Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Robert Harris
Title Page
Dedication
Author’s Note
Epigraph
Chapter One: Whispers
Chapter Two: Cryptogram
Chapter Three: Pinch
Chapter Four: Kiss
Chapter Five: Crib
Chapter Six: Strip
Chapter Seven: Plaintext
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Author
Robert Harris is the author of twelve bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy – Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator – Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave and most recently, Munich. Several of his books have been filmed, including The Ghost, which was directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.
About the Book
March 1943, the war hangs in the balance, and at Bletchley Park Tom Jericho, a brilliant young codebreaker, is facing a double nightmare. The Germans have unaccountably changed their U-boat Enigma code, threatening a massive Allied defeat. And as suspicion grows that there may be a spy inside Bletchley, Jericho’s girlfriend, the beautiful and mysterious Claire Romilly, suddenly disappears.
ALSO BY ROBERT HARRIS
FICTION
Fatherland
Archangel
Pompeii
Imperium
The Ghost
Lustrum
The Fear Index
An Officer and a Spy
Dictator
Conclave
Munich
NON-FICTION
Good and Faithful Servant: The Unauthorized Biography of Bernard Ingham
Selling Hitler
The Making of Neil Kinnock
Gotcha: Media, the Government and the Falklands Crisis
A Higher Form of Killing (with Jeremy Paxman)
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781409021599
Version 1.0
Published by Arrow Books 1995
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Copyright © Robert Harris, 1995
Robert Harris has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 1995 by Hutchinson
First published in paperback in 1996 by Arrow Books
Reissued in 2009 by Arrow Books
Arrow Books
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London SW1V 2SA
www.penguin.co.uk
Arrow Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9780099527923
For Gill,
and for Holly and Charlie
QXQF VFLR TXLG VLWD PRUA
Author’s Note
This novel is set against the background of an actual historical event. The German naval signals quoted in the text are all authentic. The characters, however, are entirely fictional.
‘It looks as if Bletchley Park is the single greatest achievement of Britain during 1939–45, perhaps during this century as a whole.’
George Steiner
‘A mathematical proof should resemble a simple and clear-cut constellation, not a scattered cluster in the Milky Way. A chess problem also has unexpectedness, and a certain economy; it is essential that the moves should be surprising, and that every piece on the board should play its part.’
G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology
ONE
WHISPERS
WHISPERS: the sounds made by an enemy wireless transmitter immediately before it begins to broadcast a coded message.
A Lexicon of Cryptography
(‘Most Secret’, Bletchley Park, 1943)