NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — He’s a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, a contributor to Vanity Fair, and a New York Times best selling author who penned his first book at age 25. Howard Blum is a prolific writer who writes nonfiction history, which read like fiction.
Blum has now written 13 books, including his latest called, “The Last Goodnight,” about a female spy named Betty Pack, code name “Cynthia,” whom he says was an unsung hero in World War II. It is being turned into a movie by the same title that will star Academy Award winning actress, Jennifer Lawrence.
“I came across a little bit about Betty’s story and the information was sparse, but then I read about a few of her missions and her daring exploits and I thought well that’s sort of cool, that’s sort of interesting, and then I read her obituary in Time Magazine, they called her a blonde ‘Bond.’ A woman who used the boudoir, the way James Bond used the baretta and I said that’s pretty intriguing, I’m there and then though as I said before, since these are true stories, I had to know what was going on in her head, how she was thinking, why she was such a failed person, difficult mother, difficult daughter, wife, she worked for Britain and also the U.S. why she was able to do this and how she made this journey from a glamorous debutante to become this perfect spy and for that I needed to know what was going on in her mind so I found out that her papers were at Cambridge University at Churchill College so I went to Churchill College not quite knowing what to expect to the archives and what the archivist brought out was a treasure trove,” said Blum.
There were boxes and boxes. Blum said it was like discovering gold. There was a memoir she had written, her letters, address book even a fairy tale book she had written when she was just 12.
