Enigma is the story of about 3 months in the life of a codebreaker, Tom Jericho, in Bletchley Park during the war. The book starts at the end of those three months, mainly the last week and there is a series of flashbacks to fill in the gaps for the reader. I have to say, really not a fan of flash backs. If you need to use more than two flashbacks maybe you should have placed the start of your book earlier as far as I’m concerned. I just feel they interrupt the flow too much.
Fear not however, the plot is packed actually. Tom has been an incredibly busy bee in three months. In the course of three months he managed to meet a girl, go to four dates with her, sleep with her twice, get dumped, mope, have a nervous breakdown, be sent back to Cambridge to recover, return and so on. You may now be getting pissed off because you think I gave away the plot? How wrong you are, I just told you chapter one. Seriously. In other words this book is completely packed.
I like Tom. Tom is, well quite damaged, but nice. He is brilliant, which means he has no common sense at all and the fact that he makes it from day to day is simply proof of how civilised society is a nice place to be if you are a mathematical genius. You just can’t help but really feel for poor Tom. He just gets in the middle of things and faces them with such stoic bravery. It’s very lucky that he has Hester for a sidekick, seeing as she is actually capable of not acting suspicious for two seconds and keeping calm as opposed to him. Hester is a force of nature and without her Tom Jericho, clever as he might be, he wouldn’t get very far.
In terms of plot, the twists are great. you spend your time suspecting one person, then you realise you were blind and then Robert Harris tells you’ve missed the woods for the trees. I love it when that happens. You also get to read a bit about code breaking during the second world war and I found that fascinating. All in all I really enjoyed this book,I strongly recommend it if you can stand flash backs. They do stop by page 175 so if you grin and bear it for the beginning you’re in for a treat!
Next up: In Cold Blood
Enjoyed it: Yes!
Read again: Of course, I’ll get to skip the flashbacks!
270 days remaining - 20 books down, 1 unfinished, 80 left.
Fear not however, the plot is packed actually. Tom has been an incredibly busy bee in three months. In the course of three months he managed to meet a girl, go to four dates with her, sleep with her twice, get dumped, mope, have a nervous breakdown, be sent back to Cambridge to recover, return and so on. You may now be getting pissed off because you think I gave away the plot? How wrong you are, I just told you chapter one. Seriously. In other words this book is completely packed.
I like Tom. Tom is, well quite damaged, but nice. He is brilliant, which means he has no common sense at all and the fact that he makes it from day to day is simply proof of how civilised society is a nice place to be if you are a mathematical genius. You just can’t help but really feel for poor Tom. He just gets in the middle of things and faces them with such stoic bravery. It’s very lucky that he has Hester for a sidekick, seeing as she is actually capable of not acting suspicious for two seconds and keeping calm as opposed to him. Hester is a force of nature and without her Tom Jericho, clever as he might be, he wouldn’t get very far.
In terms of plot, the twists are great. you spend your time suspecting one person, then you realise you were blind and then Robert Harris tells you’ve missed the woods for the trees. I love it when that happens. You also get to read a bit about code breaking during the second world war and I found that fascinating. All in all I really enjoyed this book,I strongly recommend it if you can stand flash backs. They do stop by page 175 so if you grin and bear it for the beginning you’re in for a treat!
Next up: In Cold Blood
Enjoyed it: Yes!
Read again: Of course, I’ll get to skip the flashbacks!
270 days remaining - 20 books down, 1 unfinished, 80 left.
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