The mention of Hekmet in the Time Life book was very cursory. It was interesting, but didn't offer any depth. If you wanted to see a larger context of World War II activity in North Africa, then the mention of Hekmet would fit into the larger picture. But if you have already done a good bit of reading, or if you wanted to focus specifically on Hekmet without reading much about the rest of the North Africa aspects to the war, then the Time-Life book probably wouldn't offer much value.

Last week when I was in Egypt, I was staying with Caroline Afifi (from the UK) and her husband. Her husband used to be a major in the Egyptian police force, and his father was a general in the 1960's war against Israel. So I thought maybe he'd know something about Hekmet. I asked, and yes, he did know some.

You probably already know this, but Anwar Sadat, who was in the Egyptian military at the time, used to feed information about the Allied troupe movements to Hekmet. She would then pass the information on to the Germans. She was eventually captured and imprisoned.

She was NOT famous as a dancer. Ie, history probably would have forgotten her if it hadn't been for the spy issue.