The Invisible Woman

 The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck is an historical novel based on a true story.  Again a novel that reveals the life of a woman who defied the odds and showed how brave and determined a woman could be during the horrors of Word War II.

Based on the real life of Virginia Hall, who through out the book goes by Diane as her code name.  Though there are other names that people refer to by.  The Germans who have a price on her head call her one name, the French resistance fighters think of her as a hero and have a very different way of referring to her.

 Leaving the safety and comfort of the life of a Baltimore debutant, Virginia travels to Paris the city of her dreams.  She has just arrived, getting a job and making friends, when the Germans invade France.  Instead of returning to America and avoiding the war, Virginia jumps in with both feet .  She is recruited as an Allied spy and becomes the best at her job.  Traveling from safe house to safe house, communicating by radio messages and plotting drops for food and guns to arm the resistors hiding in the woods.  

They are preparing for D-Day.  Of course along the way there are the catastrophes that devastate Virginia and she wants to give up but she is driven to help the French and save France from the Nazis.  She dresses up as an elderly woman.  Putting grey dye in her hair, make up that sets lines and wrinkles on her face, and stuffs her clothes to appear heavier.  German soldiers ignore her on the streets and others laugh at her for trying to do things as an old woman.  She becomes invisible to those around her even though in reality her real face is on wanted signs and she is being hunted by the Nazis.

She keeps saying that she has outlived her time, that Vera her contact person told she had 6 days to live. But she will not give up until she has avenged the people who have assisted her who have died fighting the enemy.

It makes me wonder how invisible I am when I go somewhere now.  My grey, white hair and older body, do I fade.into the background for people walking down the street?