Mata Hari's Last Dance

Born in the Netherlands, Margaretha Zelle was abandoned by her father after the death of her mother and sent to a school where an unwelcome flirtation led her to answer an ad for a wife. Married at 18 to Dutch officer Rudolph McLeod, she discovers in Java that he is not what he seems, and she takes refuge in learning the art of Indonesian dancing. After the death of her son, she divorces her husband, only to have him kidnap her daughter. With no resources to fight him, she returns to Europe as Mata Hari. Teens may not be familiar with the name Mata Hari beyond a brief mention in history class, but she was a captivating woman who used the power of her beauty and body to insinuate herself into the finest European salons of her time. Because she was the mistress of military officers in many different countries, it is not a leap to suggest that she may have been in a position to pass along intelligence to the Germans during World War I, but this is more than a book about the exchange of wartime information. Moran creates a character who makes naive decisions with powerful men that lead her to suspicion and, ultimately, her demise.