The Bletchley Riddle

Starred review from July 22, 2024
This dynamic collaboration from Sepetys (I Must Betray You) and Sheinkin (Impossible Escape), set in May 1940, is marked by swift, snappy, and suspenseful storytelling narrated by Polish Jewish siblings Jakob and Lizzie. Nineteen-year-old Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge University by Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park to help decipher messages encrypted using the German Enigma machine. When his self-described straightforward-speaking 14-year-old sister Lizzie eludes their American grandmother’s (first, but not last) attempt to bring her to Cleveland, she, too, ends up at Bletchley Park, assigned to carry packages between departments. Now, Lizzie endeavors to disprove the apparent death of their mother, who worked at the American Embassy in London and disappeared in Poland during the 1939 German attack. Short chapters make for fast-paced narration through simultaneously developing mysteries and relationships. Especially well depicted—and explained—is the excitement, as well as the daily drudgery, of codebreaking, culminating in a seamlessly entertaining and edifying read. Most characters, all portrayed as white, are fictional, but historical figures such as U.S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy and mathematician Alan Turing play minor roles. Includes b&w archival photos and an endnote. Ages 10–up.