The Codebreaker’s Daughter

She’s so obsessed with the history of Civil War spies in her hometown of Gettysburg that one would think locksmith’s daughter Dinah would be able to crack the cipher diary her mother gifted her, but, as with all of Lillian’s expectations, Dinah can’t make sense of it. Having come of age just before the start of World War II, Dinah is recruited in wartime by the OSS on the strength of her undercover reports on the intelligence readiness of U.S. soldiers. She moves to Washington, DC, where her task will be to write fake radio plays intended to demoralize the Nazi forces. Dinah soon becomes convinced that someone is following her; upon informing her mother, Lillian’s fear that someone will uncover mental illness in the family causes a deeper rift between them. Little does Dinah know that her prim, safety-conscious mother was on the forefront of U.S. codebreaking during the last world war and that she understands the covert life better than Dinah could imagine. Alternating between Dinah’s Washington adventures and Lillian’s nontraditional upbringing in an eccentric millionaire’s Midwest compound, this book has no shortage of intrigue and betrayal.