The Bletchley Riddle, a novel for readers age 10-14, was co-written by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin. The two authors take turns writing chapters from the points of view of 14-year-old Lizzie (Sepetys) and her 19-year-old brother Jakob (Sheinkin). It’s a fast-paced, thrilling and educational mystery/spy novel set in the early days of WWII at Great Britain’s top secret location for code breaking — Bletchley Park. Sepetys and Sheinkin include tons of fascinating historical facts and real historical figures in their story.
When the story opens in late summer 1939, Jakob is already working as a code breaker at Bletchley, although he is not allowed to tell anyone – not even family – about what he is doing. All who work at Bletchley take an oath of secrecy and to betray it could mean being charged with treason. The Germans have been using an ingenious encryption device called Enigma to send messages and to coordinate their war efforts, and so far the Brits have had no luck breaking it, despite the best minds of the age working on it 24/7. Yes, Alan Turing is at Bletchley and makes a few cameo appearances in this novel. Jakob was tapped to work there due to his brilliance at mathematics, but he and his fellow code breakers are exhausted and frustrated. Jakob’s situation isn’t helped by the fact that his American mother, who had been working at the US Embassy in London, is presumed dead after traveling to Poland to help evacuate the US Embassy there, and his younger sister Lizzie, who was supposed to have shipped off to America to live with their maternal grandmother in Cleveland, has escaped her handler and found her way to Jakob.
Lizzie is not a mathematician like her brother, but she is whip smart and observant. She isn’t supposed to know where Jakob is but figures it out from clues. Lizzie is upset with Jakob because he has not been writing to her, and when she finally reunites with him she is angry that Jakob is so willing to believe that their mother Willa is dead. Both Jakob and Lizzie have important secrets that they hide from one another — secrets related to their mother. Jakob has been receiving unusual messages in the mail and Lizzie has found and hidden a diary that had been their mother’s. Lizzie gets a job as a runner at Bletchley — a messenger job that really existed and really did employ kids her age to do. Lizzie also befriends another runner named Marion and a local teen named Colin who is good with motors and gadgets. Together they try to unravel the mystery of where Willa went, why, and whether she is still alive.
Meanwhile, an MI5 agent named Jarvis has his eye on Jakob and Lizzie. An American spy has just been uncovered in the US embassy and he seems to have had ties to their mother. On top of that, the siblings’ American grandmother is incensed that Lizzie stayed in England and she sends her man Fleetwood back to London to find her and bring her to the US. Based on messages received at Bletchley, time is running out to figure out what happened to Willa and to break Enigma’s code.
Sepetys and Sheinkin include really great factual information and photos in their story. Many of the Bletchley officers mentioned were real people. US Ambassador Joe Kennedy has a small role, and the spy at the US embassy was based on fact. The authors do a great job explaining Enigma and the race to figure out what the Germans were planning on the eve of what we now know as Operation Sea Lion and the Battle of Britain. And the mystery of Willa, along with the story of Jakob and Lizzie’s deceased father, is well spun and resolved. This is a very good story that includes top notch history, too.
