This historical fiction is about women code breakers at Bletchley Park (Officially the Government Code and Cypher School) during WWII. The three main characters, Mab, Osla and Beth are thrown together through Mab and Isla’s arrival at Bletchley Park. Mab is from Shoreditch. She is unabashedly clawing her way out of poverty and aiming toward stability and a better life by marrying up (so to speak). Osla is a socialite, of Canadian birth but English at heart. She has stayed in London to help with the war effort and is tired of being dismissed as a ditzy debutante. Osla is also dating Prince Phillip (yes that one). Beth is a local woman, whose tyrannical mother has kept her at home and in servitude. Beth has little education but has a mind for solving puzzles of all sorts. Osla gets her into Bletchley and Beth finally has found her calling. This trio become friends through their work at Bletchley.
Bletchley Park had hundreds of people working on breaking German and Italian codes. Naturally, those who are most remembered are men, like Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman. While many of the men came from universities, the women appear to have come from a variety of backgrounds. This book does a nice job of weaving historical facts and persons with the fictional main characters. Each woman has her own love interests, and secrets. Given the fact that their work at Bletchley requires an oath of secrecy it isn’t surprising that they have many secrets from one another.
The story jumps between the war years and the week before the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth in 1947. By this time Osla, Mab and Beth are estranged and haven’t spoken for years. Osla and Mab both receive encrypted messages from Beth calling for help. Why they are estranged and the mystery surrounding Beth’s incarceration in an asylum are revealed through the war years narrative. (For some reason this is the third book I’ve read recently that jumps back and forth in time. I found it a bit annoying, but it may just be because of where the book has fallen in my reading order.)
This is a good read. The book clocks in at 600 pages, but the story ticks along at a good pace. I enjoyed the author’s notes about her research at the end as well. A few years ago I read The Alice Network by Quinn, which I also liked quite a lot. I would recommend them both.
