Of course I knew I was going to enjoy The Cypher Bureau. As a historical novel about the Polish cryptologists who deciphered The Enigma in World War II, it combines a topic that deeply interests me (cryptology) with an aspect of that topic that was new to me (the Polish role). What’s not to like?

That, at any rate, was my view before actually starting to read the book.

But… note that the title of the post says that this is not a review. That’s because the author, Eilidh McGinness, didn’t succeed in holding my interest long enough for me to finish reading it, and I’m not willing to review a book that I haven’t finished. TBH, I got only about halfway through before giving up. Too bad, since we all know about the British contributions — Turing and Bletchley Park — so we should also learn about the Polish contributions, shouldn’t we? Sigh.

Categories: Books