3

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, the blurb on the cover says it all : "explosive narrative". It was hard for me to believe, but it is true - indeed, Coco Chanel not only was a "horizontal collaborationist" during the WW2, but she also knowingly worked for Abwehr and SS. Full stop, my world's view has been crashed. On the other side, Hal Vaughan, being an objective historian, diligently lists all the documents and the theories on the subject; that makes reading of the book a bit difficult, as well as making it hard to figure out which truth do we want more to believe.
A couple of my personal take-aways: never mind her talent and energy, in all her actions (be it constant change of the lovers, business deals or providing information to Nazis) Coco Chanel seemed to be fully motivated by her fear of loneliness, desire for power and comfort and by her agressive antisemitism. Of course, all of those could be explained by the circumstances of her upbringing...doesn't make it right for me.
Despite some very "dry" pages, a lot of stories told in the book deserve to be on the screen; it has enough material for 3-4 spy movies and/or political thrillers. Well, that and the life supply of love stories.