The Ways We Hide
Kristina McMorris's The Ways We Hide, published in 2022, is a richly researched World War II novel that draws on the little-known true story of how Allied intelligence used stage magicians to design escape and evasion devices for prisoners of war. Fenna Vos has spent her career as half of a small-time vaudeville magic act, hiding the painful losses of her childhood in plain sight on stage. When British military intelligence reaches out, looking for an illusionist who understands misdirection, she agrees to put her skills to use. Working with a team of engineers and magicians, Fenna helps design tools the Geneva Convention will never catch: maps printed inside playing cards, compasses concealed in buttons, hacksaws hidden in the heels of boots, all to be smuggled into German camps where downed Allied airmen are praying for a way out. As the war intensifies, Fenna's work brings her face to face with old loves, old guilts, and the man she once thought she had left behind. McMorris, a writer known for finding the women's stories left out of standard wartime histories, weaves espionage, family secrets, and a slow-burn romance into a propulsive narrative that fans of Kate Quinn and Pam Jenoff will love.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about The Ways We Hide
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In 1942, Detroit stage magician Fenna Vos is performing illusions in a USO show when British intelligence recruits her to design escape devices for downed Allied airmen, hidden inside dominoes, decks of cards, and Monopoly boards.
The Ways We Hide was written by Kristina McMorris and published in 2022. McMorris is also the author of Sold on a Monday and The Edge of Lost.
The Ways We Hide is fictional but built around real World War II espionage and the documented use of escape illusionists by British intelligence. Kristina McMorris researched the period extensively.
The Ways We Hide is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
The Ways We Hide is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.