The Alice Network
I won a copy of The Alice Network in a Goodreads Giveaway.
I loved The Alice Network. It is by far the best book I’ve read this year, maybe even in the last few years. I was fully invested in the wonderful characters and the fantastic story from the beginning. I love books set in WWI and WWII and The Alice Network takes places during the former and shortly after the latter. A bonus is that much of the book takes place in the French countryside.
In 1947, Charlie St. Clair is a nineteen year old American college student with a very big problem: she is unmarried and pregnant. Her parents decide that the “problem” needs to be taken care of permanently which results in Charlie and her mother traveling to a clinic in Switzerland. After they have docked in Southampton, England, awaiting the second leg of their journey, Charlie sneaks away from her mother and takes a train to London because she has a secret mission: to find her French cousin, Rose, who disappeared during WWII while living in Nazi-occupied France. Charlie adores Rose and, growing up, they were as close as sisters. Having lost her brother and with her parents close to disowning her, Charlie is desperate to find Rose. She has managed to uncover a lead but it’s just an address and a name: 10 Hampson Street, Pimlico, London. Evelyn Gardiner. But who is this Evelyn Gardiner and what help can she possibly offer Charlie?
Evelyn (Eve) Gardiner, it turns out, is a Luger-toting, middle-aged woman with grotesquely disfigured hands, a horrible attitude and a terrible stutter – and a drinking problem. Initially dismissive of Charlie’s desperate search for Rose, Eve’s interest is piqued at the mention of the last place Rose was known to have worked as well as a man’s name: a restaurant called Le Lethe and a Monsieur Rene. Eve decides Charlie can stay the night but she wants her gone first thing in the morning. The next morning, however, Eve has changed her mind and she agrees to help Charlie – for a price. Joining them on their journey to France to find Rose is Finn, a young Scotsman who works for and looks out for Eve. They pile into his Lagonda and their entertaining road trip begins but will Charlie and Eve find what they are looking for?
The chapters alternate between Charlie’s story in 1947 and Eve’s story in 1915. In Eve’s back story, we learn that while working as a “file girl” in a law office, she is approached by Captain Cecil Aylmer Cameron to become a spy for the Crown. He’s been in and out of the law office for a few weeks and has noticed that Eve is as cool as a cucumber under pressure and that she’s good at seeming innocent but she can tell lies with the best of them, and she is also fluent in French and German. Qualities they are looking for in a good spy. Eve readily agrees to join this group of spies called the Alice Network where she will be trained by Lili, the network’s charismatic leader. Eve is about to embark on a journey that is exciting but also very dangerous – and it will change her life forever.
Both stories are vivid and beautifully-written. Charlie and Eve are fantastic characters, very realistic and unique. Finn is also wonderfully drawn and quite appealing. The French setting is magnificently depicted and the research is impeccable and everything fits together perfectly. The period detail is top-notch: you can see, smell and feel all the things Quinn describes in both time periods. There is humor but there is also heartbreak and horror. Quinn does an amazing job bringing her characters and their stories to life and, learning that the Alice Network was an actual network of spies, makes me appreciate and love The Alice Network even more. I highly recommend it to fans of historical fiction set in WWI and WWII and historical fiction in general.