It’s giving Call the Midwife meets James Bond—but make it real and quietly heroic.

The audiobook felt like sitting at the kitchen table with someone’s grandmother as she finally decides to tell you everything. Emotional, elegant, and unforgettable.

Pippa Latour was just 20 when she parachuted into Nazi-occupied France with nothing but a code, a cover story, and a mission that could’ve cost her life.
This audiobook is her story—finally told in full after years of silence—and it’s one of those listens that makes you stop and feel.
It’s not just about spies and war. It’s about a young woman who kept a nation’s secrets and then kept her own.
She hid radios under floorboards, smiled at Nazi soldiers while feeding intel to the Allies, and never once called herself brave.

5 stars. This story matters—and I’m so glad she finally got to tell it.

Pippa Latour's fascinating life and her time as a spy behind enemy lines in WWII France was so interesting to me and kept me turning pages late into the night. I am normally a historical fiction lover, but I am so glad to have had the chance to read about a real young woman's experience as a spy in Nazi controlled France.

Pippa's nomadic growing up years after her parents died comprised of time as an orphan with her aunts and uncles, and various godmothers, and adopted grandfathers in South Africa and Paris, and finally as a young adult in London. She considered herself lucky that the adults in her life loved her and taught her many things. Her first aunt and uncle kept her parents memories alive, and her uncle taught her morse code and how to shoot. She loved her time in South Africa from the Belgian Congo to Kenya, to the wide open Serengeti plains. She was fluent in Swahili, Dutch, German, French, and English.

It was in London that she was tapped for special training at various manor homes to learn various skills to be a spy behind enemy lines. She was accepted as a secret agent with the SOE (Special Operations Executive). "SOE had Churchill as its ally; 'Churchill's Secret Army' not only survived, but thrived, throughout World War II." "I trusted very few people. That became ingrained in me in my early twenties as a survival instinct."

I found Pippa's story fascinating and enlightening. Her nomadic lifestyle growing up, the many languages she spoke, and knowing morse code all added in her favor of becoming a spy. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves to read memoirs, WWII history, and spy stories.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Net Galley for allowing me to read an early copy. All opinions are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Pippa Latour's personal history as a SOE agent. I LOVE getting to learn more about field operatives during WWII--especially women! The admiration I have for all the women I read memoirs from who held these roles are truly awe-inspiring.

Pippa Latour spent her early years in the Belgian Congo, where she rapidly picked up several languages, learned how to shoot a gun, and took classes to learn morse. All of this really set her up well for where she'd find herself in her early 20s--a British spy working in Nazi France, operating a Type 3 Mk. II or Mk XV (I presume). As she enters her role in 1944, Pippa is in her early 20s. However, she's to go undercover as a 14-year old school girl living with her grandparents and selling soaps. She has some ingenious ideas in the field--from where she stores her codes in a shoelace to where she hides the crystal for her machine--I was wholly impressed.

She was one of very few to make it back home after the war's conclusion and signed a NDA. She never spoke of her experiences after the war, until now. Her children eventually asked her in the early 2000s about her experiences after reading about her somewhere else. They had no idea! When she decided to share her story, she wanted it done her way. This memoir was written entirely by Pippa (with some assistance from journalist Jude Dobson) and published posthumously.

Highly recommend to all my friends and followers!! This is one you surely won't regret. Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillian audio for the ARC of this book!

Excellent memoir of the life of Pippa Latour, the last SOE secret agent in Nazi occupied France. She was a courageous woman who led a fascinating life, both before and after her time in France.

So many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this!

This is an incredible story. This is non-fiction but it seems too crazy to have happened! This was a page-turner. Pippa Latour is an unbelievable human. I do hope everyone interested in WWII and feats of important bravery get a chance to read this. It makes most lives quite boring by comparison! This is a story for the ages. And for all ages. We cannot forget the heroic actions that were part of the world-saving efforts to defeat the Nazi's.

Pippa Latour lived to a ripe old age, dying while this book was in the publishing pipeline. She had kept silent for well over half a century, stating that she'd signed a NDA, but also I suspect from the lingering effects of the PTSD she suffered after the fact.

It wasn't until she saw some incorrect facts float about that prompted her to come forward; she hadn't even told her kids about her experiences.

The writing was clear and brought out her voice with vividness and clarity, glimmering now and then with wry humor. But that didn't mask the grimness of her experiences. Those were rough, and the fallout was rough--the cruelty to the helpless, such as animals, perpetrated by the oppressed as well as the oppressors, and the sometimes revolting extremes people went to to get food, never enough.

Her early years were so amazing that I was enthralled far before the war happened. The story illustrates with frank clarity the courage it took for this woman (and the women she knew, most of whom didn't make it out) to live covertly, sending messages while continuously hunted by the Gestapo.

This book felt like sitting with your grandma on her floral couch drinking tea while she tells you about her life. Very good read.

Thank you to netgallry and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I alternated between ebook and audio and enjoyed learning about this historical figure.

I love learning about history but this author was too long winded for my taste. It felt like I was taken round and round just to reach a single point that could have been explained in three sentences. I started skimming pages and realized I wasn't missing anything. I wish this author luck and I hope their story reaches the right readers but sadly, I wasn't one of them.

Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the chance to read this early in exchange of an honest review.

This is quite an amazing tale about an amazing woman. The bravery of people, especially women, in WWII is just staggering and this is quite the tale. From an unconventional upbringing in Africa to worn torn France, Pippa leads an astounding life. Written as a memoir she was the last of the SOE women operating in France leading up to D Day, as covert wireless operators. Just in her 20s she stands out early in her training for her quick learning and cool head. This really is an amazing tale.

Amazing story of the life of the last surviving SOE agent. Extremely well written and well paced. I have read many books about agents working behind enemy lines during WWII, and each contributes to my understanding and appreciation of this period because each one had unique experiences. However, many are hard to read because they bog down in deep background, or go into long tangents, or sometimes they have long passages of untranslated French dialogue.. this book tells the story with just the right balance of detail to be interesting and informative, and still keekeeps the narrative moving. Sometimes people’s back story is important, and necessary , but not incredibly entertaining, but I was totally absorbed in Pipa’s story long before she became an agent.

Someone needs to make an action movie about this strong, courageous, and yet humble hero who definitely deserves the title of “survivor.”

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read The Last Secret Agent. The story of Pippa LaTour is incredible. She was strong, smart and incredibly brave. Reading about her life in her own words is just awesome. This is a must read for everyone with any interest in incredible women.

This book, a memoir of the last surviving SOE female agent operating in occupied France during World War II, stands apart from many other titles on the subject. Her story is remarkable: she was only 22 when she was sent to France, her tenure doing radio transmissions from occupied territory was much longer than typically, she never told anybody what she did during the war, not even to her family. Her children accidentally found her name on the Internet when she was in her 80s! Now, that she shared the hard unvarnished truth about her war-time experiences, it adds to our understanding of the cruelty of war and the constant stress and fear these women, girls really, had to bear doing their heroic work. In some other books about women in Resistance, they show that there was some semblance of normal life for them. In Pippa's case, there was little of that: she had operated mostly alone, slept in the woods, scavenged for food, endured rape, interrogations, and a two-month long walk through France when her mission ended. Her measured, no-nonsense delivery amplifies the impact of her story. Pippa didn't live to see the publication of her book, but as her co-author said, it was her "last public service, her last contribution to freedom". This book could not be timelier. It should be read now.

Told in first-person narrative by Pippa herself, the last surviving agent from Britain for SOE F Section. She recounts all of her long life from her nomadic/peripatetic childhood and onward for most of her work in France. She says that she just never talked about it with husband or children, and not even with colleagues until the last twenty years. In spite of everything she endured back then, she made it out and ended up in New Zealand. Before she died in 2023 at age 102, she told her story to Jude Dobson, the co-author, to give voice to history and her part in it. It is fascinating and eye opening. I recommend it and the perspective it brings to everyone.
I requested and received a temporary uncorrected digital galley from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley.
#TheLastSecretAgent by Pippa Latour with @jude_dobson #SpyBehindNaziLines @stmartinspress
#memoir #biography #undergroundagent #WW2 #intelligenceservice

Including a fascinating backdrop of growing up in early twentieth century Africa, this is an incredible story of a woman SOE Special Operations Executive (SOE) wireless operator deployed to France. Her adventures behind the lines gathering and relaying intel continued up to and after D-Day.

There is a very present danger that results in the deaths of multiple of her peers which she accepted with an alacrity that I do not know if we can relate to today:

We all knew that the remaining life expectancy of a male wireless operator who entered occupied France was just six weeks, and on more than one occasion had it explained to us that the chances of us coming back were 50/ 50. It is a wonder that any of us actually agreed to the job—I am not sure people would do so today, but you have to understand that wartime is very different. We were all doing our bit, fighting for what we believed in, pushing back against a cruel and expansionist enemy.


This is also a tale of a woman's journey into and out of a largely male preserve:

The instruction to use women came from Churchill himself, with Selwyn Jepson, the recruiting officer for the French section of SOE, agreeing with him. After the war Jepson was quoted as saying: “In my view, women were very much better than men for the work . Women . . . have a greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than men.”

I had to read this one quickly, as I had it only for 48 hours but it was intriguing and so I read and read. This was a very interesting look at WWII and the women spies who helped the Allies. Pippa Latour lived an amazing life and this book gives insight to some of that. I felt it started a bit slow but then all that background information really helped me to see where she was coming from and how she got to where she went.

This book is the extraordinary untold story of a heroine who parachuted into occupied France in 1944, spied for Britain, defied the Nazis and never told a soul till the day her sons surfing the internet found out about their mother's exceptional achievements and asked her to write her story.

Pipa Latour was one of the last female special operations agents in France to get out alive after its liberation in WW11

Pipa was only 23 years when she was trained by the British and sent to France posing as a 14-year-old selling soap to help her grandparents survive. Her cover story enabled her to travel freely on her bicycle selling soap to German soldiers and sending information back to England via code.

This book tells how her life was: rough, foraging for food and sleeping in the woods….and being in constant danger. What an astonishing life of bravery, if she been discovered, she would have been shot instantly.

She made it out and ended up in New Zealand and before she died last year at age 102, she told her story to Jude Dobson, the co-author.

Being told in the first-person narrative makes the reading personal. The tempo is very active and visual. It is easy to stay tune and in step with Pipa. What a brave young woman she was. Following her was quite a trip and a scary one many times over.

Pipa’s memoir is well-said, interesting and captivating.

Bravo for bringing this extraordinary person to life and giving us her amazing story.

I am grateful to NetGalley for providing me an opportunity to read the prepublication ebook.

This is the second memoir of a World War II survivor who was involved with the French underground that I have read in as many months. In this case the individual was the last surviving female SOE agent—serving in Normandy in 1944. While it is a first person narrative, it was compiled from author interviews and historical records.

Pippa told her story reluctantly, for reasons that are explained in the book. The first half of the narrative provides her background: birth, family, schooling, early war service and her SOE training. The second half is her 1944 service under the German occupation.

The story is linear, selective, and avoids sensationalism. For me, the most informative portions were the descriptions of the courier and wireless operator relationship, the perils of traveling and sleeping in the countryside, and the sacrifices of everyday people made to free their country.

I found the story fascinating.

I struggled with the number of stars to assign to the book, the story of which stands on its own without much writing "craft." And that shows how remarkable the story is. Still, with greater attention to editing, story arc, etc. this could have been a truly gripping memoir. It's almost as if the written account detracted from the astounding heroism Pippa showed and the hardships she endured. How she kept it all a secret for so long is beyond my comprehension. Story= five stars (Go, Pippa!) Writing = three stars.

The fascinating memoir of Pippa Latour, the last surviving member of the SOE who served as a British secret agent in occupied France. Pippa parachuted into France and assisted the resistance. She traveled around Normandy on a bicycle pretending to be a 14 year old girl selling soap. When asked if she ever killed any Germans, she said not personally, but thousands were killed as a result of her wireless communications advising the Allies of their positions.
Her life was fascinating from her childhood in Africa, to wartime service and back to Africa after the war.
Pippa kept her secret from everyone, including her family, until late in life. She then agreed to tell her story which has been published posthumously after her death at age 103.
A great read. Highly recommended.