[This] new account, working from contemporary, often unused sources, has uncovered evidence that Baker was not only a highly effective agent but was also using the same celebrity that provided the perfect cover for her espionage as a powerful means to promote the cause of equal rights.
Hanna Diamond has mined the military archives to produce a detailed study of the other Josephine Baker, the woman who, to repay the country that took her in with such warmth, joined the French secret services at the start of the Second World War ... Precise and factual.
Chock-full-of-detail ... Diamond walks readers through what is known of Baker’s counterintelligence work, but those hoping for juicy tales of espionage will be disappointed; Baker’s spy record is patchy at best ... Instead, the book’s most rewarding aspect is Diamond’s portrait of Baker as a quick-thinking, hard-working, game-for-anything entertainer, who used ambulance lights as spotlights and a circle of soldiers as a dressing room. WWII buffs and Baker fans will find much to pique their interest.
