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Tim O'Brien

864. Kate Quinn - The Rose Code


I enjoyed this, although it is a bit of a ‘girlie’ book. The three central characters are all female, and the men were largely ciphers in comparison.

A semi–fictionalised story about Bletchley Park during and post World War 2. The three main leads are all interesting and differing characters – an upper class deb, whose boyfriend is Prince Philip (and based on a true story), a working class girl from Shoreditch, and the girl (Beth) whose parents they lodge with at Bletchley, who believes she is stupid and worthless due to her mother’s bullying, but whose skill at crosswords leads the others to recommend her to Bletchley. There, she becomes the top code breaker amongst lots of mostly tragic love affairs.

Beth discovers that someone is using Enigma machines to pass on secrets to the Russians.

I enjoyed it a lot, but it was too long and could have done with more muscular and less girly prose.


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