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Book Review of The Diplomat's Wife

The Diplomat's Wife
The Diplomat's Wife
Author: Pam Jenoff
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Romance
Book Type: Paperback
Tesstarosa avatar reviewed on + 151 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Marta Nederman, a Nazi resistance fighter from Krakow, Poland, has survived being captured and tortured by the Nazis, been rescued by some American soldiers and is recovering at a refugee camp in Austria. Her family and friends, as far as she knows are all casualties of the war and she needs to restart her life again.

She develops a friendship with Rose, another concentration camp survivor, and Dava, her nurse, at the refugee camp. She spends most of her days with Rose, who is struggling to recover so that she can move to London to live with her Aunt Delia.

One day, Paul Mattison, one of the American soldiers who rescued her from the Nazi concentration camp, showed up at the refugee camp. She convinces Dava to let her break curfew to spend a late evening with Paul and a storm forces them to spend the evening together.

When she gets back, she learns that her friend Rose has died and Dava convinces her that she needs to travel as Rose and use her visa to go to London. She can tell Rose's Aunt about Rose's death and then decide what to do with the rest of her life. The fact that she has no family left in Europe or relatives in the United States convinces her to do this. The problem is that Rose's visa expires in the next days and she must leave immediately for London, via Paris.

Her train is late to Paris and she is unable to use the visa before it expires. While in Paris she runs into Paul Mattison again. He entertains her and helps her to get an extension on the visa so that she can go to London. Before she leaves, Paul proposes marriage and agrees to meet her in London in a few weeks.

On the crossing to London, she meets Simon Gold, a diplomat with the British Embassy. When he learns that she speaks fluent Polish, he offers her a job at the British consulate and gives her his card.

She gets to Rose's Aunt Delia's home and gives her the bad news. Delia offers to let Marta stay with her until she can be reunited with Paul. But Paul's plane crashes on the way to London from Paris and now Marta is alone and pregnant.

She goes to work for Simon at the embassy and soon Simon courts her and she decides to accept his marriage proposal. She continues to work after their daughter is born. One day, the name of a former colleague of hers in the resistance is named as a contact that they need to find to get information to stop the communist threat in Eastern Europe.

Against Simon's wishes, she agrees to take on this assignment. This decision turns her world upside down and she has to play a role in finding the mole in the embassy as well as getting in contact with her former Resistance colleague.

I really enjoyed this book and felt the story was very well told. There are a number twists to the story and what happens, although I was a bit disappointed that I knew who the mole was almost immediately when it was brought up. The revelation in the story of who the mole is and why was not exactly what I'd expected. But the main theme of this story seems to be one of trust â who can you trust and how do you know who that person is?