The Comet
Resistance, Betrayal and the Most Thrilling Adventure of WWII
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The Comet
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Ed Caesar
In 1941, Andrée 'Dédée' de Jongh set out on a mission that would put her in the greatest peril: to smuggle downed allied airmen out of Nazi-occupied Europe and get them safely home. Crossing rivers, mountains and heavily guarded borders, she built an escape route spanning more than a thousand miles. Known as the Comet Line, it would become the greatest escape service of the Second World War.
At a time when the fate of Europe was being decided in the skies, every highly skilled pilot Dédée rescued was a weapon returned to the fight. But, for the agents of the Comet Line, every journey to freedom brought them closer to betrayal, arrest, torture and execution. Dédée knew the risks. She went on anyway.
This is the extraordinary story of the Comet Line - and the fearless woman who risked everything to keep it alive.
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Critics' reviews
The Comet gets started with a bang - the discovery of highly classified documents hidden in the back of an old desk - and never lets up until the final page. This is a grand, sweeping, compulsively readable yarn, a spy story, a war story and a love story. The depth of Caesar's research is matched only by the artistry of his writing, the way he draws us back into a time when courage was a more common virtue, and a clandestine cell of passionate young allies risked everything for a righteous cause. A rousing, rollicking, entirely thrilling book (PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of LONDON FALLING)
Ed Caesar has uncovered a remarkable tale of heroism and camaraderie. It's riveting, timely and empathetic - like watching a great World War Two movie that hasn't yet been made (JON RONSON, author of THE CASTLE)
Dédée's story is one of limitless courage. In Ed Caesar's dramatic and moving telling, it is also a nuanced study of moral purpose, of love and loss, and the work that gives life meaning (SOPHIE ELMHIRST, author of MAURICE AND MARALYN)
The Comet is an extraordinary feat of narrative non-fiction; it is richly complex and profoundly moving. With clarity, style and sensitivity, Ed Caesar has crafted an unforgettable story of youthful heroism, of passion and sacrifice. I read it with pleasure, fascination, and unreserved admiration (MARK O'CONNELL, author of A THREAD OF VIOLENCE)
Absolute, selfless bravery of the kind shown by the Belgian resistance fighter Andrée De Jongh is a great human mystery, and it takes a storyteller of Ed Caesar's masterly, mesmerising powers to unravel it. Dédée, as she was known, stands at the center of a novelistic cast of characters who move through the shadows of Nazi-occupied Europe, working sometimes for good, sometimes for evil, sometimes for both in turn. At once a brilliant feat of detective work and a narrative tour-de-force, The Comet is destined to become a primary document of resistance history (ALEX ROSS, author of THE REST IS NOISE and WAGNERISM)
Ed Caesar has written the book of a lifetime: a heart-pounding thriller that's somehow tender, wise and intensely moving at the same time. What I love most about The Comet is its unshakeable moral core. This is a story about how to live your life, burning bright (LAUREN COLLINS, author of THEY STOLE A CITY)
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