SISTERS IN RESISTANCE

The true story of how three women - Benito Mussolini's daughter Edda Ciano, German spy Hilde Beetz, and American divorcee Frances De Chollet - raced against Hitler's SS to get key evidence into the hands of the Allies in one of the greatest rescue stories of World War II.

The Fascist's Daughter - Edda Mussolini, the socialite daughter of Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, married Galeazzo, the Count Ciano, at a celebrity wedding in 1930, televised on international news channels. Disenchanted with Hitler by 1943 and certain that Italy should change sides in the war and join the Allies, Ciano was part of a coup that removed his father-in-law from power. When Hitler forcibly returned Mussolini to power only a few months later Ciano, Edda, and their children found themselves in mortal danger - not only from the German SS and Gestapo but also from her father. With Ciano arrested, Edda began what is one of the most astonishing rescue efforts in history and threatened Mussolini and Hitler with dangerous consequences if they did not release her family. Edda's secret weapon: diaries that Ciano had kept throughout the war, detailing war crimes and the inner workings of the Axis powers. If the diaries see the light of day, they will give truth to Nazi lies and form the basis of a criminal war crimes prosecution. The Germans know it. Hitler vows personally to see the diaries destroyed. The Spy - Hilde Beetz, the sexy twenty-something German spy sent to seduce Ciano in his prison cell and ordered, at any cost, to find the diaries and deliver them to the Germans. But the seducer becomes the seduced. Beetz, a "reluctant fascist," finds herself at the crossroads of a crisis of conscience. She decides, in the end, to become a double agent. Learning that the Germans intend to execute Ciano by firing squad, she joins forces with Edda to save the count. When that fails, Beetz becomes determined to help Edda, now hunted by the Nazi SS, flee Italy in a dramatic escape worthy of a spy thriller. The American - Frances De Chollet, scandalously divorced from her former husband and immediately remarried to a Swiss banker and baron, American, mother of two small daughters, in her mid-40s, and living in neutral Switzerland. When U.S. intelligence needs to recruit a woman to make the risky and top-secret journey to the Swiss sanitorium where Edda is hiding, he recruits Frances de Chollet for the job. A tale worthy of James Bond, with all the detailed twists and turns of the spy thriller that it is. It is the story of three women, each faced with weighty moral questions of ambivalence and neutrality, whose lives are drawn together in one of the great rescue stories of World War Two. Tilar J. Mazzeo is the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestselling author of books that include Irena's Children, The Widow Clicquot, The Secret of Chanel No. 5, and Hotel on the Place Vendôme. She also writes on food and wine for the mainstream press. Her course on creative nonfiction (Great Courses) featured as in-flight viewing content on Virgin America airlines. She is the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College and divides her time among coastal Maine, New York City, and Saanichton, British Columbia, where she lives with her husband and stepchildren.