Headstrong 14-year-old Lizzie Novis refuses to believe that her mother, a U.S. embassy clerk who was working in Poland, is dead. After fleeing from her grandmother\u2014who\u2019s attempting to bring her back to America\u2014Lizzie locates her 19-year-old brother, Jakob, a Cambridge mathematician who\u2019s stationed at the clandestine British intelligence site called Bletchley Park. Hiding from her grandmother\u2019s estate steward, Lizzie becomes a messenger at Bletchley Park, ferrying letters across the grounds while Jakob attempts to both break the ciphers generated by the German Enigma machines and help his sister face the reality of their mother\u2019s likely fate. With a suspicious MI5 agent inquiring about Mum and clues and codes piling up, the siblings, whose late father was \u201cPolish Jewish British,\u201d eventually decipher the truth. Shared narrative duties between the siblings effectively juxtapose the measured Jakob with the spirited Lizzie. Lizzie\u2019s directness is repeatedly attributed to her being \u201chalf American,\u201d which proves tiresome, but Jakob\u2019s development from reserved to risk-tolerant provides welcome nuance. The authors introduce and carefully explain a variety of decoding methodologies, inspiring readers to attempt their own. A thoughtful and entertaining historical note identifies the key figures who appear in the book, such as Alan Turing, as well as the real-life bases for the fictional characters. Interspersed photos and images of ephemera help situate the narrative\u2019s time period.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Headstrong 14-year-old Lizzie Novis refuses to believe that her mother, a U.S. embassy clerk who was working in Poland, is dead. After fleeing from her grandmother\u2014who\u2019s attempting to bring her back to America\u2014Lizzie locates her 19-year-old brother, Jakob, a Cambridge mathematician who\u2019s stationed at the clandestine British intelligence site called Bletchley Park. Hiding from her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}