Here’s another summer read, this one by Michelle Moran, a book club favorite and author of REBEL QUEEN, CLEOPATRA’S DAUGHTER and other historical fiction. Many people may be familiar with her name, but the story behind Mata Hari’s rise --- and fall --- is not as well known. It’s also not that easy to untangle, as she was given to compulsive reinvention throughout her life --- obscuring her birthplace, parentage and marriage, including the two children it produced. 

MATA HARI’S LAST DANCE begins in 1904, when Mata Hari (whose real name was Margaretha Zelle) meets a lawyer, Eduard Clumet, in Paris. She has been trying to break into the theater, but he persuades her to become an exotic dancer, hired to provide entertainment for wealthy patrons’ parties. More often than not, the entertainment includes sleeping with the patron or one of his guests, and the endless parade of lovers is a major aspect of the story. Though her dancing pays very well, it is supplemented by gifts from these men (and women), which include cash, priceless jewels and furs, and even a house.  Eventually her dancing captivates a wider public, and she’s invited to perform in all the major capitals of Europe. Throughout most of her career, her lawyer --- who is also her manager and sometime lover --- accompanies her. 

"MATA HARI’S LAST DANCE is about an intriguing figure in history whom Michelle Moran attempts to bring alive in all her contradictions."

Meanwhile, the reader learns about Mata Hari’s true origins, including her beloved father’s financial speculation that leads to his ruin --- after which he vanishes --- and the subsequent death of her mother. She is sent to a boarding school from which she is expelled, and ends up marrying a wealthy soldier and moving with him to Java, where she learns to dance. But her husband is abusive, and she escapes back to Europe, leaving behind her daughter (another child, her son, has died). She periodically attempts to get her daughter back but, in Moran’s version, never succeeds.

What is murkiest about Mata Hari’s exceedingly murky life is her role as a spy. Was she, as her defense argues, a spy for the French, or --- as the French argue --- a spy for the Germans, or was she merely an unwitting dupe? Although the book promotes this aspect of her life as the centerpiece of the story, by the time she meets General von Schilling (the first person to allegedly bring her into the world of espionage), the reader is well into the second half of the book. Given that “Mata Hari” has become synonymous with “spy” over the last century, this is frustrating --- especially when it turns out that whatever spying was done, was done badly.

MATA HARI’S LAST DANCE is about an intriguing figure in history whom Michelle Moran attempts to bring alive in all her contradictions. But the most notorious part of her story remains obscured. Whether this is because no one knows what role she played in World War I, or because the author never quite uncovers her protagonist’s motivation, is --- like so much of Mata Hari’s life --- debatable.