Julia McWilliams is 30 years old, single and at a bit of a cross roads in her life. Born into an aristocratic Pasadena family, she earned at degree in history in college and now is determined to achieve something of worth. Moving to Washington to take a job under General "Wild Bill" Donovan in the Offices of Strategic Services. Highly ambitious she quickly moved up to Head of OSS Registry of Secret Files. But she wanted more. She wanted to go overseas and help somehow with the war effort. But her 6 foot 2 height disqualified her from enlisting. General Donovan, seeing her hard work, rewarded her motivation and optimism by sending her to Ceylon to set up offices for their war effort there, where eventually she was assigned to India and China. While there she met Paul Child, a very talented and dedicated map maker, but the two were very different and like oil and water. Eventually they form a begrudging friendship as they are thrust into working together, sometimes in incredibly dangerous situations where they start to see the qualities that began a lifetime love. "I was never a spy" Julia takes on the challenging tasks given to her with her trademark gusto and with no idea of the impact her assignments will have or where these experiences would eventually land her.
This was a work of historical fiction centering around Julia's time with the OSS in India and Asia. Though the author did extensive research there are many missing parts to Julia's story especially because she refused to admit she was a spy. The author took many liberties to fill in the gaps and she freely admits to doing so. With this in mind, some of the things told made me wonder how far an event or incident was pushed for story's sake or if it even happened at all. A few of the parts dragged a bit and though the number of characters is large and at times confusing it was still an interesting story as I have never read of the history of British colonialism as it pertained to the war nor of the resistance against Japan in Asian countries. It was an interesting speculation of what might of happened in the war to make Julia become the person we all eventually came to know as the person who brought French cooking to the home cook.
I rated it a 7.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment