The Enigma Game
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A stunning new historical novel from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Wein, featuring a beloved character from the award-winning Code Name Verity; for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.
A German soldier risks his life to drop off the sought-after Enigma Machine to British Intelligence, hiding it in a pub in a small town in northeast Scotland, and unwittingly bringing together four very different people who decide to keep it to themselves. Louisa Adair, a young teen girl hired to look after the pub owner's elderly, German-born aunt, Jane Warner, finds it but doesn't report it. Flight-Lieutenant Jamie Beaufort-Stuart intercepts a signal but can't figure it out. Ellen McEwen, volunteer at the local airfield, acts as the go-between and messenger, after Louisa involves Jane in translating. The planes under Jamie's command seem charmed, as Jamie knows where exactly to go, while other squadrons suffer, and the four are loathe to give up the machine, even after Elisabeth Lind from British Intelligence arrives, even after the Germans start bombing the tiny town . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1940, between the events of The Pearl Thief and Code Name Verity, Wein's latest immersive dive into a slice of WWII-era history splits the narration among three figures Flt. Lt. Jamie Beaufort-Stuart; Ellen McEwen, a Traveller volunteering as a military driver; and Louisa Adair, the biracial daughter of a Jamaican father and a British mother, both recently killed by German explosives. Suddenly an orphan at 15, Louisa intersects with the others when she is hired by phone to escort an elderly German opera singer to a relative's inn, located in the Scottish countryside near the air force base where Jamie and Ellen are stationed. Intrigue is added when the civilians arrive at the same moment as a German pilot who secretly deposits a code-breaking machine at the inn the only Enigma machine in Allied hands. Louisa, who dearly wishes she could help the war effort as a pilot, now has the means to contribute, but she needs assistance. Wein again seamlessly weaves extensive research into a thriller populated by fully dimensional characters. Late in the novel, Jamie's sister, Julie, makes a cameo as a newly minted intelligence officer, a poignant reminder to readers of Code Name Verity that the war will get much worse before it ends. Ages 12 up.
