Before she became the doyenne of TV cooking shows, Julia Child was Julia McWilliams of Pasadena, California. At the start of WWII, she found that her 6-foot-2 stature—fine for playing sports at Smith College—was not acceptable in the Women’s Army Corp or U.S. Navy WAVES. Determined to do her part, she became a typist at the early-day intelligence agency: Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Her education and skills brought her to the attention of the head of OSS, “Wild Bill” Donovan, and she became his personal right-hand in the OSS Registry Office in Washington, with top-secret clearance. Her ambition and initiative led to an assignment in the South Asia theater of the war: India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

This much is all fact. Child always insisted her role in OSS was simply as a file clerk. Chambers imagines a much larger role for her heroine. This begins with an episode where she answers her boss’s top secret phone one evening and becomes embroiled in a top-secret emergency meeting with an ally, while Donovan is out of town.

In Ceylon, Julia sets up a registry office and is also tasked with keeping tabs on her counterparts in the nearby British intelligence group. Though allied, the two nations have different aims, to an extent. The British hope to maintain their colonial power over the Indian people. The U.S. sees the writing on the wall in the independence movement.

At 29, Julia’s experience with men involved at heartbreaking romance in New York that caused her to flee home to California. In Kandy, Ceylon, she and British officer James Mack find chemistry and their romance builds until Julia discovers a leak in the British registry office. Her superior instructs her to cool it with the Brits and work with OSS map maker Paul Child instead.

Julia has come to see Paul as an aloof, cold-fish kind of man. Forced to spend more time with him, she comes to learn that he, too, has suffered heartbreak. Paul expands Julia’s taste for exotic food. She has never been a cook—her upper-crust family had hired help for that. Together Paul and Julia work to uncover the spy in the British camp.

Julia is then tasked with opening a new registry office in Burma. This short-term assignment leads to some of the most dramatic events in the book.

The author’s note at the end discusses aspects of the story based in fact and events she made up. However, she neglects to mention the scenes that take place on the Bay of Bengal. Perhaps this is because the action is so incredible that the reader should know it was not true. If that’s the case, then why include it at all?

Aside from that, I did find this a fascinating, albeit heavily fictionalized, account of a well-known celebrity figure who had in intriguing role in the war. I especially enjoyed learning more about what was happening in the South Asia theater, as that aspect of WWII does not seem to be covered much. I certainly don’t recall learning about it in school. I also found the subtle conflict between the British and U.S. allies unexpected.

If you enjoy spy tales and true love stories, this has both. The events and people (aside from Julia) were new to me, and that made it great entertainment for this life-long learner.