The
Last Agent
In Paris

Noor Inayat Khan was not your common or garden WW2 secret agent. Not the assertive, kick-ass, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her mouth superwoman of public imagination: quite the opposite, in fact. Which raises the question: why would a deeply spiritual, soft-spoken, harp-playing, writer of fairy stories for children even get involved in such dangerous and dirty work?

Noor arrived in Paris in June 1943 to join the powerful Prosper team of agents sent by the secret Special Operations Executive (SOE) of Britain to undermine and destroy the Nazi stranglehold over France. The mission: to “set Europe ablaze”. Tragically, within days of her arrival, the network began to collapse, with one agent after the other captured by the Gestapo. Soon Noor, new and inexperienced, was the last one standing. Rising to the challenge, she proved to be one of a kind. For her strength was of the internal variety: quiet, resilient and oh so powerful.

My new novel The Last Agent in Paris seeks less to recount the incredible work Noor did in Paris that summer, and more to answer the question: who was Noor? Born to an American mother and Indian father, she was raised in the Sufi tradition of peace and love. Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was a gifted musician and eloquent speaker who saw it as his mission to establish Sufi centres in the West. Noor’s idyllic family home outside Paris rang with music; Noor and her three siblings thrived in an atmosphere of serenity and spirituality.

And then the Nazis invaded France…