The best-selling author of The Liberator brings to life the incredible true story of an American doctor in Paris, and his heroic espionage efforts during World War II.The leafy Avenue Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris’s hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner … American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son Phillip at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high. Just down the road at Number 31 was the “mad sadist” Theodor Dannecker, an Eichmann protégé charged with deporting French Jews to concentration camps. And Number 84 housed the Parisian headquarters of the Gestapo, run by the most effective spy hunter in Nazi Germany.
From his office at the American Hospital, itself an epicenter of Allied and Axis intrigue, Jackson smuggled fallen Allied fighter pilots safely out of France, a job complicated by the hospital director’s close ties to collaborationist Vichy. After witnessing the brutal round-up of his Jewish friends, Jackson invited Liberation to officially operate out of his home at Number 11—but the noose soon began to tighten. When his secret life was discovered by his Nazi neighbors, he and his family were forced to undertake a journey into the dark heart of the war-torn continent from which there was little chance of return.
Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material and extensive interviews with Phillip Jackson, Alex Kershaw recreates the City of Light during its darkest days. The untold story of the Jackson family anchors the suspenseful narrative, and Kershaw dazzles readers with the vivid immediacy of the best spy thrillers. Awash with the tense atmosphere of World War II’s Europe, Avenue of Spies introduces us to the brave doctor who risked everything to defy Hitler.
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Alex Kershaw’s Avenue of Spies is a good book with a good story, but what I like especially about it is that it’s an ‘Americans abroad’ story — Ex-pat Nation is loaded with brave, idealistic people and the Jackson family numbered high among them.
This is a non-fiction book written, as they say, that “reads like a thriller novel.” I’ve read a few of Kershaw’s books before, so I knew it would be good. It did not disappoint. Since many of my novels have a WW2 thread, I’ve probably read hundreds of books for research. This one covers a time and a story I hadn’t seen before. What was life really like, day to day, for people living in Paris when the Nazis took over and during the entire occupation? Reads like a first-rate spy novel.
interesting book. I enjoyed reading
An amazing heroic story but sad that so many lives were destroyed by this evil.
I like reading about people who rise above dangerous times and situations. Would I have been able or even willing to do what they did? How can people live under that kind of stress? What are the qualities that those people have to overcome fear, evil, etc.? Various individuals are followed throughout the book. It reads like a World War 2 thriller — and it’s true.
Excellently written and researched book chronicling a French/American family’s experience in WW2 Paris during the Nazi occupation. Reads like a novel and really takes you into the French resistance.
Palpable fear pervades this nonfiction title like no other when dealing with the Third Reich.
A very inspirational true story of how 2 individuals,among many, saved many allied service members who where trapped in Paris behind enemy lines during WWII while also being active in the resistance. A well told story that will hold one’s interest.
Sad book about a sad time. So worth reading.
This true tale sounds like a movie plot – spying right under the noses of the SS and Gestapo in occupied Paris. The courage and humanity of the heroes is as vivid as the brutality and hypocrisy of the Nazis. It made me question what I would have done in their shoes, and to understand that such terrifying times could come again – anywhere.
I thought it was excellent., but your adjectives don’t apply very well to a non-fiction book.
A true story that helps you appreciate the amazing people of great principle, whose lives are there to inspire us to be more and better than we would imagine.
This is history on a personal level not like you read in a history book. I wonder how people could be sucked into such bad politics and then how people could be so intimitated by double agent spies. I fear it is still happening in many parts of the world.
Avenue of Spies is an unforgettable testament to the power of personal courage and conviction in the face of evil. Sumner Jackson and his family were caught in a vortex of fear and hatred that was as close as a neighbor’s door on Avenue Foch in Paris. They risked everything in the darkest hours of Nazi terror, determined to fight for human dignity and freedom. This is a story of resistance and bravery that is profoundly uplifting.
Avenue of Spies is the best kind of spy story — a true one. Alex Kershaw has written a heart-rending thriller of espionage set in the darkest shadow of the Holocaust. A powerful story of quiet heroism.
A spellbinding tale of triumph and tragedy. Intimate and terrifying, Avenue of Spies is impossible to put down. This is Alex Kershaw at his best.
Kershaw marries sterling research with first-rate storytelling to put readers on the occupied streets of Paris, looking back over our shoulders in fear. Avenue of Spies is a triumph, an outstanding addition to World War II history.
With a master storyteller’s gift for character, pacing, and heart-stopping detail, Alex Kershaw transports us to wartime Paris, where one American family risked their lives to join the Resistance and defy Hitler. Avenue of Spies is a haunting, harrowing tale that reads like an elegant thriller, with the added benefit that every word is true. I was gripped by the first page to the last.