Author Liza Mundy takes us through the personal lives of cipher units where the reader experiences deciphering crew methods, politics, and personal bests.  It cannot be overstated that in 1942, that only 4% of American women had completed four years of college.  Women code breakers rode trolleys and buses, went to USO dances and bars, and watched each other’s six for enemy spies. Chapters have great titles such as Q for Communications and Pencil-Pushing Mamas.  Do not expect a novel from front to back but rather a great splash of many great WWII stories about unsung women who you desperately find yourself wishing to see in a full motion picture. Liza Mundy is a prolific, Princeton educated non-fiction writer who shows her talent in this skillful conveyance of patriotic American heroes.  As a huge fan of “Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park’s code-breaking computers” this book has the technical chops with intrigue and allure by introducing a dimension of real life women such as Agnes Meyer, Jane B Park, Agnes Driscoll, and Ruth Weston.

Buy It