Laurent Joffrin: All That I Have

Reviewed by MICHAEL LARSEN

Curious tale, this. It follows, in fairly roundabout fashion, the life of the real-life Noor Inayat Khan. An Indian Muslim from a highly respected family, and daughter of a globe-trotting Sufi mystic, she and her brother join up with the Allies in World War II, their loathing of the Nazis even stronger than their feelings towards the colonial Imperialists.

Prohibited from killing by their religious doctrine, he becomes a minesweeper and she, due to her command of French, a radio operator for the Special Operations Executive, the spy network which Churchill created, largely to help the French Resistance movement.

Her story is told by John Sutherland, also an SOE operative, who has proven himself already in the war to have the courage and conviction to kill when required, and the intelligence and stealth to get himself out of tight situations.

We pick up their story as they are taken by Lysander into France to start their operation with the Cinema network, which the powers-that-be in Baker Street fear has been infiltrated by a traitor.

Frenchman Joffrin (the book is translated) takes us into a well-conceived Occupied France in summer 1943. We track Nora (her name Anglicised) and John as they work on various covert operations. We learn their backgrounds; hers, being drawn from history, is infinitely more fascinating. Her discourse on her life allows Joffrin to explain some of the Sufi ways, and he does so in a way that never drags down the story.

Which is important, because the story is good. The betrayal and duplicity inherent in life during wartime are well crafted, and the strands of double-crossing get almost confusingly enmeshed towards the end. But all is revealed and it's not quite what you'd expect.

I found it difficult switching from fact to fiction. Sutherland talks at length with Kim Philby; he and Noor meet Cocteau, yet some of the events as described are fiction compared to historical accounts. Another complaint is the naive stylistic touches. Sutherland becomes a bit of a love-torn sop. And the continued use of exclamation marks!

For all that, it's a great yarn, well told at a good pace, bringing to mind afresh an era that is still as fascinating as it is disturbing.

* Random House, $39.95

* Michael Larsen is an Auckland freelance writer