Queen of Hearts

Ian Fleming actually met her and she might have been a source of inspiration for his "Bond Girl" character. Born to a family related to the last Tzars of Russia, she became a spy of Nazy Germany and later, a double agent working for the British ("On His Majesty's Service"). Larissa Swirski could have been the protagonist in a novel about spies but was, in actual fact, real. Until certain MI5 files were declassified not that long ago, almost nobody knew the true identity of "The Queen of Hearts" – a key figure in the espionage network woven around Gibraltar in World War II.