The Lost Girls of Paris

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff   384 pages

From the author of “The Orphan Train” and several other novels come another story set in the World War II era, Pam Jenoff.  She takes another small, forgotten true story from the war and creates a real-page turner that often left me breathless.

The story opens in 1946, Manhattan. Cutting through Grand Central Station on morning, Grace Healey stumbles upon an abandoned suitcase, battered and worn.  No one seems to be around to claim it. Grace takes it upon herself to open it, looking for some sort of identification. There is a word, Trigg, scrawled on the side. In addition to the normal items that would be contained in a suitcase, Grace finds the photographs of twelve young women who appear to be in their very late teens or early twenties. The only identifying marks on the photos are first names, which Grace assumes are the women’s names.

Then the story jumps back to London, 1943. Eleanor is heading up a division of Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British operations organization designed to conduct espionage, sabotage and aid the local resistance movements in occupied Europe.

Eleanor’s job is to recruit and train young women to go undercover in France to transmit radio correspondence between London and France, particularly in the outskirts of Paris. Eleanor has selected twelve young women for the job.

The story weaves back and forth between Grace, determined to learn who the women are and what happened to them, and Eleanor has the group’s leader, and one of the girls, Marie.

I was disappointed that readers only get to know Marie intimately and another operative, Josie, superficially. Some of the other girls’ names were mentioned, but not all. I understand that it would have been too confusing, and too lengthy, to try to write about all twelve. Still, it was a wonderful read, compelling, and each story reached toward its climax, I found myself gasping at twists I didn’t expect. I want to give  “The Lost Girls of Paris” 5 out of 5 stars, but the lack of information about the other ten girls forces me to give this novel 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.