Dermot Turing

A thriller unlike any other I’ve ever read—because it all was true, with the world at stake. The French created an alliance before WWII, between X (Paris), Y (London, and Z (Warsaw) to share knowledge to break and continue breaking the Enigma cipher each time the Nazis improved it. Breathtaking were the risks taken by the Pole code breakers, the French super-spy, and the German super-spy stealing his country’s secrets. Truly nerves of steel. It’s hard to have complaints about such an amazing book—and they are wholly my own problems. The spies had many names, so it was very hard to keep track of who was who. And the author, Alan Turing’s nephew, is clearly brilliant explaining in detail how each iteration of the Enigma machines worked and how each time the code-breakers broke them, sometimes with cardboard mock-ups of the machines. I couldn’t follow the technical details to save my life. But I just took it all in stride because the real-life story going on was so awe-inspiring. Strongly recommended.… (meer)

The fascinating story of how the Polish, French and British intelligence services collaborated (fitfully) in the breaking of the Enigma code. Goes back to the origins of work on Enigma in the 1920s and how it was gradually made more difficult to break by the Germans. Sir Dermot does his best as a non-engineer to explain how the machines worked and how permutation theory enabled code-breaking, but I'm afraid this was beyond me. Very little about the role of Alan Turing which Sir Dermot has written on elsewhere.… (meer)

The Enigma Story by Dermot Turing presents the codebreaking story in both cryptologic and personal terms. In other words, it is about the people (his uncle was Alan Turing) as well as the process and results.

I honestly don't know how much "new" information is here and I don't really care. Although I've read a number of books on the topic, I never committed details to memory so I can't speak to those. But even knowing a lot of the story, this is still a very interesting read and the telling of a lot of it with the people as centered as the work makes for a wonderful perspective.

Whether this is your first dive into the story or another dive because it is so interesting, I think you will enjoy the book. There is enough depth to keep those interested in cryptography engaged and enough narrative arc to keep those interested in the people engaged.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)