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Enigma Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Comment: I read this shortly after reading Fatherland and was prepared to be disappointed but found it in many ways to be as good as it's predecessor. Read.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Cerebral-action thriller
Comment: Well-done cerebral-action thriller about British efforts to decode intercepted German submarine communications. A fast pace, short time frame, and flash backs to reveal backstory keep things moving.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The enigma of the Enigma-breakers
Comment: RObert Harris has made a good living crafting thrillers out of significant historical events. Pompeii takes place as the volcano is about to bury the eponymous city in lava. Fatherland poses the question of how a victorious Nazi Germany would supress news of the Holocaust. Enigma uses less obvious but still vitally important event - the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, who kept Britain in WWII by reading submarine dispatches (encoded on the Enigma machine) and diverting Allied convoys around them. Harris sets the book Enigma during the largest convoy battle of the war - the battle of convoys HX-229 and SC-122, attacked by a Wolfpack of over 40 U-Boats - and the codebreakers' attempt to use the signals from the battle to break into the Enigma code. Harris does a very clever thing - using the decoding attempts as an opportunity to explain cryptography, the Enigma machine, the development of the first computers, and even commentary on the collapse of the class system in Britain during the War.

But the convoy battle simply serves as the background for the main story. Cryptanalyst Thomas Jericho has been involved with a woman who mysteriously disappears. Jericho and the girl's housemate set out to solve the mystery, which appears to be related to some mysterious unbroken cryptograms from the Ukrainian front. What is the subject of the cryptograms? Is there someone inside Bletchley feeding information to the Nazis? Is the missing girl a traitor or a victim of circumstance?

The story is an efficient and taught thriller, seamlessly interweaving historical facts with the fictional mystery story. I'm not sure if someone totally unfamiliar with the Enigma machine and codebreaking would follow the cryptanalytical aspects of the story - certainly those that have seen an Enigma machine (e.g. in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry) or who understands statistics would be ahead in the game. I suppose it's unlikely those that haven't or don't would pick up this book in the first place.

Certainly, this story is vintage Harris, and every bit as enjoyable as Fatherland, Pompeii, etc. The characters are interesting enough, but the real treat is the immersion into the paradoxical life of the intellegence agent - how do you use the information gained without compromising the source?

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Techno-mystery with smarts
Comment: "We're worried. We're very worried about a girl named Claire Romilly".

So says British Intelligence Officer Doug Wigram to this novel's protaganist, Tom Jericho, a cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park, during the beginning of a blackout of information from the notorious "Shark" encryptions on the German Engimas the Brits are madly decoding.

Because Tom Jericho's just returned to Bletchley after a nervous breakdown, following a botched affair when he finds Claire going through his briefcase. But when he tries to patch things up, she's disappeared. Breaking into her house, Tom finds four undeciphered cryptograms hidden in her floorboards. Is she a spy? A traitor? Tom, still reeling from overwork and a broken heart, decides to find out.

With the help of Claire's good-girl roommate, Hester, an intriguing mystery is solved - or "decoded", if you like - as Tom brilliantly puts his code-breaking skills to help not only the general war effort, but uncover a shocking secret contained in the four cryptograms he's hidden. And lastly, Tom uncovers the truth about "Claire Romilly".

From a technological standpoint, the novel is fascinating for its examination of the way security was set up. All the things we take for granted in a computer network today are seen here in nascent form: military guards as "firewalls" - radio networks as "internets" - bombe menus for "programs"; all of which strikes a very modern chord.

Robert Harris has put together a book with believable and sympathetic characters, against a fact-based background to the Bletchley code-breaking effort. (See "The Hut Six Story - Breaking The Enigma Codes" by Gordon Welchman)

For no matter how smart Tom is, or how great his problem-solving skills are, there is no machine that can decrypt the enigma of someone else's heart.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Poor writing style
Comment: I purchased this book on recommendation from a friend. I must say I was disappointed given the subject matter. The Enigma has always been fascinating to me and I actually had the opportunity to use one of the NSA's machines at the RSA Conference.

A few things really bothered me about this book. They are:
1) I know it is a nit, but this guy doesn't write in proper sentences or even full thoughts. Just a bunch a gibberish on the pages.
2) There was too much text dedicated to the character's thoughts. This might be acceptable for a romance novel, but definitely not an adventure book. I quickly grew tired of these and started skipping them by the middle of the book.
3) The organization... there were what appeared to be chapter numbers, but there were other incoherent breaks such as blank lines and a sudden switch to another character during one the middle of one character's action.

There has to be better written fiction about the cracking of the Enigma out there. Don't waste your time or money with this.

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