Agent 355

This was a great, very short and very interesting historical fiction read!  My favorite topic:  the Revolutionary War.  But this story took place in New York which is the part of the country that I know much less about,  And the author did not romanticize the story.  She told what she believed happened according to the records that she had examined.  But she told it with imagination....What would Agent 355 have experienced?  I highly recommend this audible original!

The Wikipedia article about agent 355 gives many possible names of women who could have been agent 355 in the very real Culper Ring.  Here is what Wikipedia says:

Agent 355 (died after 1780) was the code name of a female spy during the American Revolution, part of the Culper Ring. Agent 355 was one of the first spies for the United States, but her real identity is unknown.^[1] The number, 355, could be de-crypted from the system the Culper Ring used to mean "lady."^[2]

The author's take is that Agent 355 was a young woman who lived in an affluent home in New York that was hosting a British Officer.  The young woman had access to parties and other events in which the British officers were entertained.  And she used that access to gather information that she passed on to the Continental Army as a spy.  She fell in love with a man who was also a part of the Culper Ring and while she was captured for her part in the espionage, the man that she loved escaped being identified.

Do not read further if you plan to listen to the story!

They married and she was pregnant when she was captured.  She gave birth to a boy child on the TERRIBLE ship used to store prisoners.  She managed to smuggle her son out of the ship, but she did not escape and died while captive.  The son was raised by his father.  It is a good story.

The thirty Years War

It is a crazy thing how so often different aspects of my life touch each other.  Earlier in the year I read the book 1632 which was a pretty crazy book.  Then I attended the virtual Germanna conference in which one of the talks was about the many things happening in the world that affected the settlement of Germanna in Virginia.  The settlers came in two waves in 1714 and in 1717.  Many had been refugees from Germany who were basically camping out in the shadow of the Tower of England living in dire straights.  And the book 1632 helped me really understand now terrible the conditions were in Germany as the Thirty Year war ravished the country side!

The principal battlefield for all these intermittent conflicts was the towns and principalities of Germany, which suffered severely. During the Thirty Years’ War, many of the contending armies were mercenaries, many of whom could not collect their pay. This threw them on the countryside for their supplies, and thus began the “wolf-strategy” that typified this war. The armies of both sides plundered as they marched, leaving cities, towns, villages, and farms ravaged. 

From Wikipedia:

The Germanna Colonies consist primarily of the First Colony of forty-two persons from the Siegerland area in Germany brought to Virginia to work for Spotswood in 1714, and the Second Colony of twenty families from the Palatinate, Baden and Württemberg area of Germany brought in 1717, but also include other German families who joined the first two colonies at later dates.



While I am certain that the Germanna settlers had families that had been affected by the 30 years war, it would seem that many years had gone by since the end of that war in 1648 and the actual move to Virginia in 1714.  I need to look at this more....but it is absolutely interesting.

The Secret Letter

I started the Secret Letter just after I finished the lost Vintage....one more WW II book.  And one night I arrived at the part that is going to be upsetting....I can just tell ....and turned the book off for almost a month....I am picking it back up tonight...no golf....huge rain storm that we need very much. And I have a knitting project that is almost finished.   

Germany, 1939. A tumbledown farmhouse, on the outskirts of a close-knit village in the heart of the rolling hills of Bavaria. A once happy family home torn apart by Nazi rule. And one young girl who refuses to give up on what she believes in…
London, 2018: When ninety-four-year-old Imogen receives a letter addressed to her in neat, unfamiliar handwriting, she notices the postmark is stamped from Germany - and it sends shivers down her spine…
Germany, 1939: Thirteen-year-old Magda is devastated by the loss of her best friend, shy and gentle Lotte, cruelly snatched from her and sent to a concentration camp – the Star of David sewn on her faded, brown coat. As the Nazi’s power takes hold, Magda realizes she’s not like the other girls in her German village - she hates the fanatical new rules of the Hitler Youth. So Magda secretly joins The White Rose Movement and begins to rebel against the oppressive, frightening world around her.
But when an English bomber pilot crashes in a field near Magda’s home she is faced with an impossible choice: to risk the safety of her family or to save a stranger and make a difference in the devastating war that has claimed the lives of so many. Little does she know, her actions will have the power to change the life of another girl, on the other side of enemy lines, forever…
Inspired by a true story, this is a heart-wrenching, unputdownable and absolutely unforgettable tale of the strength of human kindness in a time of unimaginable heartbreak. 

I finished the book last night.  It was one of my favorites of the WW II books.  One of those books that everything gets wrapped up in a satisfactory way....but the author said at the end she had based the book on real experiences of real people.  A little contrived ....but I really did like the book.