Enigma

With my long background in computers (since '66) and my longtime interest in codes, codebreaking & Enigma, I started this book with some trepidation - as most books of this ilk are poorly written and technically annoying. Not so with this book. It's a genuinely good read with some good plot twists - in fact, you don't know where it's going until the end. Too bad there aren't more good books like this around instead of all the Rambo trash.

This is an intelligent, well-constructed book that had me eagerly turning pages right up until the end. Robert Harris confidently takes us into the world of cryptography and cryptographers, frantically pitting human ingenuity, artificial intelligence, mechanical and electronic "bombes", and "Turin machines" (both the revolutionary precursors of our present-day computers) against predatory German submarines set on devastating merchant convoys in the Atlantic. It is an exciting, informed, and enjoyable read. The book has been very carefully researched and accurately conveys the bleakness and weaknesses of war-weary Britain in the early 1940s. We are led into the strange and taunt world of Bletchley Park, the WWII center of British cryptographic efforts to crack the various versions of the German Enigma code. Historical fact and personalities (such enigmatic genius Alan Turin) are convincingly interwoven with a multi-leveled story of espionage and betrayal. The writing is excellent; a beautifully told story. Towards the end of the book there is a quotation from the mathematician G. H. Hardy, "a mathematical proof, like a chess problem, to be aesthetically satisfying, must possess three qualities: inevitability, unexpectedness and economy." What is true of mathematical proofs and chess solutions is also true of good thrillers. Harris has provided us with a brilliantly different espionage book where unexpectedness is present to the final page, and a graceful economy of writing that creates a smooth and enjoyable read. Unlike many books, this is one that I will be rereading next year.

Fast paced thriller set during WWII involving the Britsh codebreakers. Enough historical accuracy about the period to make the book fascinating, enough plot line & fictional character development to keep it moving at a rapid clip that keeps you reading right through to the end of the solution to the mystery. It's one of the few thrillers I've kept on my bookshelf and read twice. Once years ago and once recently after seeing the movie by the same title. The movie didn't seem to hold true to my memory of the book's excitement and solution so I reread it and relived the pleasure of it all over again.

For captivating true life signals intelligence there are several books one can go to, including those by James Bamford on the American system (Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets) but for really getting into the enormity of the challenges and the thrill of the individual code-breakers when they succeeded, this is the book I recommend.It completely ignores the enormous contributions made by the Poles (who gave the English two Enigma machines at the beginning of the war) as well as the heroic deeds of Tommy Brown (youngest George Medal winner at 16, survived with code materials taken from a sinking German ship), but I have found no better novel to communicate the absolute goose-bump emotional roller-coaster that the Bletchley Park gang experienced.If anything, this novel convey a human side to code-breaking that offsets the modern-day obsession with massive computers.

Robert Harris has done it again, after the triumph of Fatherland he has written another masterpiece thriller about the British codebreakers during The Battle of the Atlantic. Harris's hero Tom Jericho is a great mathematician and codebreaker at Bletchley Park who is out of the game due to a nervous breakdown, but is called back to Bletchley Park when the Allies find out that the Germans have changed their codes all of a sudden. The reason Jericho is called back is that since he broke the Germans's code last time, his superiors think he can do it again, but there is another element that puzzles Jericho: The girl he was having a relationship with, Claire Rommily, has stolen some cryptograms and disappeared into thin air! Suddenly the Forign Office begin an investigation on her, is there a spy in Bletchley Park? Jericho (with the help of Claire's housemate Hester Wallace) intends to find out just that. It would be a crime for me to give away any more. One of the things I loved the best in this book is Tom Jericho's character, he is a normal human being. Not Superman (as some of my favourite authors tend to do, Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsyth, Robert Ludlum etc.). He is not particularly good looking(although I hear that Dougray Scott has been cast as him), suave or strong. I believe that with this book, Harris has proved himself to be the succesor to John LeCarre in passing on moral messages without actually writing them out loud! Please continue to delight us Mr. Harris!