Dear Miss Kopp (6) (A Kopp Sisters Novel)

Dear Miss Kopp is the sixth book in the Kopp Sisters series by NYT best-selling American author, Amy Stewart. By mid-1918, the Kopp sisters find themselves apart, with Constance and Fleurette on separate missions travelling the country, while Norma and her pigeons are in France. Letters (some unsent), short notes and telegrams flow between them and others, carrying news of their lives and glimpses at happenings and conditions in their far-flung locations.

Constance upbraids Norma for the brevity of her missives: Norma is reluctant to enumerate her problems with her commanding officer, and too modest to detail her triumphs, but her roommate in their poor, cramped accommodation has no such qualms; Nurse Agnes Bell, stationed at the American Hospital in their unnamed French village, is so pleased to borrow this Kopp sister (especially when Norma helps to prove her innocence on a theft charge), she writes in detail to Constance; Norma pours out her exasperations to General Murray back home.

Fleurette's reticence in letters to her older sisters is absent in missives to her best friend, Helen Stewart, to whom she describes to the accommodations and chaperoning arrangements for the entertainment troupes sent to boost the morale of army camps full of soldiers about to go to war, and run-ins with overzealous Women's Protective Committee members, apparently blinkered to culpability of men, resulting in stints in "girl jail".

To her sisters, as she resides in female boarding houses in between assignments for the Bureau of Investigation, Constance describes the torture of families and sweethearts awaiting any word from sons, brothers, beaus, the dispatch of comfort items in parcels, the often-unhelpful American Protection League activities, book drives, support of French war orphans, and the bartering that produces miracle meals from meagre supplies.

Norma's problems include Army superiors who consider the whole pigeon program, intended to save the lives of runners, a frivolity; and soldiers who see it as a waste of time and are so poorly informed the birds are mistreated and sometimes end up as pigeon pie. Not to be daunted by orders, Norma takes the initiative and gets her birds to the front under the radar, an exercise that includes madeleines and love poems.

Constance tries to boost her morale: "We can only do our part. We cannot, as individuals, put a stop to crime or mayhem or even war. (Especially war.) We won't, in any final sense, ever win. There will always be a police department, or a sheriff's office, or an Army and Navy, because there will always be another criminal, another battle, another belligerent nation. All we can do is to get up every day and to stand on the side of justice and fairness."

Fleurette somehow ends up doing a solo performance: a hit with the troops but it infuriates their spoiled, moody star, May Ward. Her letters describe the mood of soldiers about to risk their lives, feeling that naming war insurance beneficiaries is virtually a bet against oneself. The acquisition of a feathered companion spurs Fleurette to write to Norma.

Meanwhile, Constance infiltrates networks of German saboteurs, goes on slacker raids, investigates propagandist publications and engages in anti-unionist espionage (much to her distaste). Her reports entertain Bureau director, Bruce Bielaski, who gives her free rein, and Constance eventually recruits and trains a female BI agent, then enlists the help of Fleurette in an important covert operation.

Stewart's Historical Notes are interesting and informative, revealing that Constance Kopp and her sisters were real people, much as described, as are quite a few of the other characters. Many of the events that form the plot also occurred, if not always when stated. Stewart takes the known historical facts and fleshes them out into a marvellous tale. Once again, excellent historical fiction.

This unbiased review is from a copy provided by NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt