An engaging tale of some little-known Navy cryptology efforts before World War II.
A lightly fictionalized debut work focuses on pioneering codebreakers in the United States Navy in the years leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack.
Retired radio intelligence officer Zullo combines years of technical expertise with a passion for his subject to craft the first of two volumes about a group of 20th-century Navy cryptologists. Called the On-the-Roof Gang because classes were held on the roof of a Navy building, the effort involved 176 men trained between 1928 and 1941. The radio operators learned techniques of transmission analysis involving Japanese katakana telegraphic code in order to intercept Imperial Japanese navy communications. The key figure in the narrative is Petty Officer Harry Kidder, who in June 1924 is a Morse code expert and Navy radioman in the Philippines. An eager and enthusiastic ham radio amateur, Harry discovers puzzling extra letters in transmissions while pursuing his hobby. Determined to decipher what he has noticed, Harry finds out from a Navy memo that the letters are part of the Japanese katakana alphabet. He then asks a friend’s Japanese wife for assistance. She helps Harry develop a “symbol, sound, and letter chart.” Several months later, Harry, now back in the U.S., meets Lt. Laurance Safford, a radio communications officer in Washington, D.C., assigned to look into Harry’s claims. Alongside the two men is the brilliant Agnes Meyer, working as a civilian in Navy communications, who comes up with the idea to establish a training program, and the On-the-Roof Gang is born. The tale proceeds chronologically, discussing developments in code-breaking techniques during the 1930s as well as military history. Other chapters delve into Harry’s personal life and problems, including an incident in Hawaii that leads to his forced retirement before Safford works to fully reinstate him to the “Research Desk” in 1940.
The intriguing story picks up speed and tension toward the end, as Safford and Navy radio operators search for elusive “Winds Execute” messages that will provide evidence that shows what by then seems inevitable: “War with Japan was imminent and that the Japanese were likely to attack without warning.” While technically historical fiction due to the invented dialogue and scenes, Zullo’s book leans heavily toward nonfiction and will primarily appeal to readers interested in military history, code-breaking, and the war in the Pacific. The narrative sparkles with authenticity and is well organized and clear, enhanced by the judicious use of historical photographs and maps. But the inclusion of each of the 25 training classes tends to slow the dramatic pace. And while the fictional scenes are well crafted, Harry, Safford, and others remain primarily historical figures. Still, history buffs will appreciate the illuminating chronicle, which has been informed by archival sources, first-person accounts, and interviews with veterans. While some details could have been omitted to achieve a tighter story, the author’s firm grasp of events makes for a compelling read. Volume 2 promises to bring readers into the war. Kidder, affectionately known as Pappy, died in 1963 and was inducted into the National Security Agency’s Cryptologic Hall of Honor in 2019.
An engaging tale of some little-known Navy cryptology efforts before World War II. (author’s note, list of abbreviations and acronyms)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73515-270-7
Page Count: 442
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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