The German Wife

Were you aware of the Special Operations Executive before you read this book?

SOE agents were often recruited as civilians and sent into occupied territory with only a few months’ immersive training. Do you think you could be trained to survive and succeed under such conditions, in such a short space of time? What do you think you might do if you were approached for such a role at a time when the world was in such chaos?

Josie is a young woman with a chronic illness, managing her health at a time when that illness was poorly understood. Had you ever considered what life might have been like for the chronically ill during wartime?

Eloise makes the choice to leave her young son behind, first in the care of her mother, but later in the care of strangers. She’s motivated by a desire for revenge and later, by a desire to do what she could to ensure her son grew up in a world at peace. Did she make the right choice to leave Hughie?

Geraldine hid Professor Read’s attempts to contact Noah for decades. What was her ultimate motivation for this? Do you agree with Charlotte that had she survived, Geraldine would eventually have made peace with Noah’s need to better understand his own past?

Josie has a fraught relationship with Drusilla. What was at the heart of that tension? Did it seem a realistic dynamic to you?

Gerard makes terrible decisions throughout the war but perceives himself to be helplessly trapped. Even so, he does try to help Josie once she is arrested. Did you feel sympathy for him at all?

Which characters in this book did you like best? Which did you like least? Why?

Which scene in The Paris Agent affected you the most, and why? What emotions did that scene elicit?

Were you satisfied with the ending? What do you think happened next for Noah, and for Charlotte and Theo?

Was there an aspect of the history in this novel that surprised you?

What will you remember most about The Paris Agent?

Who would you recommend this book to?

Was this your first Kelly Rimmer book? If you’ve read any of her other titles, which did you prefer?