A master storyteller telling a tale about someone most people have heard of but don’t know that much about. Mata Hari knew a lot of important and powerful men particularly in France and what seemed to be at work here was a desire to cover up the extent of the network of her lovers. There was little if any hard evidence to convict her of the crimes she was accused of, indeed four days after her death by firing squad her principal accuser, Captain George Ladoux, was himself accused of spying for Germany and imprisoned. He stayed in prison until after WWI and never shook off the charge of being a double agent for the rest of his life.

This is all very odd, given the Dreyfus Affair had happened only a few years previously in France.