I first learned about Noor Khan while reading A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII. When I was in Montreal earlier this year, I saw this book and picked it up.As some other reviews have pointed out, the writing is both compelling and at the same time, the book could've been a little shorter. There are places where part of your mind will suggest coldly, perhaps, that the editing could've been tighter, that there is no need to repeat that. Despite this, however, the story is compelling.I haven't, yet, read a biography of Khan, yet I found her story as told in A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII to be compelling and inspiring. They thought she couldn't do it, and it seems she was the bravest one. I'm not quite convinced that Baldwin's novel lives up to this image I have of Khan.Part of the problem is that towards the end of the book I realized that I was really fed up with stories about women in World War II who becomes spies not for love of country, but because they want to find thier lost lover. Every single female spy had a lost lover she was looking for? How come male spies never have lost lovers they're looking for? Does it have something to do with the cliche plot of male pilot seducing the French farm girl who hides him? In some ways, such a plot, cheapens the women.Yet to level that criticism at this book isn't entirely fair. Baldwin's Khan does become a spy in part so she can find out what happened to her lover, the man she wants to marry (and boy, do they have backstory). This overused cliche works here because Khan has conflicting ideas about the British rule of India. Considering that Baldwin's Khan is thinking about imperial rule, religion and politics during the novel, she would need a second excuse besides love of England, when she only went to England after fleeing France. (Why it couldn't be simple love of France, though?).Baldwin's book is not perhaps the best book ever, but there is much to like about. Her protrayal of Khan is wonderful. As one reviewer has pointed out, some of the plot points sound a bit far fetched, but the character is believable. At times, you admire her; at times you want to smack her (and isn't that true of most people you meet)? The ending is real and how Baldwin plays out the love plot is far less cliche than the idea of the plot itself.
Chris' Fish Place
Thoughts on things, mostly books.
I first learned about Noor Khan while reading A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII. When I was in Montreal earlier this year, I saw this book and picked it up.As some other reviews have pointed out, the writing is both compelling and at the same time, the book could've been a little shorter. There are places where part of your mind will suggest coldly, perhaps, that the editing could've been tighter, that there is no need to repeat that. Despite this, however, the story is compelling.I haven't, yet, read a biography of Khan, yet I found her story as told in A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII to be compelling and inspiring. They thought she couldn't do it, and it seems she was the bravest one. I'm not quite convinced that Baldwin's novel lives up to this image I have of Khan.Part of the problem is that towards the end of the book I realized that I was really fed up with stories about women in World War II who becomes spies not for love of country, but because they want to find thier lost lover. Every single female spy had a lost lover she was looking for? How come male spies never have lost lovers they're looking for? Does it have something to do with the cliche plot of male pilot seducing the French farm girl who hides him? In some ways, such a plot, cheapens the women.Yet to level that criticism at this book isn't entirely fair. Baldwin's Khan does become a spy in part so she can find out what happened to her lover, the man she wants to marry (and boy, do they have backstory). This overused cliche works here because Khan has conflicting ideas about the British rule of India. Considering that Baldwin's Khan is thinking about imperial rule, religion and politics during the novel, she would need a second excuse besides love of England, when she only went to England after fleeing France. (Why it couldn't be simple love of France, though?).Baldwin's book is not perhaps the best book ever, but there is much to like about. Her protrayal of Khan is wonderful. As one reviewer has pointed out, some of the plot points sound a bit far fetched, but the character is believable. At times, you admire her; at times you want to smack her (and isn't that true of most people you meet)? The ending is real and how Baldwin plays out the love plot is far less cliche than the idea of the plot itself.
