As biographies go, this is a good one. Very interesting look at the infamous, Mata Hari.

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I got this book through paperbackswap.com. Thankfully, I didn't spend any money on it other than the $.49 swap fee. The premise of the book is good but it otherwise seems lacking. The beginning--about how Mata Hari met her husband and their time in SE Asia--was somewhat interesting but once the couple moved back to Europe, the story didn't keep me engrossed. I agree with another negative review (on Amazon) that the book seemed sketchy on details--how Mata Hari was recruited to be a spy (it was talked about but never explained [at least to my satisfaction] why Mata Hari was targeted); how the Allies figured out she was a spy, etc.

Several times the author wrote a chapter about something that was mentioned in the book but really had no significance to the story. For example, chapter 3 ("Gamelan") is about an instrument found in SE Asia. It was one of the instruments that the natives played when Mata Hari and spouse were stationed in SE Asia. There was another chapter dedicated to the creation of the Zeppelin. That was actually rather interesting. There were a few other chapters with the same purpose--to describe something mentioned in the book (i.e., absinthe). I skipped the rest of these chapters because they really added nothing to the story. I suspect the main reason the author wrote them was because he needed to write a certain number of pages.

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