Enigma

In Enigma, Robert Harris, the best-selling author of Fatherland, transports us to March 1943 and the desperate race against time that was waged at Bletchley. His hero, Tom Jericho, has been called back, while recuperating from a nervous breakdown, to try to crack Enigma before German U-boats sink hundreds more American convoys bringing supplies and munitions to Europe. If he solves the puzzle, thousands of Allied troops will live. If not, Jericho and his peers face the responsibility for a massacre. When Jericho's ex-girlfriend turns up missing and is suspected of being a Nazi mole, British and U.S. intelligence take frightening steps to plug the possible leak. Everyone is a suspect, including Jericho, who must use his genius -- and his heart -- to clear both his and his lover's names.

"LITERATE AND SAVVY . . . BRIMS WITH WARTIME INTRIGUE."
—The Washington Post Book World England 1943. Much of the infamous Nazi Enigma code has been cracked. But Shark, the impenetrable operational cipher used by Nazi U-boats, has masked the Germans' movements, allowing them to destroy a record number of Allied vessels. Feeling that the blood of Allied sailors is on their hands, a top-secret team of British cryptographers works feverishly around the clock to break Shark. And when brilliant mathematician Tom Jericho succeeds, it is the stuff of legend. . . .
"A TENSE AND THOUGHTFUL THRILLER."
—San Francisco Chronicle Until the unthinkable happens: the Germans have somehow learned that Shark has been cracked. And they've changed the code. . . .
"SUSPENSEFUL AND FASCINATING."
—The Orlando Sentinel As an Allied convoy crosses the U-boat infested North Atlantic . . . as Jericho's ex-lover Claire disappears amid accusations that she is a Nazi collaborator . . . as Jericho strains his last resources to break Shark again, he cannot escape the ultimate truth: There is a traitor among them. . . .
"GRIPPING . . . CAPTIVATING ."
—New York Daily News
"ELEGANTLY RESEARCHED . . . Readers will find themselves perfectly placed to experience one of Britain's finest hours."
—People
"SATISFYING . . . Harris does a crackerjack job here, playing his characters' lives off historical events in surprising ways."
—Entertainment Weekly
"SUSPENSEFUL . . . FIENDISHLY CLEVER."
—Detroit Free Press

Publishers Weekly

Set during WWII, Harris's latest thriller concerns the British attempt to crack the Nazis' secret codes.

Robert Harris was born in 1957, in Nottingham, England, and educated at Cambridge University. He graduated with an honors degree in English and joined the BBC, working as a researcher and director before becoming the BBC's youngest reporter on "Newsnight" in 1982. In 1987, he left television to become political editor of The Observer before joining the Sunday Times as a weekly columnist in 1989. He has since made several films for British television.

Harris is the author of five nonfiction books, three of which have been published in the United States: A Higher Form of Killing (1982), a history of chemical and biological warfare; Gotcha! (1983), a study of how the media covered the Falklands War; and Selling Hitler (1986), the story of the forged Hitler diaries scandal, which was made into a television miniseries. His first novel, Fatherland (1992), was the most successful first novel by a Bri tish author in the past twenty years and was published in 18 countries.

He lives near Hungerford, Berkshire with his wife and two children.