“The man in brown snapped shut the book he’d been reading and looked up with a stare of disbelief. There was no doubt about it, absolutely none. The five-member team the author described in this obscure little book about clandestine operations in German-occupied France during WWII was the same group he’d sent into Paris in the fall of 1942. Four had made it home, one barely, the last left behind dead, buried in an unmarked grave on French soil. Or so they’d all believed...”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and those are the first lines of Leila Meacham’s historical novel Dragonfly. The man in brown works for a counterintelligence branch of the U.S. government and searches for five young, unattached, smart, talented young people to serve their country. They are an unusual group of men and women from very different backgrounds: an athlete/teacher, a civil engineer, a fly-fisherman, a fashion designer and a beautiful female fencer.
Their mission is to infiltrate the Nazi regime, collect intel on German military strategy and pass it along to the United States. They are all stationed in the same Parisian village in German-occupied France. After only months of training and the Nazi intelligence agencies knack for discovering spies, how will these five survive their missions?
Author Meacham introduces a side of German officers that is rarely considered. Although I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read yet another WWII novel, I’m glad I did because of the hopeful thread that runs through it.
If you’re looking to read a novel of enormous perseverance, sacrifice and courage, then you must read Dragonfly by Leila Meacham.
