Wise Gals

The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage

Nathalia Holt

** BBC RADIO 4’S BOOK OF THE WEEK

23 JAN - 27 JAN 2023 **

The never-before-told story of a small cadre of influential female spies in the precarious early days of the CIA - women who helped create the template for cutting-edge espionage (and blazed new paths for equality in the workplace).

Meticulously researched and beautifully told, Holt uses firsthand interviews with past and present officials and declassified government documents to uncover the stories of these four inspirational women. Wise Gals sheds a light on the untold history of the women whose daring foreign intrigues, domestic persistence, and fighting spirit have been and continue to be instrumental to the world’s security.

‘As much le Carré as it is Hidden Figures.’

Amaryllis Fox

‘A sweeping epic of a book [which] rescues five remarkable women from obscurity and finally gives them their rightful place in world history ... A book you won’t regret reading. Five women you won’t forget.’

Kate Moore

NATHALIA HOLT is the New York Times bestselling author of The Queens of Animation and Rise of the Rocket Girls. Her work features in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Popular Science and Time. She lives in California.

Territory: World

Translation rights: Icon Books/Marsh Agency

Corrections in Ink

Dispatches from an American Prison

KERI BLAKINGER

’A raw, fast-paced portrait of one woman’s descent into a mental abyss’

Irish Independent

Keri Blakinger had always lived at full throttle. On a cold December day, she is arrested with a Tupperware container full of heroin. Shortly afterwards, she is convicted and sent to prison.

Forced to confront her addiction, Keri finally manages to break free of it, and finds herself in a place unlike anything she has experienced before: a world built on senseless brutality, but whose inhabitants, her fellow inmates, will change her life forever.

Written in luminous prose, with searing honesty and flashes of dark humour, Corrections in Ink shines a light on a broken prison system, and the cruelty and kindness Blakinger experienced there. It is a radical call for justice, and a testament to the power of finding one’s voice.

‘A groundbreaking debut from an extraordinary writer ... a testament to where a woman can go after rock-bottom’

PIPER KERMAN, New York Times bestselling author of ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

KERI BLAKINGER is a staff writer for the LA Times and for the Marshall Project; her work has appeared in VICE, the Washington Post Magazine, and on NBC News and the BBC. Corrections in Ink is her first book.

All books: UK £8.99 • USA $12.95 • 168 x 118mm paperback 176 pages with black and white illustrations throughout

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All titles: 168 x 115mm • £7.99 • 224 pages

Territory: World

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