Obviously, being disabled did not stop her.
Here we go again with another story of an unknown, unheard of woman (How many more will there be?), who was courageous, persistent, strong, and defiant in a time of the greatest danger to herself and others. Author Sonia Purnell has written a phenomenal book that took her many years to research. It is jam-packed with details that will have you sitting at the end of your seat, and is truly one hell of a story. Purnell previously wrote about Winston Churchill's wife, Clementine (reviewed in this blog), so she definitely knows how to write biographies that bring the essence of the particular individual to the core.
Virginia Hall was an unrecognized, under-appreciated woman who loved freedom, country, and people, and her exploits proved just that. She went way above and beyond in what she accomplished.  Virginia is no longer of no importance.
Very highly recommended.