This was a terrific read about a woman who has fascinated me endlessly since I read Sally Bedell Smith’s biography in the 1990s. Sonia Purcell updates and expands the earlier biography and the general view of Pamela Churchill Harriman as a rarified courtesan who slept her way to marriages to rich people and ultimately the US ambassadorship to France. Purnell’s book demonstrates that the story is much more complex than that. Pamela Digby was 20 years old when she married Winston Churchill’s only son Randolph in 1940 and then gave birth to his son named for his grandfather. During the war Pamela was Churchill’s secret weapon, deployed to convince Americans to support the war- she met and Edward R. Murrow and Averell Harriman among others. After the war and her divorce from Randolph she went to Paris and then the US where she married Leland Hayward and then Averell Harriman , becoming an integral part of Broadway and Hollywood social sets and then emerged as a Democratic political power broker. Purcell shows that Harriman was smart and focused and used the tools available to advance her interests, whether they were to win the war for Britain ir win the White House for Bill Clinton.  She lived a fascinating life and this is a balanced biography that does not shy away from calling her a courtesan but recognizes that she used the tools she had to achieve her objectives.