THE ALICE NETWORK by Kate Quinn

This novel bounces between WWI and the aftermath of WWII, with a young female protagonist in both time periods.  Eve Gardner is prominent in both, but particularly in the WWI sections, in which she works as a spy against the Germans.  She reappears in the later sections as an old, jaded, alcoholic who reawakens when young Charlie (short for Charlotte) enters her life, looking for a long lost cousin, Rose.  The two women, plus Eve’s dashing driver Finn, embark on a quest to find Rose and to put Eve’s demons to rest.  Their travels through France lead them to the diabolical René, who employed Eve as a waitress and unknowingly gave her the opportunity to eavesdrop on his German patrons.  This book may not be great, because there are a few too many convenient coincidences.  There are some brutal sections as well, and some tragedies that are told so matter-of-factly that I wasn’t sure whether to believe them or not.  In fact, the author leads us to believe there will be more fairy-tale endings than there actually are.  Not that I have a problem with that, but I kept getting my hopes up, only to have them dashed.  Perhaps the best thing about this novel is that some of it is true.  In fact, after reading the author’s notes at the end, I was very impressed with the amount of research she did for this novel and the way she blended fact with fiction.  Some of the facts are truly heartbreaking, but I so admired the women in this novel who actually were part of this network in the early 1900s and whose cover was largely based on the fact that they were women.  I was stunned to find out that, in at least one case, significant bloodshed could have been avoided if only the generals had believed the information the women provided.  Some things never change.