Women of Intelligence

Themis-Athena: James Bond -- from Miss Moneypenny's point of view.

Themis-Athena: "The Queen of Spy Novelists" -- or so they call her. With reason.

Themis-Athena: Book no. 2 in the Liz Carlyle series -- book no. 1 is "At Risk", which I'd already read by the time I created this list. I liked it ... turns out I rather like the whole series, in fact.

Themis-Athena: ... and Mrs. Rimington's autobiography is nothing short of fascinating.

Themis-Athena: The author -- and the book -- that inspired the James Bond novels.

Themis-Athena: Added at a friend's suggestion, and what a good suggestion it was!

Themis-Athena: Pass the gin. (Also: strictly on audio.) ... Or so I thought. Actually, this turned out surprisingly entertaining!

Themis-Athena: Not the best of Christie's spy fiction (surprisingly, even when compared with "They Came to Baghdad", above), but bearable, and it definitely benefited from the audio abridgment ... and from being narrated by Samantha Bond.

Themis-Athena: An English actress in early 1930s Berlin, infiltrating the social circle of Magda Goebbels: surprisingly well-researched and well-executed.

Themis-Athena: An alternative post-9/11 Germany (and Eastern Europe) -- not half as well realized as Jane Thynne's 1930s Berlin in "Black Roses" (above).

Themis-Athena: A misfit, from Bethesda, MD, to spying in Argentina. Thanks for the recommendation, Mike Finn!

Themis-Athena: Judging by the blurbs, most of Lynds's books don't appeal to me, but this one sounds like it might. (Have yet to read it.)

Themis-Athena: First in the series -- OK, though not great (but it got better towards the end). I may give the series another shot, but probably not very soon.

Themis-Athena: Plame Wilson's autiobiography, OTOH, reads more timely than ever now.

Themis-Athena: Mata Hari.

Themis-Athena: Adventurer, intrepid traveler ... and spy! (A 2019 addition to the list.)

Themis-Athena: Working with the French Résistance was just one of Josephine Baker's many occupations and faces.

Themis-Athena: The Confederate spy whom Southern newspapers alternately celebrated as "Joan of Arc of the South", "Siren of the Shenandoah", and "Cleopatra of the Secession".

Themis-Athena: An Australian in the French Résistance. The Nazis called her "The White Mouse", due to her nimbleness and skill at evading capture.

Themis-Athena: How can this possibly *not* be on my "Summer of Spies" reading list? Or so I thought ... only to find it depressingly underwhelming.

Themis-Athena: Honorary mention: Perhaps not a spy novel as such, but the mother of all swashbucklers -- written by a woman, and starring a power couple specializing in infiltrating the enemy's side every which way and then some. "They seek him here, they seek him there ..."

Themis-Athena: (... and for an encore ...)

Themis-Athena: (... and another encore ...) This is the book from which most of the Scarlet Pimpernel tropes are taken, down to the "they seek him here" ditty -- unfortunately, it somewhat falls apart before even having reached its midway point.