Review: The Alice Network

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Enthralling, captivating and breathtaking, The Alice Network is all I love in a historical fiction novel – and more.

1915 and Eve Gardiner was desperate to be involved in the war effort, but because of a stutter, she was refused – filing was all she was good for apparently. Until Captain Cecil Aylmer Cameron came into her life. Eve was trained at Folkestone to be a spy – to join the Alice Network in France and deliver the many German secrets which would help to win the war. Alongside Lili; invisible, ghostly “Queen of Spies”, and Violette, the three of them created havoc among the Germans – risking their lives on a daily basis.

In 1947, Charlie St. Clair was travelling on a cruise ship from New York with her mother, destined for Switzerland. Their stop off in England allowed Charlie to clutch her courage in both hands and leave the hotel – her destination an address in London, and a person she didn’t know. But this person was the only link to Charlie’s beloved cousin Rose who had gone missing from France during WWII. Charlie was determined to find Rose, and equally determined not to believe she was dead, as her parents had told her.

When Charlie knocked on that London door, and Eve Gardiner opened it, their lives were both destined to change. What followed was a search to find answers, both for Charlie and for Eve. And heartbreak, courage and retribution kept them company along the way…

The Alice Network blends fact with fiction – the Author’s Note is a fascinating one, and covers little known facts about the courage and resourcefulness of those women who bettered the brutal Germans every day. Author Kate Quinn has done a masterful job in creating a fictional story of one of the war’s most spectacularly successful spy rings. Poignant and utterly intriguing, The Alice Network is one I highly recommend.