The Girl Who Fell from the Sky cover art

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

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The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

By: Simon Mawer
Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
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About this listen

The wonderful new novel from the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Glass Room is both a gripping adventure story and a moving meditation on patriotism, betrayal and the limits of love.

Marian Sutro is an outsider: the daughter of a diplomat, half French, half British, naive yet too clever for her own good. But when she is recruited from her desk job by SOE to go undercover in wartime France, it seems her hybrid status - and fluent French - will be of service to a greater, more dangerous cause. Trained in sabotage, dead-drops, how to perform under interrogation, and how to kill, Marian parachutes into southwest France with an urgent mission....

©2012 Simon Mawer (P)2012 W F Howes Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction France Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"The Girl Who Fell from the Sky comes from a long and glorious tradition of spy novels that you just can't put down. It's taut fiction at it's best." (Stylist)
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Really enjoyed. Raced along. Particularly liked the way you were inside ‘Alice’s’ head. Well read.

No slow sections

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The narrator and the author have done a wonderful job of bringing WW2 Paris to life with this detailed and eloquent story. Really worth a listen.

Brilliantly detailed and immersive

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I picked this book up as recommended by Richard and Judy's book club.
I thought the narration was interesting and helped bring the story to life.
It was really informative reading about the hidden heroes of World War 2 and how they were trained deployed etc and the fact that the main character was bilingual and how her language skills were checked brought the story more interest.
I felt though that the story lacked depth and it seemed like the character was on the fringes of the story rather than deep within it. The conflicts with her love interests did not really fit well for me. I could see the dilemma but failed to be really interested by it. The ending was good I will say.
When I compare this to other works of a similar vein for example Restless by William Boyd it pales in comparison, and does not even come close. It was a nice read but not very memorable for me.

Hero of war from the skies

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I’m not a fan of wartime fiction but I loved this. Really good characters and it is so well read. Highly recommended

Very good storyline

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For me this book suffered in comparison to Restless by William Boyd, a story with similar themes (female agent behind enemy lines after training in secret) and even a similar front cover! The narration was fine but the story felt quite conventional and I found myself tuning out on my walks which I never do on really excellent titles. Not bad, just not a 'must listen'.

So-so - listen to 'Restless' instead

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The book pulled me in despite some slow parts. It was well written and well researched. I personally did not like the ending, though I recognise how clever it was. Could have done without the last 60 seconds and it would have had 5 stars from me. It was not high octane, more a slow and thoughtful book with depth of perspective, yet fascinating. Those looking for full on action will be disappointed.

Enjoyable

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the nirator was briliant. gripping story.
the ending was not as I was hoping, but realistic.

verrý believable

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I have mixed feelings about this book. The story is well written, at times beautiful.....but the plot and characters are ultimately disappointing. I listened well in to the night and felt cheated by the end. It was as if the author got bored and decided to just write "The End".

Ultimately Disappointing

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Marian Sutro is bilingual and is recruited by the Special Ops unit in the Second World War to be trained to be a French agent. The novel follows her through this period and into France as she pursues her 'special mission'. I couldn't stop listening to this book - it has a great plot, which keeps you wondering what happens next and really getting involved in Marian's fate. Further though, this is not just a good thriller, the writing is at times absolutely beautiful, and some descriptions will stay with me for a long time.

The narration is also beautifully done, with each character having their own distinctive voice. I thoroughly recommend.

A great thriller, but also beautifully written

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The fictional character of Marian Sutro is based on several real-life Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents.

Like "Anette", she is given a powder compact by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster before leaving for France, works on the WHEELWRIGHT circuit based on Toulouse, and gets her face on "Wanted" posters. Like "Colette" she has grown up in Geneva, the daughter of a League of Nations diplomat, and falls in love with a fellow agent who is parachuted down with her. Like "Odette" she enlists in the egregiously named FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). Unlike any of her real-life counterparts she is sent on a highly prejudicial mission which trumps her work for the Maquis: to bring out Clement, a French atomic scientist, a family friend with whom she became infatuated whilst still at convent school.

This is high romance though, not "faction". It tells how a sweet young thing is transformed into a ruthless terrorist and efficient killer, and how she discovers she's both tool and victim of a cause so tremendous and horrifying in its implications as to submerge brotherly love beneath national duty.

There's maybe a bit too much nuclear physics gone-into. Would her brother Ned, working on the British atom bomb project, really have plunged into all that theory to deflect her accusation of having used her as a pawn, indeed as bait? All the reader needs is the realisation which made Prof James Chadwick take to needing sleeping pills: the inevitability of one side or the other developing a bomb to obliterate an entire city in an instant.

This is scant criticism beside the novel's achievement in bringing into sharp focus a once-brilliant and cultured city reduced to a drab world of arrogant, ogling troops, intrusive police and cowed natives. A stifling sense of mounting dread is sustained, worthy of Dickens in "A Tale Of Two Cities": you feel yourself living the fearful, furtive existence of a spy. And, like a rifle bullet, you'll never hear the end coming till it hits you.

A stifling sense of mounting dread

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