Agent Most Wanted: The Never-Before-Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II by Sonia Purnell

7th thru 12th grade – Biography/Autobiography category – Young Adult Nonfiction

Genre or category

Nonfiction

Biography

World War II

Target Age Group

Based on Tulsa City-County Library (TCCL) cataloging standards, Agent Most Wanted is a nonfiction biography for Young Adults, which is typically considered to be for ages 14/15 to 17/18. However, based on research, this book is considered targeted for the following:

Ages 9 - 12

4th - 6th grade

Lexile Level: 1150 according to NoveList (EBSCOhost, 2022)

Summary

Dropped behind enemy lines in Free-Zone France, Agent Most Wanted covers the hardships and danger that Virginia Hall faced while supported first by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and later by the American Office of Strategic Service (OSS) in assisting France to free itself from Nazi Occupation. From 1941 to the end of the war, Virginia Hall undermined Nazi occupiers with her quick wit and incredible intelligence, equipped French Resistance armies, experienced gender discrimination, and was Nazi’s most wanted spy because of her intellect and capabilities. Agent Most Wanted was adapted from the adult biography A Woman of No Importance by the same author and follows the World War II spy from America, Virginia Hall.

Justification

My local library has this novel cataloged and shelved as a Young Adult Nonfiction book; this contradicts the above target age group but I attribute this mainly to TCCL not having a Tween Nonfiction section in our system, but I also believe that this catalog choice is justified as most students are taught about World War II once they are in high school. The language in this novel may not be advanced, but the subject matter is heavy and children outside of high school may not fully understand the impact or significance of World War II and the heroism of Virginia Hall as Sonia Purnell is trying to do justice to. While this novel has not achieved literary accolades, the original work Sonia Purnell adapted this novel from has received a few including the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Award, making this adaptation a reputable novel (Goodreads, n.d.a).

Evaluation

For this review, I will be evaluating accuracy, style and language, and pacing.

Sonia Purnell is a well-known author of biographies and uses her background as a journalist to ensure that she does justice to her focus (soniapurnell.com). Like most historic novelists, Purnell lists her research at the end of her work; and for Agent Most Wanted, Sonia Purnell spoke directly with relatives of Virginia Hall and those she worked with, traversed England and France, spoke with historians who specialize in World War II espionage chronicling, and scoured national archives (Purnell, 2022). She was recognized by Europe and the US both, received several accolades and honors, and is noted as one of the first women within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017; Katz, 2019). In the case of accurately detailing the life and escapades of Virginia Hall, one only has to do a quick search and find that Sonia Purnell did a marvelous job in honoring this remarkable woman.

Sonia Purnell chose not to get into the gruesomeness of France’s occupation but still ensured that the gravity of Virginia’s impacts was felt by her readers. She often injected quotes from those who worked with Virginia Hall into her narrative, especially when trying to convey Virginia’s and her superior’s irritation or to emphasize Virginia’s feelings about a particular incident. However accurate the history of this biography may I noticed right away that this book used language that felt a bit young for TCCL’s intended catalog audience. I believe Purnell opted to use language and style to relate to her younger audience in my opinion. The biography flowed more like a novel retelling and even felt like it could be coming from a novel where a teen was the chosen main character, Agent Most Wanted was also occasionally peppered with the author’s remarks and phrases such as “Virginia would either learn fast on the job…or get herself killed (Purnell, 2022, p. 26).” The use of the ellipsis is more akin to the language of a younger reader rather than an adult, I was a bit shocked initially. A comma would have been a perfectly fine punctuation mark, but the use of the ellipsis was meant for Purnell’s younger audience target to bring emphasis to the direness of Virginia Hall’s situation. Purnell wrote this biography with her younger audience in mind, she wanted her readers to relate to Virginia Hall and to feel the emotions of someone who was living day by day. If she used language that was telling Virginia Hall’s story rather than walking them through it, the biography and her service to her native and chosen countries would have not been impactful to them.

Sonia Purnell told Virginia Hall’s story from birth until death in about 190 pages, with the bulk of the narrative surrounding Virginia Hall’s years of service during World War II, it is about half the size of Purnell’s original work A Woman of No Importance… in which this biography was adapted from (Goodreads, n.d.a.). Purnell moves through Virginia’s life rather quickly, and I believe she chose to omit the small details and a lot of the dragging and planning that must have been the undertones of Virginia Hall’s life while behind enemy lines. She did not gloss over everything; she chose the pieces that she believed were important and expanded on those. She told of who made up Virginia Hall’s network in France, the importance of their duties and information provided, and provided more detail on certain operations that Virginia Hall had her hands in and led. While most of the biography moves quickly, Sonia Purnell took her time in introducing key players in Virginia Hall’s life, the impact they made, and the details of the resistance moves both wins and fails. By taking her time with these certain aspects of Virginia Hall’s service, Sonia Purnell highlighted the lasting impressions that these people and missions had on Virginia’s life. It made me stop and analyze these significant moments, whereas the details in between were fodder for the biography.

I first learned about Virginia Hall from the 2019 film A Call to Spy (Pilcher, 2019) and was reintroduced to her when A Woman of No Importance came across the desk at the library branch where I work. I was excited to have a reason to read more about Virginia Hall for this assignment, not that wanting to learn more isn’t reason enough, and I was not disappointed. I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads as I loved the way it flowed and provided just enough detail without overloading. It did however leave me wanting more, so I guess I will be picking up A Woman of No Importance at some point in the future. This book is a great way to introduce your tweens and early teens to more aspects of World War II that we only briefly touch in school. 

Virginia Hall, photo courtesy of the CIA (2017)

References and other Helpful Resources

Central Intelligence Agency. (2017, June 29). Virginia Hall: The courage and daring of "The Limping Lady". https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/virginia-hall-the-courage-and-daring-of-the-limping-lady/

EBSCOhost. (2022) Agent most wanted: The never-before-told story of the most dangerous spy of World War II. NoveList. https://search-ebscohost-com.db.tulsalibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=neh&tg=UI&an=11084409&site=novp-live

Goodreads. (n.d.a) A woman of no importance: The untold story of the American Spy who helped win World War II. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40595446-a-woman-of-no-importance?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_24

Goodreads. (n.d.b) Agent most wanted: The never-before-told story of the most dangerous spy of World War II. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59722208-agent-most-wanted?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=722GuXHnbr&rank=1

Kats, B. (2019, April 8). How a spy known as the ‘Limping Lady’ helped the Allies win WWII. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved March 3, 2024, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-spy-known-limping-lady-helped-allies-win-wwii-180971889/

Pilcher, L. D. (Director). (2019, June 21). A call to spy [Film]. SMT Pictures.

Purnell, S. (2022). Agent most wanted: The never-before-told story of the most dangerous spy of World War II. Viking.

Sonia Purnell: About. (n.d.) Soniapurnell.com. Retrieved February 16, 2024, from https://www.soniapurnell.com/about

Tulsa City-County Library. (n.d.). Agent most wanted: The never-before-told story of the most dangerous spy of World War II. Catalog. https://tccl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S63C6147778