The Rose Code
The Rose Code
By: Kate Quinn
[Fulfilling “A WWII novel” as part of the 2021 Spring/Summer Reading Challenge]
Full Disclosure: This book is just over 600 pages. It took me 2 weeks to read and I have 4 kids under 5 so I feel like that’s a pretty fast read!
Could it have been shorter? Yeah. But I didn’t feel bored reading it at all. I was pleasantly surprised by this hyped up book!
This is a book about code breaking in WWII at the famed and mysterious Bletchley Park in England.
The Bletchley Park Mansion
I read Quinn’s The Alice Network and I found this book far more enjoyable. I’ve always found the breaking of the Enigma code intriguing and the characters in this book were much more likable.
Like The Alice Network there were two storylines: 1947 post-war and then 1938 as the war was beginning. Unlike The Alice Network, both storylines were intriguing and purposeful.
The earlier storyline follows three soon-to-be friends— Osla, Mab, and Beth— as they each play their roles breaking/translating the code at Bletchley Park, keeping secrets, and navigating relationships. The later storyline tells us that at some point these friends have a severe falling out.
But now, in 1947, they must reunite. One of them writes from an asylum, framed for treason, with information about a possible traitor from their time at Bletchley Park. She suspects this traitor was feeding intel to the Soviets, Allies in WWII but now enemies. The window to catch the traitor is rapidly closing and their resources are slim. Can they break the elusive Rose Code before one of them loses their mind altogether? (remember lobotomies??)
I wasn’t convinced of Quinn’s historical portrayal in The Alice Network, but in this book I thought she did a fantastic job creating this era— from the clothing and style to the vernacular to the cultural norms— she did her research. There are many comments or situations that remind us of how women were viewed during this time and how they experienced the world during a war and during the 1930s and 40s eras. I thought that was really interesting.
The main plot is not directly historical record, though traitors were probably part of Bletchley Park’s story at some point, but many of the characters and finer points of this book are based on history. Her author’s note at the end details the facts and the liberties she took.
All of the people working at Bletchley Park were sworn to an oath of secrecy that if broken would result in being shot. It’s crazy how long thousands of people have kept their secrets, now finally being free to reveal their experiences, but it attests to the success of the mission of Bletchley Park and its outstations.
Some people married each other and found out later they had both been stationed there the whole time but in different huts and had never met! You weren’t even allowed to share information between huts. Generally, everyone was only privy to their own hut’s work.
Quinn masterfully incorporates into the book how this stress of hiding things impacts various relationships.
I would highly recommend this book. It’s intriguing, inspiring, and mysterious. You see a different side of the WWII drama. There’s suspense, love, heartache (I cried), victory, and a bunch of historical knowledge. What else could you want in a historical fiction book?
If this book puts you on an Enigma binge, Quinn also includes a list of other fiction/nonfiction books about Bletchley Park and the Enigma machine as well as some movies. I have seen The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch and that was a great film- I’ll have to rewatch it now that I have more info!
I also wanted to share these three links with you. There is a lot of detail in the book about how the Engima and Bombe machines work and how they went about decoding the code. I enjoy doing cryptograms and thinking about codes but I was having a hard time picturing how the whole thing worked. After I finished the book I did some googling and found these short videos that were super helpful in understanding and visualizing what the characters in the book were actually doing:
Bonus:
Here are some fun words I learned while reading this book. Most are informal British:
Boffin: a person engaged in scientific or technical research (slang)
Splashed out: splurge (slang)
Squiffy: slightly drunk (slang)
Potty: silly or slightly crazy (slang)
durance vile: a very long prison sentence
Rounders game: without going into detail, it’s a version of baseball
Vigenere cipher: I’m not going to explain this one, but this website does a good job
Language and sexual content rating: PG-13- there are a few sexual encounters and innuendos, the language is probably more PG
Share this review on your social media!