Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is a suspenseful story of two young women involved in British spying during World War II. One of the women, Queenie, is captured by the Gestapo after parachuting into occupied France. In order to avoid further torture by her captors, she must write up an account of her experiences in special operations, identifying airfields, airplanes, secret codes and anything else that SS Hauptsturmfuhrer von Linden might find useful. If she hesitates, she is burned and threatened with even more grisly tortures. As she writes, Queenie agonizes over the decision she has made to betray her country. She compares her own cowardice with the screams of a young Frenchwoman, also held at Gestapo Headquarters, who will not break and inform on her co-conspirators in the French underground. She also grieves for her dearest friend, Maddie, who was piloting the plane that ferried Queenie into France and who [she believes] died when the plane crashed. The suspense builds as Queenie eventually reveals to von Linden that she is an interrogator herself. We also learn that Maddie is still alive and hiding with French commandos. Can Queenie stay alive long enough to be rescued? Will Maddie find her friend before she is either executed or sent to a concentration camp? How can either bear the loss of the other? This is a compelling tale of courage and friendship set in the larger story of the power and evil of the Nazi war machine and of the largely unheralded but critical efforts of female civilian pilots, commandos and spies to fight back.