Anyone Can Grow it [IMPORT] (Paperback)

by Robert Harris (Author) "Cambridge in the fourth winter of the war: a ghost town..." (more)
Key Phrases: naval grid square, short signal codebook, intercept station, Bletchley Park, North Atlantic, Miss Monk (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Decalon Book; New Ed edition (1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099992000
• ISBN-13: 978-0099992004
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,388,667 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Top pick for engineer, manager, programmer, August 1, 2002

By	Elmira Cancelada "Elmira Cancelada" (Portsmouth, NH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Enigma (Mass Market Paperback)

Enigma is a VERY intelligent book. On surface it is a typical spy novel, but in reality it is more than that.
First, the book gives rare glimpses into mental process of superb problem solver - Tom Jericho, a young mathematician recruited to break German Shark code. Jericho had and "extra 2%" of talent. What exactly those 2% are? It is Jericho's ability to see Shark code not as a separate system of scrambled symbols, but as an integral part of larger system (e.g. German military communication system). The broader vision allowed Jericho to find elegant and simple ways to break code. Harris' description of Jericho's efforts is captivating.
Second, Guy Logie, a head of cryptanalysts and Jericho's boss, deserves a closer look for his low-key, effective leadership under extreme pressure. Harris gave a lively description of Logie's no-nonsense strategies to achieve respect of his most problematic and creative subordinate Tom Jericho. The story of their strange friendship is more useful to read than many books on management.
Third, none of the characters in the book were moved by purely altruistic motives. The author structured a web of personal hidden agendas, fears, passions and insecurities into realistic psychological background.
All in all, Enigma is a top pick for those, who love solidly conceived plot with refined details.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Communicates the Challenges, Captures the Thrill, October 22, 2001

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Enigma (Mass Market Paperback)

For captivating true life signals intelligence there are several books one can go to, including those by James Bamford on the American system (Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets) but for really getting into the enormity of the challenges and the thrill of the individual code-breakers when they succeeded, this is the book I recommend.

It completely ignores the enormous contributions made by the Poles (who gave the English two Enigma machines at the beginning of the war) as well as the heroic deeds of Tommy Brown (youngest George Medal winner at 16, survived with code materials taken from a sinking German ship), but I have found no better novel to communicate the absolute goose-bump emotional roller-coaster that the Bletchley Park gang experienced.

If anything, this novel convey a human side to code-breaking that offsets the modern-day obsession with massive computers.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars another thoughtful thriller, October 5, 2000

By	Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Enigma (Mass Market Paperback)

In his terrific speculative thriller, Fatherland, Robert Harris plopped us down in the middle of an alternate reality where Nazi Germany had won a stalemate with the United States and Hitler was about to celebrate his 75th birthday in 1964. The book was plausible and very exciting, but best of all it confronted readers with the similarity between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and implicitly asked why the west fought one and aided the other. Now, in Enigma, he shows that he can work equally effectively against the backdrop of actual events and still broach big ideas.

It's February, 1943 and Tom Jericho, a brilliant young Cambridge mathematician and protégé of Alan Turing, has already suffered one nervous breakdown under the pressure of working to break secret Nazi codes. Now he's summoned back to Bletchley Park because the U-boat code, known as Shark, which was previously decrypted due to an epiphany of his, has suddenly been changed just as an enormous supply convoy from America is setting out for Britain. Despite his delicate mental state, it's felt that he'll be valuable just for his totemic value and to reassure the higher-ups that all the best men are working on the problem.

Complicating matters is the disappearance of Jericho's ex-girlfriend, Claire Romilly, who it appears may have tipped off the Germans that their codes had been cracked. At any rate, some must have betrayed this vital secret, and, even as the supply convoy sails towards one of the biggest U-boat wolfpacks ever assembled, Jericho sets out to discover who the traitor is and where Claire has disappeared too.

The author too manages a difficult feat as he balances the mystery plot with healthy dollops of WWII history and cryptographic technique. Jericho's quest for Claire is exciting enough, but it's the details about the Enigma machines, which produced what the Nazis believed to be an unbreakable codes, and the British success in breaking them anyway, which really make for fascinating reading. Then, as if that weren't enough, when Harris introduces the reason that someone at Bletchley would assist the Nazis, he returns to some of the troubling moral and geopolitical questions that he first raised in Fatherland. It all makes for a thoughtful thriller that entertains, enlightens and provokes the reader.

GRADE : A-