The Rose Code in DMPL Book Chat

Apr 14, 2021 Karna Converse rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book

-- Three young women must choose between their friendship and the oath they took to their country --

Mab, Osla, and Beth are part of a group tasked with decrypting German Enigma-coded messages at Bletchley Park, an estate about fifty miles northwest of London and the hub of British intelligence during World War II. They are best friends who will do anything for each other—until they can't and won't.

Their individual stories toggle between two time periods: 1) the years from 1939 to 1944 when inte -- Three young women must choose between their friendship and the oath they took to their country --

Mab, Osla, and Beth are part of a group tasked with decrypting German Enigma-coded messages at Bletchley Park, an estate about fifty miles northwest of London and the hub of British intelligence during World War II. They are best friends who will do anything for each other—until they can't and won't.

Their individual stories toggle between two time periods: 1) the years from 1939 to 1944 when intelligence work was at its height and 2) the twelve days before the 1947 wedding of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen of England when they're trying to stitch together broken friendships and unsolved puzzles.

Quinn paints a vibrant picture of who these three young women are—their home lives, their searches for love and marriage, and their snarky arguments—but the picture of the enigma machines and the actual work of ciphering and decoding German messages is less colorful. To be honest, there are probably many details that cannot be shared due to the official secrets of wartime. Even so, the narrative arc tends more toward the girl-falls-in-love-and-has-heart-broken category than I had expected.

It is obvious, however, how much pressure the B.P. workers were under to crack the codes and to then remain silent about their work under fear of retribution as outlined in the Official Secrets Act. The Rose Code also shows how desperate many were to marry and the accompanying raw grief when that new spouse was killed in war.

The audio book was a joy to listen to; the narrator has a British accent which places the story's setting and vernacular in context. The chapters are relatively short, and I suspect reading all 85 of them would not be overly difficult.

This is a selection of my local bookstore's book club and the main reason I picked it up. I've enjoyed much of Quinn's earlier work but am a bit weary of reading WWII-themed books. That said, her story encouraged me to learn a bit more about Bletchley Park and the important work that was accomplished. (Approximately 10,000 people worked in the B.P. organization and by 1945, 75 percent of them were women. Some historians estimate their work helped shorten the war by two to four years. Read more and see photos here or listen to the podcast here.) ...more

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Apr 26, 2021 Courtney rated it it was amazing

"It's still a game. The most important one. You haven't seen an Enigma machine yet, have you? Monstrous little things. The air force and naval machines have five possible wheels, which means sixty possible orders depending on which three are picked for the day. Every wheel has twenty-six possible starting positions, and the plugboard behind it has twenty-six jacks. That makes one hundred and fifty million million million starting positions...and then the Jerries change the settings every twenty- ...more

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