The Spies Who Inspired Me

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: In reading today’s wonderful post, I had a thought. Writers are always looking for the idea that inspires them to write a book, of course. That one snippet or meeting or even a scrap of dialogue.

But the wonderful Jane Healey—a dear and treasured friend, and we have signed together many times—had a double inspiration experience.

Yes, she was looking for her next idea, her next set of characters, her next situation. And, as she tells the story to us today, she found it.

And then—the idea became an obstacle.

And then, the very inspirational characters she found—inspired her to go on.

It seemed to me that the women she discovered just turned around, pointed their fingers at her, and said: Hey, sister. DO this!

Jane tells the story better than I ever could. Listen.

Taking a Risk to Write about Risk Takers

By Jane Healey

I am a huge fan of mysteries and thrillers, and I admire the authors that are part of this group, so I am so happy and honored to be here at Jungle Red Writers today! To introduce myself - I am a historical fiction writer and I live just outside of Boston. My first two novels, The Saturday Evening Girls Club and The Beantown Girls, were both stories that focused on lesser known women in history. The Saturday Evening Girls Club is based on an actual club of Jewish and Italian immigrant women in Boston’s North End at the turn of the twentieth century. The Beantown Girls is based on the true stories of the Red Cross Clubmobile girls of World War Two.

My newly released novel, The Secret Stealers, is also about a lesser known group of women in history. The twist is, it happens to be a spy thriller, and I want to tell you a little about how I came to write the story, almost despite myself. After the Beantown Girls, it took me awhile to figure out what my next novel would be about. I keep a file of possible story ideas – articles that I find, excerpts from books, youtube videos – anything that I think might have that special spark that might evolve into a novel.

One of the articles in this idea file was from the Washington Post. Published in June 2011, it was about two best friends in a retirement community in Virginia. The friends, Elizabeth “Betty” McIntosh and Doris Bohrer, lived on the same street in the Westminster at Lake Ridge Seniors Village in Prince William County.

Upon meeting, they bonded over a highly unusual connection—both women had been spies overseas in WWII in the OSS, and later had long careers with the CIA. McIntosh had served in Asia, and, even at ninety-six, still struggled with the guilt over unwittingly handing off an explosive disguised as a piece of coal to a Chinese operative. The bomb ended up blowing up a train, killing hundreds of Japanese soldiers. Bohrer served in Italy, gathering intelligence on what the Nazis were building by analyzing aerial photographs.

I was aware of the British female spies of the SOE during World War II, but had never really heard much about American female spies. I began asking the questions that I always did before starting a new project—who were these women? What were their stories?

Doris and Betty’s story had that spark of fascination for me, but I knew if I wrote their story, to do justice to their history, it had to be a spy thriller.

And that was where I hit that wall of self-doubt that I think many people can relate to when you’re trying to create or do something that you’ve never done before. Yes, I had always dreamed of writing a thriller, and I loved the idea of writing a historical spy thriller, but what if I didn’t have it in me as a writer? Or, worse, what if I wrote one and it turned out to be rubbish?

For the first couple of months while I was doing research, I was gripped with fear and uncertainty every time I faced that blank page with “Chapter One” at the top. Deep down, my biggest worry was that the novel wouldn’t live up to my expectations for it, and I would disappoint my readers as a result.

However, the more I continued to research these brave, trail blazing women, women who risked everything to work overseas as spies for the Allies, some of whom lost their lives for the cause, the more they inspired me to the point that I couldn’t not try to tell a fictionalized version of their story.

Learning the answer to “Who were these women?” sent me down the most fascinating research rabbit holes. There was the brilliant and unflappable Betty Lussier, who was recruited out of college to become part of the OSS’s counterespionage unit, known as X-2. She helped establish an extensive double agent net in Perpignan, France, tracking down collaborators and Nazi agents.

Another of these fearless women was Elizabeth Deveraux Rochester, an elegant, steely socialite with a British mother and American father, who happened to be in Europe when the Germans occupied France. Rather than flee home, she became a courier in occupied France for the OSS and SOE, bringing messages to the resistance and helping smuggle refugees and downed Allied airmen out of the country.

Virginia Hall is perhaps the most famous of these female spies, finally getting her due as both fiction and non-fiction books have been written about her in recent years. She was trained by the SOE because she originally worked for that organization, as an undercover agent in France before America entered the war. 

Known as the “Limping Lady” because she had lost one leg in a hunting accident, Hall’s accomplishments were extraordinary. An expert wireless radio operator, she helped create agent networks, recruited French civilians to establish safe houses, helped prisoners of war escape and arranged air drops of supplies for the French Resistance. The Gestapo referred to as “one of the most dangerous Allied agents in France” and vowed to find and destroy her. They did not succeed.

Here were these amazing lesser known stories of women in history, but with a level of danger, intrigue and stakes that compelled me to push past my fears and start writing. I was so incredibly inspired by every single one of them, I finally stepped outside of my creative comfort zone, to write the kind of spy thriller that I hope will not only honor their history, but also entertain and enlighten readers. It is the hardest creative project I have ever worked on, but it’s also the one that I am the most proud of.

I’m hoping somewhere Betty McIntosh and Doris Bohrer are reminiscing about their days in the OSS, sharing their old stories, and happy that someone else decided to share them too.


HANK: Of course they are! And they are applauding you, too. Reds and readers, what questions do you have for Jane? Were any of your relatives in the OSS? And what voices do YOU hear from the past?

 

Jane Healey is the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Beantown Girls and The Saturday Evening Girls Club. When her daughters were young, Jane Healey left a career in high tech to fulfill her dream of writing historical fiction about little-known women in history. It was a passion that has turned into something much more. Jane shares a home north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, and two cats. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, running, cooking, and going to the beach. For more information on the author or upcoming events or to schedule a book club visit, please visit her website, https://janehealey.com.