June 1944

A year ago, I had never even heard of dengue fever. Be that as it may, I’m back in my dim, thatched-roof Secret File Registry as the fan rustles through stained, crumpled agent reports, decrypts, and cables that piled up during my hospital stay. I recoil. What’s in the corner?

A giant cockroach was lurking in the shadows when I arrived two months ago, but this is much larger…A muddy mailbag addressed to Mrs. Betty MacDonald, Morale Operations, OSS Detachment 404, Kandy, Ceylon. Inside are postcards hand-lettered in Japanese characters and ready to be mailed home, complete with censor’s stamp. I need to deliver this to my clever Betty, tasked with countering enemy propaganda. Perhaps these cards could be dispatched with other messages—that the war is going poorly, that the troops are ill-fed and homesick, that Japan’s Imperial Army is being pushed back at India’s northeast border. Although down here in Ceylon, off India’s southeast coast, we are uncomfortably close to occupied Malaya. I try not to think about it. We have a job to do.

Leaving the rest of the mail for my return, I throw the strap across my chest and head out from my little grass shack. Our OSS unit is composed of several such bashas surrounded by tropical foliage and tea fields being cleared by the minute as World War Two expands throughout Asia. Imagine, our nation’s secrets, the Allies’ secrets, residing in unlocked bamboo boxes guarded by a single soldier standing under its sloping straw roof—useful against the monsoon rains, but there is no defense against the steamy equatorial heat.

The British files are in the former herbarium’s library at the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens—now HQ of South East Asia Command under Supreme Commander Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. My boss, General “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services, America’s first intelligence agency, appointed me to liaison with their secret Records—and keep an eye on the dashing “Supremo.” It seems that while the Yanks and Brits are fiercely loyal to each other, they also hold conflicting goals for the future of this immense region. While our cousins plan to regain their colonial holdings—even expand into China—we favor democracy and free trade.

Crossing the central green toward Betty’s basha, I see a figure backlit by the brutal sun—chief mapmaker, Paul Child, also highly regarded by the Supremo, who must perceive something in the man I don’t. What I see is a short, balding, almost middle-aged pedant whose jeep splashed muddy rainwater all over me my very first day here—ruining my new blue dress and white shoes! Did he realize how hard it is for me to locate size 12A loafers?! Never mind his starched and pressed shorts and shirt, even his socks. And no apology. He is aloof and self-absorbed, and I simply have no time for him. A dandy who fancies himself an artist, he’s photographing the tall, red-barked cinnamon tree, his cameras and lenses spilling from his L.L. Bean bag. Oblivious.

Annoyed all over again, I close my eyes, smelling the cinnamon…thinking of my late mother, her wonderful old New England coffee cake recipe. You can never go wrong with butter, flour, and sugar—but cinnamon does give it a certain something. We called it Caro’s cake, although Cook Milly usually baked it. That was another way I took after my mother—neither cared to spend much time in the kitchen.

The Secret War of Julia Child
Genre: Historical Mystery
Release: October 2024
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books

Before she mastered the art of French cooking in midlife, Julia Child found herself working in the secrets trade in Asia during World War II, a journey that will delight both historical fiction fans and lovers of America’s most beloved chef, revealing how the war made her into the icon we know now.

Single, 6 foot 2, and thirty years old, Julia McWilliams took a job working for America’s first espionage agency, years before cooking or Paris entered the picture. The Secret War of Julia Child traces Julia’s transformation from ambitious Pasadena blue blood to Washington, DC file clerk, to head of General “Wild Bill” Donovan’s secret File Registry as part of the Office of Strategic Services.

The wartime journey takes her to South Asia’s remote front lines of then-Ceylon, India, and China, where she finds purpose, adventure, self-knowledge – and love with mapmaker Paul Child. The spotlight has rarely shone on this fascinating period of time in the life of (“I’m not a spy”) Julia Child, and this lyrical story allows us to explore the unlikely world of a woman in a World War II spy station who has no idea of the impact she’ll eventually impart.

About the author
Diana R. Chambers was born with a book in one hand and a passport in the other. Her first explorations were in the library, plotting adventures on her world globe. She went on to study Asian art history at university, work at a Paris translation agency, and begin an export business in India. Then somehow she found herself in Hollywood writing scripts—until her characters demanded their own novels. Her latest is The Secret War of Julia Child. Diana lives in Northern California and Aix-en-Provence, France, with her fellow-traveler husband, artist daughter, and cat, Marco Polo. She is still following her stories around the world. Still looking for the perfect suitcase.