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Summary
Summary
Bletchley Park, 1942: As World War II rages on, Honey Deschamps sits at her type-x machine, tediously transcribing decrypted signals from the German Army, doing her part to assist the British war effort. Halfway across the world, Hitler's armies are marching into Leningrad, leaving a trail of destruction and pillaging the country's most treasured artworks, including the famous Amber Room--the eighth wonder of the world.As reports begin filtering into Bletchley Park about the stolen loot, Honey receives a mysterious package, hand-delivered from a man that she has never seen before who claims that he works at the Park as well. The package is postmarked from Russia, and inside is a small piece of amber. It is just the first of several such packages, and when she examines them together she realizes that someone, relying on her abilities to unravel codes, is trying to tell her something.Honey can't help but fear that the packages are a trap set by the authorities to test her loyalties--surely nothing so valuable could get through the mail during a time of war. And yet, something about the packages reminds her of stories that her brother used to tell her about her absent father, and when her brother is found brutally murdered on his way to visit Honey, she can't help but assume that the events are connected. But at Bletchley Park, secrecy reigns supreme, and she has nowhere to turn for help....
Author Notes
Lucy Ribchester lives in Edinburgh. She was a recipient of a 2013 Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and a 2016 Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award and the Manchester Fiction Prize, and her first novel The Hourglass Factory was longlisted for the Goldsboro HWA Debut Crown. She also writes about dance and circus for Scotland's The List magazine. Find out more at lucyribchester.com.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Honey Deschamps, the heroine of this richly imagined WWII-era thriller from Ribchester (The Hourglass Factory), serves the war effort by typing decrypted German messages at England's Bletchley Park. Walking in the blackout one night, she's startled to encounter a stranger, Felix Plaidstow, who hands her a package he says was misdelivered to his intelligence unit at Bletchley. The parcel, postmarked in Nazi-controlled Leningrad and holding pieces of amber marked with mysterious letters, is followed by similar mailings. Honey is baffled until she thinks of her artistic Russian father, Ivan Korichnev, who left the family just before she was born and whom she knows about only from her brother, Dickie. Ivan became the curator of the Catherine Palace, whose Amber Room has been looted by the Nazis. Is he reaching out, or are Bletchley authorities testing her? When Dickie is murdered and Honey's attraction to Felix deepens, Honey must disentangle love from danger, falsity from truth. Ribchester movingly reflects on trust, illusion, and the stories that connect us to our pasts. Agent: David Forrer, Inkwell Management. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Mysterious parcels that may connect a British World War II typist with her past make a dangerous gift.Honey Deschamps nearly stays for a third viewing of Suspicion at Bletchley's local cinema to keep her mind off ration coupons, her tedious shifts of typing intercepted messages into a code-breaking machine at the Park, and the universal, necessary blackout material that makes the nighttime even darker. But instead she heads back to her bleak billet, where Felix Plaidstow, a stranger with a greyhound named Nijinksy, hands her a package. She gets a first glimpse into a fairy-tale world when she unwraps the parcel with a Leningrad postmark and finds a square of what looks like amber. After the arrival of two more packages, each containing another panel, Honey discovers a coded message carved in the amber. She believes both message and amber are from the father she never knew, a Russian musician and composerat least according to Honey's brother, Dickie. A final package containing a model of a firebird, representing ballet-dancing Dickie's beloved legend, seems to support Honey's theory. In addition to requesting help from her friend and colleague Moira Draper, a brilliant mathematician who made a breakthrough in the important decrypting work at the Park, Honey sends a coded message of her own to Dickie. Unnerving events at Bletchleybeing watched and reported on, a supervisor's assurance that he'll personally shoot anyone betraying the Park's secrets, a glimpse behind the blackout at a strange banquet, Moira's sudden disappearanceadd to Honey's fear that she's in over her head. She can't discuss things even with Felix, who seems to be there when she needs him, whether she's being tested for loyalty or given a key to her true heritage in the form of a smuggled treasure. After a shattering murder and a devastating discovery, the darkness of Bletchley threatens to envelop her altogether. Ribchester (The Hourglass Factory, 2016) convincingly re-creates wartime life and the enclosed world of code-breaking and plays out the suspense in a Hitchcock homage almost worthy of the master. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
At Bletchley Park, Honey Deschamps transcribes decrypted German code on a Typex machine, hour after clacking hour. Warned under pain of death to maintain strict secrecy, even with other employees, Honey has nowhere to turn when she receives mysterious packages postmarked from Russia. The amber chunks inside the parcels have Russian words on them, which would certainly cast suspicion on her not to mention on her romance with Felix Plaidstow, also a secret. In such an atmosphere of intrigue and isolation, Honey spins an elaborate explanatory narrative involving her family, the puzzling amber, Felix's covert handling of valuable paintings, and a friend's disappearance, leaving readers hard-pressed to sort it all out before the surprise ending. Ribchester's second historical novel (following The Hourglass Factory, 2016) is both a quirky satire of WWII spy fiction and a complex, suspenseful story filled with unusual details portraying women's lives during the war. Those intrigued by female spies and cryptography might also enjoy Maggie Hope's new adventure in Susan Elia MacNeal's The Queen's Accomplice (2016) and Rhys Bowen's In Farleigh Field (2017).--Baker, Jen Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
It's 1942, and Honey Deschamps is doing her part for the war effort by transcribing decrypted German messages at Bletchley Park, England, when she's visited by Felix -Plaidstow, who claims to be an intelligence officer. He delivers a package postmarked from occupied Leningrad, Russia, containing a small piece of amber. Then more oddly coded packages begin to arrive; is her loyalty being tested or are the parcels connected to Honey's Russian father, a curator at the Catherine Palace in Leningrad and home of the famous Amber Room, now endangered by the Nazi invasion? When her brother Dickie is murdered and her colleague Moira suddenly disappears, Honey must unravel the truth and determine whom she can trust. -Verdict This sophomore effort by the author of The Hourglass Factory is a fascinating historical mystery that explores issues of secrecy, trust, and families but never impedes the element of almost Hitchcockian suspense. A sure-bet for fans of the PBS series The Bletchley Circle, Susan Elia MacNeal's "Maggie Hope" series, and Rhys Bowen's In Farleigh Field.-ACT © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
