The Rose Code

by Kate Quinn

[Jeff Sexton]

Wow. All the feels. I make no secret that Alan Turing is a personal hero. He is *very* much suspected of being a fellow Autistic, and because of his brilliance I was able to follow in his footsteps to rise myself out of being a trailer park kid into a career that has already made me far more successful than I ever dared imagine. So when a book is set at Bletchley Park during World War II - where Turing built the first physical "Turing Machines" after having theorized them before the war - ... it gets my attention.

And while Turing himself (along with a handful of other particularly significant real-world people of the era) *does* appear in the book - and even helps in the endgame itself - this book is NOT about him. Instead, this is effectively a book about the *other* people there at Bletchley during the period and what *they* went through... while spinning a tight tale of personal and national betrayals as a solid fiction story should. :) We see the era and the place through three very different eyes - a likely (female) Autistic (though Quinn never uses that word to describe the character, as it wouldn't be period-authentic) who is over-protected by her very religious parents (gee, where does *that* feel familiar? ;) ), a poor, down on her luck girl from the "wrong side of the tracks" just trying to get by and become better than her birth (again, where does this seem familiar? :D), and a well-connected socialite who wants to prove that she is more than just her birth. And we see how friendship and even family can grow between such disparate people. Truly an outstanding work that hooks you from Chapter 1 and keeps you reading through the final words... even though those words come over 650 pages later! Oh, and if you're familiar with The Imitation Game (the 2014 movie focusing on Turing's work at BP)... you may just have its theme running through your head when you finish this tale. Very much recommended.