Kirkus Style Review

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Two dissimilar women, a college girl and former WWI spy, band together, while searching for the girls missing relative, to uncover old secrets that transform the former spy views of her past, both determined to find the truth.

In 1947, while traveling to Switzerland with her mother to receive a legal abortion so she does not taint her proper family’s reputation, unmarried Charlie St. Clair can’t help but wonder whatever happened to her sister-like cousin Rose. Rose vanished during the Nazi-occupation of France during World War II and was never heard from again. With hope that Rose is still alive somewhere, Charlie flees from her mother in London and reaches out to last person to know her whereabouts, Evelyn (Eve) Gardiner. Gardiner, a former World War I spy, spent her days as a drunk, living in guilt and waiting to die, until Charlie comes along. As Charlie is pestering Eve for answers about Rose, she mentions a name that Eve hasn’t heard in years, Rene Bordelon. In 1915, Rene was the owner of a restaurant that catered heavily to German soldiers during WWI. Eve was assigned to work in his restaurant as a waitress to uncover secrets that might have spilled from the drunk soldiers. During this time, the two became close, although not for the same reasons. Their relationship eventually led to the unraveling of the Alice Network and the source of Eve’s guilt, the death of Alice DeBois, leader of the network. Eve believed Rene to be dead, however, Charlie’s information proposed that he was alive and well during WWII when Rose disappeared. Unable to live with the fact that Rene might still be alive, Eve agrees to help Charlie look for her lost cousin, in hopes that while looking for Rose, it will reveal some information about how to find Rene, if he is alive. The author elegantly presents two very different, strong, but flawed female characters, while continuously flipping back and forth from Charlie’s present to Eve’s past. Eve and Charlie represent the difficulties women sometimes had to face at that time in a male dominated world.  

Two storylines merge into one epic tale of love, war, friendship, betrayal, and mystery that will leave you satisfied, but also wanting more.