Singer. Actress. Beauty. Spy. During WWII, Josephine Baker, the world's richest and most glamorous entertainer, was an Allied spy in occupied France. Prior to World War II, Josephine Baker was a music-hall diva renowned for her singing and dancing, her beauty anhd sexuality; she was the highest-paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city, Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all "negroes and Jews." Yet instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. Overnight, she went from performer to Resistance spy. In Agent Josephine, bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little-known history of the famous singer's life. During the war years, as a member of the French Nurse paratroopers--a cover for her spying work-- Baker participated in numerous clandestine activities and emerged as a formidable spy. In turn, she was a hero of the three countries in whose name she served--the US, France, and Britain. Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Lewis upends the conventional story of Josephine Baker, explaining why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthéon. -- From dust jacket.

"Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain in 2022 by Quercus Editions Ltd"--Title page verso.

A traitor unmasked --An honourable spy -- From Paris with love -- A most sensational woman -- The darkness descends -- It can't always be caviar -- The enemy at the gates -- The iron resistance -- Stardom, her cloak and her dagger -- The black angel -- Invisible ink and secret steamships -- On the Gestapo hitlist -- Abandon all hope -- Unbreakable -- The twelve apostles -- Dances with death -- Operation Josephine B -- Operation Underworld -- Captured, imprisoned -- The grim reaper calls -- Lighting the torch -- Die another day -- Into the heat and dust -- Liberation day -- A song for Buchenwald -- Epilogue.