Agent Zo tells the incredible true story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 resistance fighter known as ‘Zo’. The only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, Zo undertook two missions in the capital before secret Special Operations Executive training in the British countryside.

As the only female member of the Polish elite Special Forces – the SOE-affiliated ‘Silent Unseen’ – Zo became the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi German-occupied Poland. There, whilst being hunted by the Gestapo (who arrested her entire family), she played a key role in the Warsaw Uprising and ultimately in the liberation of Poland. After the war, Zo was demobbed as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned her but ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years.

Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten hero back to life, transforming the way we see female agency in the Second World War.

‘Gripping, moving and important’ Simon Sebag Montefiore

‘Agent Zo is a triumph. Absolutely essential reading’ Hallie Rubenhold

This is the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo, told here for the very first time. Agent Zo was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, and then in Britain she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the ‘Silent Unseen’. She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then the only female member of these SOE affiliated forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland. There, whilst being hunted by the Gestapo who arrested her entire family, she took a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of Poland.

After the war she was demobbed as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned her, but also ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years. Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten heroine back to life, and also transforms how we see the history of women’s agency in the Second World War.

Eglantyne Jebb not only helped save millions of lives, she also permanently changed the way the world treats children.

Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley gets under the skin of these two distinctive and unconventional women, giving a full – and as yet largely unknown – account of their contrasting yet strangely parallel lives, against a changing backdrop of the 1936 Olympics, the Eastern Front, the Berlin Air Club, and Hitler’s bunker. Told with brio and great narrative flair, The Women Who Flew for Hitler is an extraordinary true story, with all the excitement and colour of the best fiction.

‘Brings alive a glamorous, swashbuckling heroine’ – Sunday Times

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessive colleague in a hotel in South Kensington. Her name was Christine Granville – Churchill’s favourite spy. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising. That she had survived the Second World War was remarkable.

The daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and his wealthy Jewish wife, Christine fled to Britain on the outbreak of war and persuaded MI6 to make her their first female recruit. She took on mission after mission, skiing into occupied Poland, serving in Egypt and later parachuting into occupied France.

Her quick wit, courage and determination won her release from arrest more than once, and she saved the lives of several fellow officers, including one of her many lovers just hours before he was due to be executed by the Gestapo.

Of more strategic importance, the intelligence she smuggled to Britain, and her service in France, including single-handedly securing the defection of an entire Nazi German garrison, was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort. She was awarded the George Medal, the OBE and the Croix de Guerre.

In The Spy Who Loved Mulley has brought Christine vividly to life – a complex, courageous and very effective special agent who deserves to be better remembered.