In her 90s, a woman in pearls sipped a gin and tonic at a London hotel bar and casually described eliminating an enemy sentry with her bare hands. Nancy Wake shattered every expectation of what a war hero or a grandmother should look like.

This deep dive strips away the Hollywood spy legend to the gritty, often darker reality of what it actually took to survive, command, and operate as one of the most wanted resistance leaders of the Second World War.

• A runaway teenager from the Southern Hemisphere who witnessed Nazi violence firsthand in Vienna
• Weaponizing her wealth and glamour to smuggle Allied airmen out in plain sight
• The nickname the White Mouse and the capture and execution of her husband Henri
• Parachuting back into France to control the Maquis through payroll and the only radio link
• Orderin ...