Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Rating: 2.5 Stars ★★☆☆☆

“That nigger going down the street,” said Dr Hasselbacher standing in the Wonder Bar, “he reminds me of you, Mr Wormold.”

Plot

Mr. Wormold, vacuum cleaner salesman in a city of powercuts, is, as always, short of money. His daughter, sixteen, followed everywhere by wolf whistles, is spending his money with a skill that amazes him, so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he’s tempted. All he has to do is run agents, file reports: spy. But his fake reports have an alarming tendency to come true, and the web of lies he weaves around him starts to get more and more tangled.

Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu

Rating: 3 Stars

Holders of the George Cross are out of the common run; Noor Inaya Khan was even farther out of it than most.

About


Noor Inayat Khan was the daughter of an Indian Sufi priest and an American, born in Russia, they traveled Europe until they settled down in France. But when the Nazis occupied France, they had to flee the country towards England.

Noor, determined to help the Allies, volunteered for service with the SOE, where she trained as a radio operator and was later dropped into occupied France, to serve in the most dangerous region of them all: Paris.

Evading the Gestapo and the SD, she transmitted messages until she was betrayed and captured and then sent to Dachau where she was executed.