Rating: 
Summary: Captivating Historical Novel with Good Characters
Review: Amidst the dark cloud hanging over Great Britain during WW2, an ingenious cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park works 'round the clock attempting to decipher Nazi U-boat signals before an American convoy in the Atlantic is destroyed. Fascinating and intriguing, but fails to maintain the fast-paced action it needs, coming up a little bit short.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb writing, dreary atmosphere, clever characterizations
Review: Great job of capturing the complexities of codebreaking. But the real joy of this book is the atmospherics - grey, dull, thread-bare Blighty in mid-war. Plus a realistically feminized male lead reluctantly paired with a masculinized female character. Nick and Nora in role reversal. Should appeal to feminists: she's mad as hell and won't ... etc. I wish I could write as well as Harris.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good
Review: This wartime thriller pleasantly surprised me, considering that I picked it up off the airport bookstore rack to bide some time. The storyline is intellectually robust, even with its modest, uneventful ending, and does an excellent job of bringing us inside the hive-like decoding community that arguably provided wartime England's finest contribution to the fight. The mechanics of encryption were occasionally tough to follow, but a bit of careful reading did the trick. Harris is maturing nicely as a writer; his FATHERLAND had a terrific first half and a downright mushy finale. This book is much more of a complete read, perfect for curling up in front of a fire or on the bus. I'll read more by Harris.
Rating:
Summary: Factual and entertaining
Review: Enigma is an historical novel with an espionage componant a la John le Carre. It explains with clarity and ease the very difficult concept of the German enigma machine used during WW II.
This highly complex machine is explained in simple every day terms which anyone can understand.
Technical explanations aside it is also a first rate espionage thriller with many twists and turns and an unexpected ending
Rating:
Summary: Harris grabs you and he won't let go!
Review: An excellent mystery set against the historical backdrop of the code breakers of WW2. A mystery wrapped inside a puzzle wrapped inside an enigma. The storyline is solid and uses a lot of actual facts in laying out this historical mystery. The book grabs you and holds you as the plot twists and turns
Rating:
Summary: A chilly drizzle of a mystery
Review: For two nights you have been awake with a cold rain outside and your spouse has not come home since yesterday. You might know how our "hero" feels, divided by 9. If the cops are knocking on your door and you think you did it, but you have to finish your presentation or your ad firm is in the toilet, you might know how our "hero" feels. Certainly a "can't put it downer"
Rating:
Summary: Excellent thriller
Review: Captures the gritty atmosphere of Bletchley most authentically. One feels his characters are human and real. Wavers a bit towards the end but a most worthwile read if cryptography and the work of the
wartime codebreakers interests you.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent thriller with a solid historical background
Review: Even better than Fatherland. The details of an extremely interesting and important aspect of the war are woven into a wonderful thriller full of intrigue.
Jericho is refreshingly human especially in his love life and the characterisation no doubt draws some inspiration from the English mathematical genius Alan Turing who many regard as the father of modern computing.
I felt that the finale wasn't upto the rest of the novel though definitely worth turning the pages for.
Rating:
Summary: A well written, fast paced, suspense novel.
Review: This novel was very fun to read. The characters are well defined and the protaganist is an unlikely hero. The story sheds some light on the monumental task of deciphering secret code and how it could weigh heavily on the cryptanalysts in dawn of the computer age. It starts out a little slow but the pacing picks up nicely as you approach the climax. It's a good read.
Robert Harris gets two-thumbs-up from me.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting insight into WW2 cryptography
Review: The story is set around a maverick character who works at the Bletchley cryptography centre during the 2nd world war. It's part history, part mystery. The story had me captivated for most of the book, but had a fairly tame ending
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