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JasonKoivu

JasonKoivu

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Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen, Anna Quindlen

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington - Jennet Conant It's rather shocking to discover one of your favorite children's authors was a spy...against your own country.

Roald Dahl, most famously known as the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was a spy during World War II for England, which planted agents in the U.S. for the purpose of finding out information and influencing the nation. England badly needed help fighting Hitler and America was dragging its feet about joining the war effort.

Jennet Conant's book follows Dahl from his time as an RAF fighter pilot into his spy role and then very briefly through his post-war years as a successful author. Though his actions and importance should not be underrated, he was not a professional intelligence agent, nor did he rise high in the pre-MI6 organize that utilized him. Therefore Conant devotes a good deal of the book to others: the spy masters, politicians, socialites and others on the periphery of his elbow-rubbing circle. So with Dahl missing from so many pages, it feels slightly misleading to call this a book about the famous children's author. One feels, at least in the midst of a chapter long diversion, he may have been used to a small degree to ratchet up interest, casting a wider net over another genre's audience than would have been snagged with only a spy enthusiast-centered title. Still and all, that doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the fascinating stories that fill The Irregulars from cover to cover.