Last Secret Agent: My Life as a Spy Behind Nazi Lines

Latour’s memoir is a fascinating page-turner, from her unexpected birth on a ship gangway in South Africa in 1921, through to her courageous and harrowing activities in 1944 as one of Britain’s covert operatives in Nazi-occupied France. Posing as a 14-year-old soap seller, Latour risked torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo to send wireless transmissions back to Britain and ultimately was one of a very few operatives to survive the war. Latour’s first-person account is relayed with the help of cowriter Jude Dobson, who worked with Latour on the book until the spy’s death in 2023 at the age of 102. The memoir’s voice is that of a dispassionate centenarian, far removed from the harrowing events she recounts but whose strength of loyalty and gratitude for those who served with her in 1944 has never diminished.