Enigma [Paperback]

A gripping World War II mystery novel with a cryptographic twist, Enigma's hero is Tom Jericho, a brilliant British mathematician working as a member of the team struggling to crack the Nazi Enigma code. Jericho's own struggles include nerve-wracking mental labour, the mysterious disappearance of a former girlfriend, the suspicions of his coworkers within the paranoid high-security project, and the certainty that someone close to him, perhaps the missing girl, is a Nazi spy. The plot is pure fiction but the historical background, Alan Turing's famous wartime computing project that cracked the German U-boat communications code, is real and accurately portrayed. Enigma is convincingly plotted, forcefully written, and filled with well-drawn characters; in short, it's everything a good techno-mystery should be. --James Early --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

After the resounding success of his first novel, Fatherland, the question was what would Robert Harris do for an encore? This is his resounding answer Mail on Sunday Extraordinarily good... undoubtedly the best thriller of the year, and perhaps of several years to come Evening Standard I finished the book regretful it had ended, and full of wonder at this extraordinary world, people and achievements it evoked Observer The brilliance of Enigma is that it gives readers the sense of being contemporary with its characters and then leads them on a dark journey of discovery to arrive at another of the Second World War's blackest horror stories, one not fully admitted until half a century later... Altogether top-class stuff The Times Enigma totally gripped me Sunday Times Blends carefully researched fact with brilliantly realised fiction... a compulsive page turner until its surprising secrets are finally decrypted Daily Mail A first class plot... the characters steadily evolve and deepen. Out of wartime Cambridge and Bletchley lurches the computer age Daily Telegraph

‘Extraordinarily good - undoubtedly the best thriller of the year, and perhaps of several years to come’ --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

‘Blends carefully researched fact with brilliantly realised fiction... a compulsive pageturner until its surprising secrets are finally decrypted’ --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

'Enigma totally gripped me'Roy Jenkins, The Sunday Times

March 1943, the war hangs in the balance, and at Bletchley Park a brilliant young codebreaker is facing a double nightmare. The Germans have unaccountably changed their U-boat Enigma code, threatening a massive Allied defeat. And as suspicion grows that there may be a spy inside Bletchley, Jericho's girlfriend, the beautiful and mysterious Claire Romilly suddenly disappears.

'After the resounding success of his first novel, Fatherland, the question was what would Robert Harris do for an encore? This is the resounding answer'

Phillip Knightley, Mail on Sunday

March 1943, the war hangs in the balance, and at Bletchley Park Tom Jericho, a brilliant young codebreaker, is facing a double nightmare. The Germans have unaccountably changed their U-boat Enigma code, threatening a massive Allied defeat. And as suspicion grows that there may be a spy inside Bletchley, Jericho's girlfriend, the beautiful and mysterious Claire Romilly, suddenly disappears.

'Extraordinarily good - undoubtedly the best thriller of the year, and perhaps of several years to come'

T.J. Binyon, Evening Standard

'I finished the book regretful it had ended, and full of wonder at this extraordinary world, people and achievements it evoked'

David Cannadine, Observer

Robert Harris is the author of six novels - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, Imperium and The Ghost - all of which were worldwide bestsellers. His work has been translated into thirty-one languages. He was born in Nottingham in 1957 and is a graduate of Cambridge University. He worked as a reporter on the BBC's Newsnight and Panorama programmes, before becoming Political Editor of the Observer in 1987, and then a columnist on the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph. In 2003 he was named Columnist of the Year in the British Press Awards. He lives near Hungerford in Berkshire with his wife and their four children. (20031208)