The Secret War of Julia Child

August 1, 2024

Julia McWilliams, the real-life figure at the center of this historical novel, has always wanted to make something of herself. At a career dead end, she becomes a clerk at the Office of Strategic Services in 1944 and travels to South Asian bases to set up U.S. document centers and collect intel. In this position, she gets into the nitty-gritty by digging into several successful operations. But bad luck interrupts her progress: she's laid low with dengue fever, experiences a boat bombing, and has encounters with hostiles. Then Julia meets Paul Child, a womanizing mapmaker, and forms a relationship that adds emotional depth to her vaulting ambition. Here the novel's suspense abates, as history will of course prove Julia and Paul Child to be a durable and happy couple. Chambers (author of CIA thrillers and the historical novel The Star of India) has done prodigious research on Julia Child and all the other characters appearing here. A few high-tension incidents in the novel are pure fiction but quite credibly could have happened to the strong and motivated Julia. VERDICT Written with flair and charm, Chambers's novel really heats up whenever sex, danger, or dinner come into view. Any readers who enjoy fictional renderings of the private lives of famous women will want to peek into Julia Child's psyche.--Barbara Conaty

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 19, 2024
Chambers (The Star of India) mines legendary chef Julia Child’s lesser-known career as an American intelligence operative during WWII in this clichéd outing. Julia McWilliams, as she’s known in 1942, begins her espionage career in Washington, D.C., as a clerk for the OSS. She’s promoted to records supervisor after stumbling into a rendezvous in place of an injured agent and recovering evidence of a Nazi plot to assassinate all three allied heads of state. After persuading OSS founder “Wild Bill” Donovan to send her into the field, she’s assigned to India, where she spies on Lord Mountbatten, chief of the South East Asia Command, a British military unit suspected of harboring a mole. Julia unmasks the traitor, before continuing her adventures in Burma and China, including meeting with Chiang Kai-shek himself, as well as the man who eventually becomes her husband, Paul Child, another American operative. There are some fun if far-fetched action sequences, as Julia survives her ship exploding at sea, swimming through shark-infested waters, and a bayonet attack. Unfortunately, there are too many torrid descriptions of her romance with Paul (“Her knees weakened.... The explosions continued through the night”), and the foreshadowing of Julia’s future success as a cook is heavy-handed. This fails to live up to the potential of its premise.

August 9, 2024
Rejected by both the WACS and the WAVES for being too tall, Julia McWilliams takes a clerical job with the OSS. Because of her pluck and initiative, she becomes a trusted employee of her boss, General "Wild Bill" Donovan--so much so that she is promoted and sent to India with both an official post and an unofficial mission to spy on the British operation there. In India, she forges deep connections to the other women in the service as well as to mapmaker Paul Child. Chambers writes about the Asian front during WWII, very loosely based on Julia Child's life. Major parts of the narrative are not based on historical fact but are inventions of the author's imagination, and the book reads more like an action-adventure story than what readers might expect from a story about Julia Child. Moreover, the Julia presented here is one overly concerned about her height and romantic prospects. Nonetheless, Chambers excels at explaining the complex geopolitics of wartime Asia and describing the landscape and delicious foods found there. For larger collections only.

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