I'm still enjoying my run of historical novels, and this time I have moved forward to the twentieth century and the period covering the Second World War. The setting for the book is Bletchley Park which is famous for being the home of the code breakers who cracked the codes for the German Enigma machines. Much has been written about Alan Turing and his team, but this book focuses on the work of the women who took on much of the laborious decryption and contributed so much to the success of the Allied Forces.
It's quite a long book at 624 pages, but it's easy to read and it gives a good cross section of all the different social classes of the time. The three main characters are Osla, a debutant whose Godfather is Louis Mountbatten; Mab, an intelligent young woman from the working classes who had to fight for her education and employment opportunities; and Beth, the landlady's daughter who lives in fear of her manipulating mother and has been convinced she will never be good at anything.
The war makes for odd partnerships as couples are thrown together in stressful circumstances, and each of the girls finds love during the course of the war. Just a minor spoiler here - Osla becomes the girlfriend of Prince Phillip of Greece before he becomes engaged to Princess Elizabeth, and at that point I groaned a bit because I always find it a bit cringey when real people pop up in books as a love interest. However, things never get completely out of hand, and Prince Phillip always came across as the dashing hero so I suppose no harm was done.
I enjoyed the book, and the sub-plot of treachery at Bletchley Park builds slowly throughout the story, with the last few chapters racing through at a tense gallop as the traitor is finally revealed and hunted down.
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