You all know I love a WWII novel recounting the hard work done by women in the name of freedom and peace. When I walked into the library one day to drop off some books, I saw this on the Bestie stand – a display currently housing many New Zealand reads – and immediately knew I had to read it. This is the memoir of Pippa Latour, an SOE agent who lived to the age of 102 before she ever told her story. Unfortunately, she passed away before this book got published, but her story will certainly live on in The Last Secret Agent and in the lives of the many people she touched.

Firstly, I want to say a thank you to Jude Dawson, the co-writer of The Last Secret Agent. As I mentioned, Pippa was 102 during the interviews with Jude, and it is through Jude’s attentiveness and willingness to research and return time and time again that we have this record of Pippa. While Pippa is the one this book is about, it would not have been possible without Jude, and a special thank you needs to be given to her. This is a great time to mention that cowriters are just as important in creating a book as the main authors and subjects. Just because someone else needed to be on board for the project to get off the ground doesn’t mean it is inferior to a one-author publication.

Pippa Latour was a special lady from the beginning. Her birth is an event that I couldn’t help but smile over – her English mother and French father were on a Belgium ship headed for South Africa and Pippa was born on the jetty. This posed a unique question of nationality (one covered in the first chapter of this book so I won’t spoil it for you) and from then on Pippa proved to be a remarkable young lady. She grew up in Africa, travelling from one country to the next due to a series of work-related necessities and the unfortunate deaths of her family members. She knew so many languages and was a genius in maths and science. Her last couple years of schooling were in France, but the war put a spanner in the works, to say the least.

I won’t say much more because I want you to read The Last Secret Agent. Not only is it an incredible memoir (though not officially a memoir), it is a beautiful book showcasing the complexities of life during the war and the strength of a twenty-three-year-old young woman in the face of constant danger. The chapters are engaging and well-paced, about twelve to fifteen pages, and the reflective lens Pippa utilises doesn’t minimise her power or actions. If anything, Pippa acknowledges what she has done, even if it didn’t directly result in death, all the while including key information she learnt after the war. The timeline is succinct and Pippa’s memory is sharp and compelling.

One thing I appreciate with this novel is Pippa’s readiness to mention the things the Allies did in terms of damage as well as the Germans. It should come as no surprise that the Allied forces damaged a lot of the French coastline, and that collateral damage and civilian casualties are not few. The realities of this are not always mentioned in WWII fiction – likely because a clear good and bad wants to be established for the reader – but that warps the truth. War is bad, no matter who is on what side, and the actions committed by both sides don’t always have happy endings. Just because the Allies one, doesn’t mean they didn’t do horrible things during the war, and Pippa touches upon this in her recount of the war. She acknowledges that there are people who will say one thing or another that is untrue to make themselves sound better, when in reality it is all a load of poppycock – yes, Pippa regularly used the word poppycock in the beginning of this book. I love her even more for doing so.

The Last Secret Agent is a must-read. I don’t care what your usual genres of choice are, you need to pick this up and read it. The Last Secret Agent is the story of a wonderful woman and her involvement in WWII, one such involvement she kept out of the public eye until her son found mention of her name some twenty years ago. Even then, Pippa Latour didn’t say much, and this is her only detailed narrative about Pauline de Latour, the fourteen-year-old girl selling soaps to the Germans to help her grandparents survive.