Mata Hari is revealed here in all of her flawed eccentricity; a woman whose adult life was a fantastical web of lies, half-truths and magnetic sexuality that captivated men. Following the death of a young son and a bitter divorce, Mata Hari reinvented herself as an exotic dancer in Paris, then a courtesan. She could have remained a half-forgotten member of France’s grande horizontale were it not for World War I and her disastrous decision to become embroiled in espionage. What happened next was part farce and part tragedy, ending in her execution in October 1917. Recruited by both the Germans and the French as a spy, Mata Hari—codenamed H-21—was also almost recruited by the Russians. But the harmless fantasies and lies she had told on stage had became deadly during wartime.
