Books like Signed, Mata Hari by Yannick Murphy

In the cold October of 1917, Margaretha Zelle—known as Mata Hari—awaits trial in a Paris prison cell, accused of espionage and facing execution by firing squad. Bearing a secret guilt, she tells Scheherazade‑like stories to her interrogators, weaving a narrative that traces her journey from a bleak Dutch childhood through a loveless marriage to the sensual pleasures of Indonesia. In that confinement she recalls rosewater baths, native lovers, and Javanese jungles, conjuring the magical world that sustained her as her family crumbled. Fleeing her husband, she reinvented herself first as an artist’s model, then a circus rider, and finally the celebrated temple dancer who dazzled Diaghilev and the crowned heads of Europe. Through every transformation, the fatal question lingers: was she a traitor, and if so, why?

First publish date: 2007