Enigma in Langley suckers

Jun 14, 2024 Michael Martz rated it really liked it

As with all else I've read from author Robert Harris, "Enigma" is a well-written slice of fictional history that's a bit slow at times but otherwise exposes his readers to an interpretation of events they may have been unfamiliar with. In this case, it was the cat & mouse cryptography game between the Brits and Germans during WWII.

Bletchley Park was a huge complex in England populated with the country's best and brightest cryptographers, as well as a veritable army of support personnel (most of As with all else I've read from author Robert Harris, "Enigma" is a well-written slice of fictional history that's a bit slow at times but otherwise exposes his readers to an interpretation of events they may have been unfamiliar with. In this case, it was the cat & mouse cryptography game between the Brits and Germans during WWII.

Bletchley Park was a huge complex in England populated with the country's best and brightest cryptographers, as well as a veritable army of support personnel (most of whom were women) who performed the 'gruntwork'. In those days, it wasn't massive computing power that was required to encrypt and decrypt messages, it was mechanical devices and trial & error procedures. The Germans used what they considered to be an unbreakable mechanism (Enigma, with other variations depending on which part of the military was using the device) but the crafty Brits had indeed broken it and were able to 'read' intercepted messages. Tom Jericho was a key player in the cracking of the code, but he paid for his breakthrough with his mental health. He was convalescing in Cambridge from both a breakdown and a breakup with his girlfriend when he was summoned back to Bletchley Park. It seemed they needed some of his magic, as the Germans had changed their process, the British couldn't crack it, and a huge number of ships were crossing the ocean from the US and were now exposed to attack by the German submarines that the English could not longer 'see'.

"Enigma" is the story of Jericho's efforts to develop a tool and process to decrypt the Germans' new messaging, but it's more than that as he also discovers some stolen material in his ex-girlfriend's apartment (she was one of the hundreds of women who performed manual processes at Bletchley and therefore was exposed to German messages) when she unexpectedly blows off a workday in a workplace where that was an unthinkable action. Jericho is hell-bent to determine what/ where/ why/ who/ and how of the documents and, as success on the new decryption process remains out of reach and the sea convoy comes under attack by the U-boats, it becomes apparent that there may be a spy or spies among the Bletchley crowd. So Enigma becomes both a combination thriller about both cryptography's role in helping the Allies win the war and a find-the-missing-person-who-may-or-may-not-be-a spy story.

Enigma drags a bit at times, which is understandable since much of the 'action' takes place in a tightly controlled environment. Harris does a great job with dialogue and much of Enigma's sounds very real and believable. Although it's fiction, there's a lot of real stuff embedded in the story and the impact of Bletchley Park on the war is nice to get out in the open. WWII had lots of heroes but some of the unappreciated ones, the geeks who designed the tools at Bletchley and the hordes of mostly women behind the scenes who supported the massive processes, deserve recognition as well. ...more

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