Aline Griffith, author of several books and "a former model from suburban New York City who transformed herself into a dressed-to-kill self-proclaimed spy and Spanish countess," died December 11, the New York Times reported. She was in her mid-90s. Her books, "brimming with tales of her escapades as an American espionage agent, which began in Spain during World War II, were billed as memoirs--though they were believed to be heavily embroidered."
Griffith, known as Aline, Countess of Romanones, published her first memoir, The Spy Wore Red: My Adventures as an Undercover Agent in World War II, in 1987. In the New York Times Book Review, Michael Gross described the book as "delightful as it dances before the eye, detailing dirty tricks" and said her narrative introduced a new genre: "cafe espionage."
In 1990 she published a sequel, The Spy Went Dancing. Her other works include The Spy Wore Silk (1991); The Well-Mannered Assassin (1994) and The End of an Epoch (2015).