A great thriller, but also beautifully written

Marian Sutro is bilingual and is recruited by the Special Ops unit in the Second World War to be trained to be a French agent. The novel follows her through this period and into France as she pursues her 'special mission'. I couldn't stop listening to this book - it has a great plot, which keeps you wondering what happens next and really getting involved in Marian's fate. Further though, this is not just a good thriller, the writing is at times absolutely beautiful, and some descriptions will stay with me for a long time.

The narration is also beautifully done, with each character having their own distinctive voice. I thoroughly recommend.

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73 people found this helpful

A stifling sense of mounting dread

The fictional character of Marian Sutro is based on several real-life Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents.

Like "Anette", she is given a powder compact by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster before leaving for France, works on the WHEELWRIGHT circuit based on Toulouse, and gets her face on "Wanted" posters. Like "Colette" she has grown up in Geneva, the daughter of a League of Nations diplomat, and falls in love with a fellow agent who is parachuted down with her. Like "Odette" she enlists in the egregiously named FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). Unlike any of her real-life counterparts she is sent on a highly prejudicial mission which trumps her work for the Maquis: to bring out Clement, a French atomic scientist, a family friend with whom she became infatuated whilst still at convent school.

This is high romance though, not "faction". It tells how a sweet young thing is transformed into a ruthless terrorist and efficient killer, and how she discovers she's both tool and victim of a cause so tremendous and horrifying in its implications as to submerge brotherly love beneath national duty.

There's maybe a bit too much nuclear physics gone-into. Would her brother Ned, working on the British atom bomb project, really have plunged into all that theory to deflect her accusation of having used her as a pawn, indeed as bait? All the reader needs is the realisation which made Prof James Chadwick take to needing sleeping pills: the inevitability of one side or the other developing a bomb to obliterate an entire city in an instant.

This is scant criticism beside the novel's achievement in bringing into sharp focus a once-brilliant and cultured city reduced to a drab world of arrogant, ogling troops, intrusive police and cowed natives. A stifling sense of mounting dread is sustained, worthy of Dickens in "A Tale Of Two Cities": you feel yourself living the fearful, furtive existence of a spy. And, like a rifle bullet, you'll never hear the end coming till it hits you.

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25 people found this helpful

Mills and Boon meets Allo Allo

Any additional comments?

Dire. Cliched, unconvincing characters doing a disservice to the real women of the SOE. Silly ending, but by the time I got there I was just glad it was over so I didn't care..

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22 people found this helpful

I cringed......!

This whole book felt shallow. I was looking farward details! which where missing in abundance! The author just scoots around the idea of some young women becoming a spy, missing out all of the training in any depth, reducing it to "we did an assault course that day" and "later we did monkey bars". The whole book reads more like a plot outline then an actual book. Also, if i have to hear the line "he laughed that *insert word here, such as "throaty"/"russion"/or"deep" Laugh" AGAIN i will go crazy. Repetitive writing too? its a one star from me.

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22 people found this helpful

An exciting story

I enjoyed this audio book and was engrossed by the heroine's exploits in occupied France as she evaded the Nazis, fell in love and helped the French resistance. The narrator brought characters to life and I was sorry when the book ended. I felt a sequel is needed to tell us what happened next to the players in this exciting story.

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21 people found this helpful

Like WW2 related stories-if so you will like this

Why do I (and you) like stories tied up with the last war? That is something that would take up too many characters to discuss - but I can say in very simple terms that this is an absolutely excellent book - well written and well read (bearing in mind the vast array of characters this cannot have been easy). The reason I have given it a final 5 star is however its ending - which took me completely by surprise and which I think about every day.

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16 people found this helpful

A fascinating and inteliigently researched book.

I have read the Glass Room and enjoyed it immensely. Listening to the audio version of The Girl who Fell from the Sky was a wonderful experience. Not only is the writing superb but Anna Bentinck's reading is one of the best. She perfectly complements the exqusite writing and storyline. Both her French and German accents are flawless. Thank you so much. I cannot recommend this audible book high enough. I didn't want it to end.

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11 people found this helpful

Compelling

I really enjoyed this book. Mainly because it concentrated on the characters not the mechanics, Usually WW2 books spend a lot of time explaining how the characters got where they are. This one refers back in simple terms about the characters skills and how they learnt them.

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9 people found this helpful

Disappointing

Like other reviewers, I was looking forward to a thrilling and ineresting story as I knew a little about SOE and the exploits of some of its female recruits. However, it felt very much like this was the outline of a story, without much depth or detail. Marion just seemed to slip easily into becoming a spy with a sort of jolly-hockey-sticks attitude to the whole thing and little questioning of what she was doing or detail about how she made the transformation. The story lacked pace and excitement for me, although the ending was well done.

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9 people found this helpful

Hate to give up but...

Four hours in and I find myself no longer able to continue simply because I realise I don't care for any of the characters. I appreciate the message the author is trying to get across about the heroism of the women during that time and the difficulties they faced but I find the main character fickle , immature, vindictive - all in all annoying. The prose seems nicely written at first but after a while you find it's actually quite repetitive and being almost half way through the book it feels like nothing has really happened. Always hate to give up on a book but alas I feel no attachment to these characters whatsoever and can't go on.

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8 people found this helpful