The pioneering women who took on Hitler … and Fleet Street

Foreign correspondent was deemed no job for a female' between the wars. A new book celebrates the lives of the journalists who proved otherwise

An inky night in civil war Malaga, 19 February 1937. General Franco's nationalist troops had taken the town days earlier. Political prisoners filled the jails; posters of Mussolini, Franco and Hitler, the strong men" of fascist Europe, plastered the walls, and hit squads were executing republican sympathisers.

Into this maelstrom tripped a 23-year-old Englishwoman wearing a floral print dress. Her mission: to connect with the American consul and find the famous writer Arthur Koestler, who had been taken by Franco's men. She was also secretly recording Italian troop movements to show how Italy had breached international neutrality agreements.