Thank you for the chance to read and review this poignant and powerful memoir.

It could not have been easy to tell this story after spending your life keeping it inside. I appreciated her honesty and bravery.

4.5 / 5.0 Stars

Pippa LaTour was an exceptional, bright, clever, resourceful, and incredibly brave woman. By the age of twenty, she had already experienced more of life than most do in a lifetime. In 1944, at the age of twenty-three, she was dropped into northern France behind enemy lines. She was working as an SOE operative serving the British forces. The work was dangerous and exhausting, yet tremendously vital. After decades of silence, Pippa sets the record straight and tells her amazing story with all its derring-do and close calls.

With assistance from television producer Jude Dobson, Pippa LaTour shares her incredible, informative, and exhilarating story of her World War II service, all of which was done while thwarting enemy efforts in northern France. The writing is solid, insightful, and astonishing as it illuminates her bravery, endurance, and extraordinary drive. The mise en scène was equally extraordinary as Pippa recalled her details as though they happened yesterday. This is a captivating story which you just won't want to put down.

I am grateful to publisher St. Martin's Press for having provided an uncorrected digital galley of this book through NetGalley. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.


Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: May 13, 2025
Number of Pages: 304
ISBN: 978-1250384348

Thank you St. Martins Press for my #gifted copy of The Last Secret Agent! #TheLastSecretAgent #PippaLatour #JudeDobson #stmartinspress

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭: 𝐌𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐒𝐩𝐲 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐚𝐳𝐢 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: 𝐏𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐚 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐧
𝐏𝐮𝐛 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟑, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

I have read a dozen or more non-fiction books set around the WWII time period, and I must say, this might be one of the most intriguing one I’ve read in quite some time. Based on Pippa Latour, the last surviving WWII British Spy, we hear the true story of how she parachuted into France in 1944 to conduct sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines. From her unique upbringing in South Africa to becoming an SOE agent, this book provides such amazing details in an easy to follow format that makes it almost read like a fiction novel. For anyone who has not dipped their toes into non-fiction, this would be a great book to read. What I found so interesting is that no one knew about Pippa’s work as a SOE, not her family, her former husband, her children, no one. She lived the majority of her life without anyone knowing until her son found out about her on the internet when she was in her 80s and flew to where she was living and asked her about it. At that point, she decided she no longer had to keep her story a secret and told her heroic story.

I was in awe when I read about Pippa and all that she accomplished as an SOE agent. She was truly so brave, adaptable and resilient. If you enjoy reading about historical events and strong women, this is a must read. Unfortunately, Pippa passed away before this book was published. Jude Dobson, did such an amazing job working with Pippa to bring Pippa’s story to life and I am so glad I was able to learn about this heroic woman.

Posted on Goodreads on May 8, 2025: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/144922955?ref=nav_profile_l
**Posted on Instagram - Full Review- on or around May 8, 2025: http://www.instagram.com/nobookmark_noproblem
**Posted on Amazon on May 13, 2025
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The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson

304 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: May 13, 2025

Nonfiction, Memoirs, WWII, Women Spies, France, 1944

Phyllis Ada Latour is from South Africa. She decides to become a balloon operator (WAAF) in the Royal Air Force. This entails her to train as a paratrooper so she can land in France and operate wireless radio transmitters. She is 23 years old but upon arrival, her contact changes the age on her identity papers from 29 years old to 14. She pretends to be the granddaughter on a goat farm selling soap to the neighboring villages.

I was so glad to read about Pippa’s adventures. She was a courageous woman to accept her role and complete her missions. The writing flows and is very descriptive. I am pleased she lived a long live. If you like stories of strong and brave women, you will enjoy reading this book.

A fascinating true story about a woman’s bravery in WWII. Very touching and eye opening. This ARC was given to me in exchange for an honest review. This review is mine.

very well written memoir/biography about someone who was very much underestimated but has finally had her accomplishments recognised. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

Pippa Latour was a remarkable woman in multitudinous ways. She was the last surviving SOE agent to have seen action in occupied France during World War II but kept her involvement secret, even from her family, until one of her sons discovered information about her online. As a secret agent, she was no stranger to sabotage, subversions, intel, resistance, figuring out who to trust, and blending into the background. She was destined for something special from the moment she was born. Her childhood living in Africa placed her in excellent stead later on for her proficiency in languages. She also loved Morse code and playing with monkeys. After leaving Africa, she had to learn English and lived and worked in France and England. But first, training was physically and mentally rigorous. She mastered rope climbing and discovered she was a superb shot. She was subjected to sleeplessness and interrogations and was a brilliant parachutist. The WAAF was fortunate to have such a fearless, talented and skilled young woman in my view. Her list of medals is absolutely astonishing and very much deserved.

My favourite stories included the parachute versus cow, basic survival which involved eating what was at hand, intense training details, Pippa's cover as a teen selling soap on her bike, and the woman who barricaded herself into her own house. As an avid traveler, and adventurer myself, I marvel at Pippa's non-stop true adventures, pluck, quick thinking (the code!), determination and intriguing life, even after the war when she moved from Tanzania to New Zealand. She is the epitome of a real-life heroine. Learning about her was an honour and privilege and I am grateful she decided to tell her story before her death.

I love reading books about this in history. World War II, The Occupied Countries, The Holocaust.

I believe every book that is written about this period of time, and publish, is a chance for us now, to learn more, appreciate more, and be aware of the risks a lot of people took back then, and how their actions helped shaped a lot of the way we live now. Each story , no matter how complex, big, small is a gift, and this book was no exception.

Fascinating to learn about the story of Pippa Latour, her life, and her life as a SOA Agent, and all she went through in the occupied France.

Thank you, St. Martin's Press and Netgalley, for the free ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

I received this as an ARC. The story starts with the background of Pippa and how she grew up in various parts of the world and people important to her growing up. Her life as an SOE agent went in detail through those harrowing months. It describes her interactions with other members of her circuit, Scientist. It was a dangerous and difficult time to navigate the time before and after the Allied invasion. After the war, she went on to live an amazing life. A great read!

The Last Secret Agent: My Life as a Spy Behind Nazi Lines by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson is a captivating narrative that will have you hooked until the early hours of the morning. This book introduces a remarkable heroine with unwavering morals and exceptional composure, making it a must-read for anyone interested in real-life espionage during World War II.

It is books like The Last Secret Agent that helps keep unknown legacies alive. So many true stories center around the men. Women have long performed unimaginable feats.

I loved learning about the incredible life from birth through adulthood. The places she has lived and experienced are amazing. As a fellow vagabond, I am envious.

With her linguistic ability and quick thinking, she was the perfect agent and radio operator in German occupied France. Her stories and recall make this book very engaging. The only sad part was that Pippa Latour did not live to see her story reach the public.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an advanced copy.

It makes me sad that Pippa Latour did not live to see her story told publicly at long last. Sh desreved to be here to hear, if not necessarily accept, our kudos. She was a modest person, and I suspect suffered from some terrible PTSD based on what I read in this book; that's not a person likely to want to stand in fromt of a room full of applauding people. Never mind she deserves the plaudits. Never mind she was angered by online misinformation about the realities of WWII. She did what she did, honored her Official Secrets Act duty, and lived the life she helped make safe for herself and millions of others.

I salute you, Ma'am. (Royal address use deliberate.)

From her African colonial childhood, where she picked up practical and communication skills easily, to her European youth, where she put every skill she developed to use, hers was a life of intensities sought, mastered, and used for the purpose she chose to learn them for. This kind of mental toughness and goal-driven living is rare. People like Pippa Latour do not get born often. That she lived until she was 102 is astounding, yet utterly unsurprising. It's our good fortune that she decided to tell her story to a qualified journalist...who filled in gaps that inevitably appear in aging memories...in the trained researcher's best-practices way. (Her specialism is in creating WWII informational films and other materials.) There are reconstructed conversations, unsupported anecdotal statements of fact, and all of that must be okay with the story's best reader. It is, I feel sure, inevitable with the stories of any covert operative.

All the verifiable points check out. I'm not inclined to think someone who told this story at this late date, insisting it be brought to the world's attention after her impending death, would lie. I could be wrong. (It happens to the best of us.) But nothing in her account rings false, as happens with other memoirs. I trust her, I never met her, and isn't that just exactly what a truly skilled covert operative could do in her sleep?

A very powerful story...risking life and sanity to defend strangers' right to freedom of thought and of self-determination...told well. Why then do I dock a fractional star? Because sources aren't cited where they exist, and I'm not really sure which non-conversational (I take it as given that any conversation is the product of memory and imagination) parts aren't sourced or at least grounded in source materials. Much as I understand and accept the reality of a covert operator's limited access to documentation, if this story's appearing at all, the Official Secrets Act applies so it was approved in some fashion. What occurred to make that decision possible?

It's a cavil, but it niggled at me.

The effects of her wartime service on her family? Not delved into, though she explains that her reasons for not speaking of it to her ex-husband and children were grounded in the lingering trauma (my term, not hers) and the need not to breach her oath to keep it zipped up tight. makes perfect sense to me. I would say that, if you're looking for salacious stuff, you move on. Pippa is telling us a story her way. That is not going to be full of gossip.

It is a story we badly need to hear. A woman so small, so frail-looking she could pass as young teen chose to risk torture and death and live among the collaborators and the silently acquiescent to work against a great evil, is a role model to any...all...of us living in this ugly, ugly passage of the 21st century. I'm sorry the late, great lady can't tell me this: Did she see our awful present developing? Is that really what opened her mouth at long last?

It wouldn't surprise me one little bit. She was a shrewd observer and a good judge of character.

Oh my goodness, this young woman was beyond courageous!

Born in South Africa, Pippa Latour was to go on in her life to become an agent of the Special Operations Executive organization in England at the tender age of twenty three. This young woman and others were parachuted behind enemy lines in France to be a radio operator to spy on and report Nazi activity in and around Normandy. One can truly know the dangers of torture and death should be be found out, but Pippa seemed t possess a wonderful sense of the perils of her task as well as a photographic memory.

Pippa became part of the "Scientists" operation, with the code name, Genevieve, and because of her small stature was able to pass as a fourteen year old, selling soap from her bicycle, traveling the countryside and amassing information from the Nazi soldiers. Hidden in a hair tie shoelace, Pippa concealed the codes that were needed to operate the various radio transmitters, never knowing if people were friend or collaborators. She was stopped many times bu the Nazis and searched thoroughly but her cool nature and ability to speak French managed to allow her to escape their clutches although there was one close call.

Pippa received many awards and accolades for her heroic work but after the war she vowed never to return to France eventually moving to New Zealand. Pippa also refused to speak of her heroics and no one knew, even her four children, about what she had done during the war.

What an amazing story told to Jude Dobson when Pippa was in her late nineties! She passed away at age one hundred two, being the last (of thirty-nine) female agents in the SOE.

"Only those who will risk going too far, can possibly find how far one can go" (T.S. Eliot)

Courtesy of St. Martin's Press and Netgalley, I received the ARC of The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson. This outstanding and insightful memoir portrayed the bravery and courage exemplified by Pippa Latour when she was recruited by the SOE to parachute into Nazi occupied France. Starting with her life growing up in Africa with various family members, she learned the skills and resilience to face the challenges of surviving WWII, I was mesmerized by this remarkable woman's story, so well told! Highly recommend!

I tried reading Code Name: Lise a few months ago, but I couldn't quite get into it. In contrast, reading Pippa Latour's own recollection of the war was utterly engrossing and deeply moving. I had really enjoyed The Rose Code last year, which focused on code breakers, so it was incredible to now experience a firsthand account of World War II from the perspective of someone in the Special Operations Executive.

Once I reached the part where Pippa parachutes into Normandy, I couldn’t put the book down and read the rest in one sitting. She was so brave and was only 23 years old and posed as a teenager selling soap to German soldiers to help her grandparents get by. All the while, she transmitted 135 messages back to Britain to aid the Allied war effort. She narrowly avoided discovery by the Gestapo multiple times, and the harrowing two-month trek she undertook to reach Paris and return to England was terrifying to imagine.

I especially appreciated how Pippa made a point to honor the other women of section F who lost their lives in service and ensured that their contributions wouldn't be forgotten. I don't think I can ever fully grasp the level of mental strength and courage these women possessed and my respect for them is immeasurable. On a lighter note, I was amused by a conversation between Pippa and intelligence officer Vera Atkins, when Vera reassured her that she could still back out of the mission before she jumped. Vera quipped, "To date, the only ones in your position who have ever changed their minds are men."

WWII continues to fascinate me, and reading Pippa's story felt especially poignant in light of the troubling parallels in today's world. History often repeats itself, but I have no doubts that there are still people as fearless and determined as the women of the SOE among us.

This book was about a group I had never heard of. The story of Pippa is an amazing story to be told. The courage she had at just 23 years old was truly phenomenal. I am in awe of everything she did, what she saw while living in Normandy, her hard work and dedication to the resistance is truly amazing. I have not read such a detailed accounting of any part of the history of the resistance during Hitlers reign of terror.

I would highly recommend this book, not only because of the history to be told, but to learn about a group of men and women who gave their all to help end that nasty war. Also, because this woman’s story needs to be told and told again. The strength she had in the face of a terrible enemy was something I could only ever read about, because I know I would not have volunteered for such an adventure.

I want to thank NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for this advanced reader copy. This is my honest opinion of this amazing story.

Pippa Latour didn't live long enough to see her words become a published book but at 100 years old, she was able to finally tell her harrowing story about the months spying and telegraphing her observations of Nazi movements to the Allies as a member of the SOE while living on the Normandy coastline in France just ahead of the invasion that would take place there June 1944. Disguised as a 14 year old girl selling soap to the Germans, Pippa was able to hide within plain sight and overhear things even though in reality she was a 23 year old woman. It was truly amazing that the life she had in South Africa prior to the war, afforded her skills that made it so easy for her to become a spy as she was trained to use a gun, could speak multiple languages and was used to living in a rugged environment since her family moved around quite a bit. She had even learned how to use Morse code for the fun of it, not knowing that it would be her essential tool to direct information back to England. It was as if the Fates knew this was coming and was secretly preparing her.
Her story shares the harsh living circumstances of a spy, of the losses through capture and subsequent deaths of fellow spies and the resilience of the women who sacrificed everything for the war effort. It was believed that women would make good spies as they could fly under the radar as seemingly too fragile for such difficult work and that thinking is what made them indispensable to the war effort.
Pippa was finally awarded many congratulations and thanks from the countries she served receiving medals of the highest honor. It surprised me but at the same time didn't that she never set foot on French soil again not wishing to conjure up those very harsh and troubling memories by seeing the French landscape where her life was always in danger.
A fascinating story about an unexpected but true hero of WWII written in an easy format to read and keep a reader's interest from start to finish.

There is a tremendous ring of authenticity to this brief and very human memoir of World War 2 in England and France..

I was hooked from early on, when Pippa recorded that she had never mentioned her SOE history to her then-husband because he was loose-lipped with others' sensitive information and she was sure he would never keep her much more secret information to himself. So she didn’t tell anyone including her own children until she was over 80 years old and they discovered her name on the Internet. Eventually, she had to tell them that she was part of Churchill‘s "secret army", his eyes, ears, and saboteurs in France. And before she wrote her memoir, seventy-plus years after the war ended, she had to check with the British government to ensure that the oaths she had sworn back then were now expired.

The first 20% deals with Pippa's early years in Africa, where her doctor father died in an uprising against his hospital when she was an infant, and her mother died not many years after, leaving her upbringing to a succession of aunts and godmothers. Loss was a fact of life, and so was hardship as she traveled with whichever household to distant mine sites or made the rounds of villages on medical outreach, eating what they could shoot and sleeping rough. It was all excellent preparation for her later war work.

Pippa was 18 when the war started and had no other job experience. In fact, she was in France, not quite finished her schooling, and how she got as far as England was a testament to her own hardy nature as well as the efforts of extended family and their diaspora of friends. Her first war jobs were administrative but her facility with languages and her survival skills honed during a childhood spent partly on the African savanna made her a good fit for a more active role. Her reports of the training and prep for insertion into France are a revelation

I won't summarize the bulk of the book dealing with her time in France, save that she was only the second woman to drop solo into enemy territory and was one of the last out after D-Day. But she lived with danger every moment. The life expectancy of a radio operator there was only 6 weeks after drop. Of the 430 SOE agents in France, only 39 of them were women. 14 of Pippa's co-trainees never returned. And after the war, she disappeared back into civilian life, utilizing the skills picked up in France to go unnoticed. Like other women who did sensitive war work (ie the code-breakers of Bletchley Park), she closed off that part of her life and clothed herself in the protective coloration of a conforming housewife and mother. it left me wondering how many other women didn't get around to sharing that exciting and dangerous part of their life experience with their descendants, and how many would take the 'easy way' now, if they were still around, to just hand over this book instead and say, 'She was one of us.'

All in all, this is a highly readable book that readily debunks the notion of women in the early half of the 20th century as delicate homebodies unfit for the harsh realities of wartime service..

#TheLastSecretAgent

It’s giving Call the Midwife meets James Bond—but make it real and quietly heroic.

The audiobook felt like sitting at the kitchen table with someone’s grandmother as she finally decides to tell you everything. Emotional, elegant, and unforgettable.

Pippa Latour was just 20 when she parachuted into Nazi-occupied France with nothing but a code, a cover story, and a mission that could’ve cost her life.
This audiobook is her story—finally told in full after years of silence—and it’s one of those listens that makes you stop and feel.
It’s not just about spies and war. It’s about a young woman who kept a nation’s secrets and then kept her own.
She hid radios under floorboards, smiled at Nazi soldiers while feeding intel to the Allies, and never once called herself brave.

5 stars. This story matters—and I’m so glad she finally got to tell it.

Pippa Latour's fascinating life and her time as a spy behind enemy lines in WWII France was so interesting to me and kept me turning pages late into the night. I am normally a historical fiction lover, but I am so glad to have had the chance to read about a real young woman's experience as a spy in Nazi controlled France.

Pippa's nomadic growing up years after her parents died comprised of time as an orphan with her aunts and uncles, and various godmothers, and adopted grandfathers in South Africa and Paris, and finally as a young adult in London. She considered herself lucky that the adults in her life loved her and taught her many things. Her first aunt and uncle kept her parents memories alive, and her uncle taught her morse code and how to shoot. She loved her time in South Africa from the Belgian Congo to Kenya, to the wide open Serengeti plains. She was fluent in Swahili, Dutch, German, French, and English.

It was in London that she was tapped for special training at various manor homes to learn various skills to be a spy behind enemy lines. She was accepted as a secret agent with the SOE (Special Operations Executive). "SOE had Churchill as its ally; 'Churchill's Secret Army' not only survived, but thrived, throughout World War II." "I trusted very few people. That became ingrained in me in my early twenties as a survival instinct."

I found Pippa's story fascinating and enlightening. Her nomadic lifestyle growing up, the many languages she spoke, and knowing morse code all added in her favor of becoming a spy. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves to read memoirs, WWII history, and spy stories.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Net Galley for allowing me to read an early copy. All opinions are my own.