Jason Fagone keeps the reader interested in the life of Elizabeth Smith even though some of the subject matter (code breaking) could become a little "dry" without his embellishments.
Elizabeth was born into a Quaker family of limited means and becomes a schoolteacher, but when she breaks away from her family in 1916 she comes across an eccentric tycoon who is looking for someone with Elizabeth's skills to help in studying Shakespeare's work to find what is thought to be a code implanted in his works. Elizabeth meets her future husband at George Fabyan's Riverbank compound and they eventually move away and become embroiled in code breaking, first with the coast guard discovering radio messages from boats smuggling alcohol during prohibition and then during the war up against some of Germany's top Enigma code machine.
Both Elizabeth and her husband William Friedman were talented at solving puzzles with just a pencil and pad of paper, working out intricate codes, but it was William whom history remembers and very little is historically recorded about Elizabeth. A lot of her work, J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI took credit for and also with an ambition to get more fame, he inadvertently sabotaged many of Elizabeth's efforts so with the help of colleagues they bypassed the FBI in many of their endeavors and worked directly with other colleagues and the Bletchley Circle codebreakers in England.
This is a book well worth reading and Jasone Fagone's research brings Elizabeth to life for the reader - what an amazing woman.
