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The Enigma Game

by Elizabeth Wein

This is part of the Code name Verity cycle. I have read and loved Code Name Verity and Rose under Fire. As a pilot, there are segments in both of these books that speak to me of the wonder of flight.

The Enigma Game, is set in England and Scotland during 1940/41. Louisa Adair has lost her Jamaican mother and English father and is cast loose. She takes a job looking after an ageing opera singer in a pub near Windyedge, a coastal RAF airfield in Scotland, but is the old lady English or German?

The story intertwines the lives of the crews of a flight of Blenheim bombers stationed at the airfield with Louisa and her elderly charge together with the story of the Enigma coding machine, eventually cracked by Alan Turing and others at Bletchley Park.

The characters are believable and rounded and their motivations are not contrived. Wein has wound diversity interestingly into this story. Louisa’s mixed race causes the expected reactions from people until they look more than skin deep. This is set against another character – from a tinker family – who is able to ‘hide in plain sight’ as she is white. Her memories of the discrimination against her before she was able to hide in the anonymity of a uniform are an interesting contrast to the discrimination Louisa feels every day.

The Enigma Game is a good read – perhaps lacking some of the searing emotions of Code Name Verity, but still a great read and one that tackles the issue of discrimination in a various guises very well.

Visit The Enigma Game website (or just click on the picture above).