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b'In 1942, as World War II was raging, the Gestapo sent out an urgent message: \\u201cShe is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.\\u201d That spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman who\\u2014rejected from the Foreign Service because of her gender and prosthetic leg\\u2014talked her way behind enemy lines in occupied France and went on to become one of the greatest (and most unlikely) spies in U.S. history.

Today I talk with Sonia Purnell, author of the book "A Woman of No Importance." Virginia quickly established a network of spies to blow up bridges and track German troop movements; she recruited and trained guerrilla fighters, arming them with weapons she called in from the skies. As \\u201cthe limping lady of Lyon\\u201d and later \\u201cthe Madonna of the Mountains,\\u201d she became legend. Eluding the Nazis hot on her tail, her face covering WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused orders to evacuate. Finally\\u2014her cover blown and her associates imprisoned or executed\\u2014she escaped in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain. But, adamant that she had \\u201cmore lives to save,\\u201d she dove back in as soon as she could, helping lay the groundwork for the Allied liberation of France.'