These agents were told they were receiving a typhus inoculation just a few hours after their arrival at the camp. In reality they were injected with phenol, although the dosage was not likely enough to kill them. Several eyewitness accounts confirmed that the final woman was still conscious when she was placed into the furnace. Witnesses also reported that she shouted “vive la France!” just before her death. An attendant involved in the murders had gouges on his face—the result of her last-ditch efforts to save herself.
The story of Jocelyn’s personal life is entirely fictional, including her romance with Noah, her health challenges and her relationship with her mother and Aunt Quinn.
It is unfortunately true that Dianna Rowden’s mother was not informed of her daughter’s death for some time after it occurred, and even then, she was told nothing about Dianna’s heroic wartime missions. For more than 12 years after the end of the war, Mrs. Rowden mistakenly believed her daughter had failed to achieve anything worthwhile in the field. In the end, it was not any government official who explained the truth, but rather the author Elisabeth Nichols, who tracked Mrs. Rowden down while researching a non-fiction book, Death Not Be Proud.
The character of Gerard Turner was inspired by （although is not closely based on） Henri Déricourt. Déricourt was friends with Nicolas Bodington, the real second-in-command to the SOE’s French section. Concerns regarding Déricourt’s trustworthiness and security had been raised by agents in the field, but these concerns were dismissed by officials at Baker Street and he was allowed to continue working with the agency.
After the war, Déricourt was tried for having “intelligence with the enemy,” however Bodington testified on his behalf and Déricourt was acquitted—a result which infuriated other high-ranking SOE officials. It is now widely believed that Déricourt was complicit in the arrest of many other SOE agents, and possibly hundreds of French resistors.
The character of Helen Elwood is loosely inspired by Vera Atkins. After a wartime career with the SOE as an intelligence official heavily involved in the recruitment and training of women agents, Atkins launched a relentless investigation into the SOE’s missing agents after the war, devoting her own time and even money into finding answers for families left behind.
The career of the character of Professor Harry Read is inspired by the Professor M. R. D. Foot, official SOE historian to the British government. In my story, Professor Read is attempting to have a book about the SOE published in 1970, however Professor Foot was permitted to publish his first account （SOE in France） in 1966.
Is it true that there was a fire in the SOE records in 1946, although most of the records lost in the fire related to the Belgium section of the SOE, not the French section. It is also unfortunately true that many essential records were destroyed accidentally or intentionally in the days after the war.
I found it heartbreaking, inspiring and challenging to immerse myself in research around the women of the SOE as I wrote this story, and I so hope that you’ve enjoyed reading it.
If you’d like to get in touch with me, you can find all of my contact details on my website at kellyrimmer.com.
THE
PARIS
AGENT
Kelly Rimmer
Reader’s Guide
B O O K C L U B Q U E S T I O N S
Were you aware of the Special Operations Executive before you read this book?
SOE agents were often recruited as civilians and sent into occupied territory with only a few months’ immersive training. Do you think you could be trained to survive and succeed under such conditions, in such a short space of time? What do you think you might do if you were approached for such a role at a time when the world was in such chaos?
Josie is a young woman with a chronic illness, managing her health at a time when that illness was poorly understood. Had you ever considered what life might have been like for the chronically ill during wartime?
Eloise makes the choice to leave her young son behind, first in the care of her mother, but later in the care of strangers. She’s motivated by a desire for revenge and later, by a desire to do what she could to ensure her son grew up in a world at peace. Did she make the right choice to leave Hughie?
Geraldine hid Professor Read’s attempts to contact Noah for decades. What was her ultimate motivation for this? Do you agree with Charlotte that had she survived, Geraldine would eventually have made peace with Noah’s need to better understand his own past?
Josie has a fraught relationship with Drusilla. What was at the heart of that tension? Did it seem a realistic dynamic to you?
Gerard makes terrible decisions throughout the war but perceives himself to be helplessly trapped. Even so, he does try to help Josie once she is arrested. Did you feel sympathy for him at all?
Which characters in this book did you like best? Which did you like least? Why?
Which scene in The Paris Agent affected you the most, and why? What emotions did that scene elicit?
Were you satisfied with the ending? What do you imagine happened next for Noah, and for Charlotte and Theo?
Was there an aspect of the history in this novel that surprised you?
What will you remember most about The Paris Agent ？ Who would you recommend this book to?
Was this your first Kelly Rimmer book? If you’ve read any of her other titles, which did you like the best?