*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity..
Caution - This review does contain spoilers.
Title: The Undercover Secretary
Author: Ellie Midwood
Genre: Historical Fiction
Trigger warnings: War, Antisemitism, Violence
Rating: ★★★★★
France, 1942. “I forced myself to hold his gaze. My heart thrashed inside my chest like a bird battering its wings. They knew who I was. They knew what I’d done.” This heartbreaking and unputdownable World War Two novel tells the incredible true story Dora Schaul, who risked her life by coming face-to-face with enemy—the monsters who killed her loved ones.
Dora has lost everything to the Nazis. Her dearest friends have disappeared into thin air. Her parents have been imprisoned in concentration camps and murdered for the crime of simply existing. She has no idea if her darling husband, the devoted and brave Alfred, is still alive.
Though her world is crashing and burning around her, Dora refuses to give in to Hitler’s tyranny. The Nazis may have broken her heart, but they will not break her spirit.
Secretly working for the underground network in France, Dora risks her life on the most dangerous mission in the history of the local resistance. She goes undercover as the secretary of the Head of Gestapo; a soldier with a brutal reputation. A cold-blooded killer.
She is tasked with leaking the names of the SS to the British press. Every day, she rubs shoulders with the enemy. She makes coffee for the people she despises. She types letters for the monsters who killed her family. At any second, she could be found out…
Can she survive, turning the tide of the war and saving thousands of lives? Or will those she loved the most in the world, and millions of other innocent people, have died in vain?
The Undercover Secretary is an adaptation of the true
story of Dora Schaul, a German Jewish woman who joined the underground network
in Nazi-occupied France and went undercover as the secretary of the Head of
Gestapo in Lyon. It’s an incredible story that author Ellie Midwood tells in an emotive,
engaging and unforgettable way which really honours Dora’s legacy and has
potential to be the historical fiction book of the year.
Although her undercover resistance work within the Gestapo
offices in Lyon (and within the German military postal service for a short time
previously) was the major plot point of the novel, it doesn’t actually start
until the twenty-second chapter. The narration prior to this takes place in the form of Dora telling
her story whilst in custody of the French resistance before she starts working
for them. It explores Dora’s move from Berlin to Amsterdam - in seek of
work after loosing her job in Germany due to antisemitism - where she joins the
local Communist movement and meets Alfred Benjamin. Dora and Alfred move to
Paris, working undercover for the local Communist party for over five years
before they’re arrested as illegal immigrants and sent to a French prison camp.
They marry whilst in the prison camp and plan an escape, which is how she ends
up with the French resistance. Although I’ve read reviews from other readers
who found this extended build up to the main plot point gave the book pacing
issues but personally, I really enjoyed it. This exploration of Dora’s story
prior to her resistance work really helps us to understand how loss has
motivated her passion for fighting against and avenging the Nazis and her
willingness to risk her life to do so.
The story
starts in Berlin in February 1933 and I appreciated the choice to begin the
story immediately after Hitler became German chancellor as it gave us as
readers the opportunity to really see how Germany and the rest of Europe changed
in the six years between Hitler gaining power and the outbreak of war. Forming
a plot which stretched a thirteen year period meant that the author had to be
really clever with how much depth they went into during each significant event.
Although I initially speculated that I would struggle with this and crave more
detail and action, she actually nailed choosing which aspects of the plot she
granted more depth and which she glossed over slightly. For example, the choice
to dedicate an entire long chapter to Dora and Alfred’s incarceration at
Rieucros Camp but a mere paragraph to Dora’s escape was arguably risky (as
you’re likely to have readers who would really feel like they’ve missed a great
deal of potentially gripping action and suspense) but ended up being really
powerful. As a reader, I interpreted this to correlate with the depth of Dora’s
memories of the event; she can recollect every second spent with Alfred in
great depth but the time she spent fleeing Rieucros, not knowing if her husband
was dead or alive, was merely a blur.
As an avid
fan of historical fiction, I really view the depth of the author’s historical
research prior to writing the book to be a huge tell of how good the book is
going to be. From the very beginning of The Undercover Secretary you could tell
how knowledgeable Ellie Midwood is about Europe during the Second World War and
this enabled her to seamlessly weave historical details into the narrative.
This included subtle yet powerful details such as the use of the German term
Hakenkreuz in place of the English translation ‘Swastika’ we more commonly
see used in historical fiction.
My strong allegiance to Dora was established in the first
page of the prologue when Ellie Midwood introduces us to this strong, powerful
woman who looks death in the eye, isn’t intimidated in the slightest and asks
her potential executioner to either kill her and get it over with or go and get
her a glass of water and a cigarette. She was an incredibly courageous woman
and this is perfectly captured in the book’s portrayal of her.
I found the love story between Dora and Alfred to be truly
beautiful and the story perfectly captured how their relationship blossomed
from colleagues to friends to lovers. Unlike in other historical fiction
novels, the romance doesn’t become a central part of the story and instead is
explored more discretely in a which still captures how much they loved each
other – a crucial detail in understanding Dora’s pain following his death – but
didn’t take away from the rest of the story.
Although
this is based on a true story so I can’t ascertain whether this is an error on
the author’s part or an actual error the resistance made, I thought it a
mistake that the resistance had not given Dora more information about the
identity of Renée Fabre before they sent her into the lion’s den that was a
Nazi office. One would assume that when the French resistance purchased the
identity of a dead woman they’d think to ascertain simple details such as those
about her immediate family but I appreciate that this plot point did add a
level of suspense to Dora’s first interactions with Klaus Barbie so I
can forgive a bit of creative licence on the author’s part.
Overall, The Undercover Secretary is a powerful and
incredibly gripping piece of historical fiction which is both heart-breaking
and heart-warming.
Have you read any Ellie Midwood books before?
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