My French Whore

The beloved actor and screenwriter's first novel, set during World War I, delicately and elegantly explores a most unusual romance.  It's almost the end of the war and Paul Peachy, a young railway employee and amateur actor in Milwaukee, realizes his marriage is one-sided.  He enlists, and ships off to France.  Peachy instantly realizes how out of his depth he is--and never more so than when he is captured.  Risking everything, Peachy--who as a child of immigrants speaks German--makes the reckless decision to impersonate one of the enemy's most famous spies.
 
As the urbane and accomplished spy Harry Stroller, Peachy has access to a world he could never have known existed--a world of sumptuous living, world-weary men, and available women.  But when one of those women--Annie, a young, beautiful and wary courtesan--turns out to be more than she seems, Peachy's life is transformed forever.