Three very different women become friends while breaking codes at Bletchley Park during the Second World War
The women who broke the codes
In 1940, three young women from very different worlds are recruited to Bletchley Park, Britain's top-secret codebreaking center. Osla is a glamorous debutante, Mab is a tough, ambitious woman from London's East End, and Beth is a painfully shy local girl with a hidden genius for puzzles. Years later, in 1947, a coded message from one of them reunites the estranged friends to uncover a traitor.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who love historical fiction about women in World War II, friendship, secrets and real wartime history.
What you will get
A gripping, emotional historical novel that celebrates the brilliant women codebreakers of Bletchley Park, full of friendship, suspense and vivid wartime detail.
The Rose Code Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Historical Fiction · Bletchley Park · Codebreakers · World War II
Length
624 pages · ≈ 18 h
More about this book
The novel moves between the war years and 1947, when Britain is preparing for the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip. During the war, the three women share lodgings and work in different huts at Bletchley Park, under strict orders never to speak about their work. Osla, who is dating the young Prince Philip, translates German messages; Mab works on the machines; and Beth discovers that she has a remarkable talent for breaking Enigma codes in the team led by the brilliant Dilly Knox.
Their friendship is tested by romance, loss, the pressure of secrecy and a betrayal that tears them apart. In 1947, Beth, now confined to an asylum, sends the others a coded message asking for their help to expose the traitor who was among them at Bletchley. Quinn draws on real history, including the codebreaking that helped the navy win a major battle in the Mediterranean, and she shows how much these women contributed while receiving little recognition. The book is long but well paced, and it handles wartime loss with feeling.
Absorbing, moving and suspenseful. About 624 pages in the William Morrow hardcover.
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