Sleeping with the Enemy

"Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, created the look of the chic modern woman. Chanel believed in simplicity: she freed women from their corsets and inspired them to crop their hair; and created elegant trousers, trench coats and jersey sweaters. By the 1920s, Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms, and had amassed a personal fortune. ut at the start of the Second World War, Chanel closed down her couture house and went to live at the Ritz, on Place Vend me. After the war she lived in Switzerland. But for more than half a century, Chanel's life from 1941 to 1954 has been shrouded in vagueness and rumour. Neither Chanel or her biographers have told the full story. ow Hal Vaughan, in this explosive narrative part thriller, part wartime portrait pieces together the hidden years, from the Nazi occupation to the aftermath of the Liberation. Vaughan uncovers the truth of Chanel's anti-Semitism and long-whispered collaboration. He writes in detail of her decades-long affair with the playboy Baron von Dincklage, alias Spatz'. Previously explained away as a loyal German soldier but harmless dupe, Vaughan reveals him as the Nazi master spy and agent who ra