Never Say Goodbye

by Hilary Green

First published 2006

Amazon

4.2(131)

Diana “Steve” Escott-Stevens has spent a year feeding and supporting agents preparing to enter occupied France, and she knows that many will not return. Young, fluent in French and unwilling to remain behind the lines, she applies to the Special Operations Executive. Training in sabotage, wireless procedure, codes, weapons, unarmed combat and parachuting turns bravery into a set of disciplines on which other people’s survival will depend.

A Lysander flight delivers Diana into France, where every contact may be compromised and a single mistake can bring torture or execution to an entire network. Her work requires emotional restraint as well as technical competence, because intimacy and trust create vulnerabilities the Gestapo can exploit. The novel follows a female field agent from recruitment into clandestine service, emphasising the courage of resistance households as well as the operatives they shelter.