Rita Hayworth. Why Rita is the masthead for this book

Rita Hayworth was quite a gal. You may recognise her here from the film Gilda. This character was a quintessential 1940’s badass.

The heroine of my story is “The Lady with the Madonna face.” If the heroine in my story looked like anyone, it would be Rita Hayworth. Certainly, Magdalena has Rita’s style. These two women have more than just looks in common. For just like Rita in Shawshank Redemption, Magdalena was a doorway to Freedom. She put her life on the line to be a Freedom fighter and she helped many escape from Nazi prison camps.

Magdalena is a double agent who works for British Intelligence (MI6 and the Special Operations Executive) and also undercover for German Intelligence. . Her duty is to the Allies - the fight for freedom and to achieve the freedom of others. She is good at what she does. But it burns in her heart that she was not able to save her own family. She had a twin sister sent to certain death in the Gulags and a father who died in Russia at Kozelsk prison. She craves revenge.

Magdalena has sworn to kill Stalin one day. But for now - and for the world's sake - she must protect him. She has been assigned as a Russian translator at the Teheran Conference and is also there as part of the security. It is November, 1943 . The three world leaders are about to meet for the first time and decide the future of the world. Nothing can go wrong during this conference.

But then Magdalena finds Nazis in her house. They hold her child hostage, threaten to mutilate the child and warn her the penalty for exposing them will be the child's death. Magda realises she has been set up by a mole inside British Intelligence. Knowing there are eyes and ears everywhere ... she proceeds to an action plan. She sends coded messages for help to allies within both her agencies. She uses bribes to get information and then is shocked to learn her twin sister did not die in Siberia, she has arrived with an influx of Polish orphans in Teheran and the Polish refugees are being watched by Nazi operatives. If Magda does not assist the Germans in an assassination attempt on the Big Three, they plan to use her twin sister. Then they will kill the sister and lay the blame for those killed at the conference on Magda.

Magda searches the Polish camps for her sister - but finds only orphans. Then the Back-up arrives; a man from German Intelligence. But Abwehr have sent the wrong man. Magdalena has only one option left. She uses a safe house to phone Cairo - the Agency Africa - requesting an immediate dispatch. Special Operation soldiers known as the Silent Unseen. Magdalena has trained with the Chicociemni. In this situation where nothing can go wrong... she knows she can trust them.

A woman of her time

Gilda, the film, was advertised with a poster that heralded “there never was a woman like Gilda”. But in actual fact, you probably would have found hundreds of women in 1943 who looked just like Gilda. That style, that look .. That was the style of the 1940’s.