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Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945
Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945
Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945
Audiobook20 hours

Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945

Written by Leo Marks

Narrated by Eric Jason Martin

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Between Silk and Cyanide presents the memoir of the man who transformed code-making and code-breaking for the Special Operations Executive in World War Two. Leo Marks later went on to become an award-winning scriptwriter.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 21, 2017
ISBN9781541481657

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Reviews for Between Silk and Cyanide

Rating: 4.109890461538462 out of 5 stars
4/5

182 ratings18 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Lots of subtle dry self-deprecating wit. But it went on too long with too much minutia. Interesting read for a spy fan.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Terrible narrator. Why on earth was it narrated by an American?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another WWII book that's quite different. Unbelievable that Leo Marks was a master cryptographer and was only in his 20's. Irreverent, funny, sarcastic and readable describing very hard to describe methods of encrypting agents messages and the value of communications in war and peace time.This on will move along to a non-BC reader in Utah.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    British codebreaker’s memoir of WWII, where he tried to keep agents safe and occasionally succeeded. Dry British humor and lots of bureaucratic infighting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A good book and generally interesting but too long
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have just started this book and I'm really enjoying the author's style of writing. It is lively and funny.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the best books I've read all year.

    The memoir of Leo Marks. A code breaker/code maker for the SOE during WWII in Britain. Bloody brilliant chap with a hilarious sense of dry, wry, British humor. A humorous excerpt:
    My long lost corporal was waiting for me outside the NDO's office. His complexion was the colour of his uniform. "Very sorry sir. I was taken short."
    I knew how he felt. I was born short. I thanked him for his help, but he continued standing there. I wondered if he'd taken short again. "Dismiss?" I suggested tentatively?
    He saluted and turned to go. "By the way Corporal, what was wrong with your Sergeant's foot?"
    "He dropped his wife on it sir."
    "Give them both my regards."
    I went inside to face my night.

    He mentions several of the poems he wrote, many were used by agents as past of their poem codes. One I liked:


    I danced two waltzes
    One foxtrot
    And one polka
    With no partner
    That they could see
    And I hope I did not tire you.

    I glided round
    The other ballroom
    The one called life
    Just as alone
    And have to thank you
    For giving me
    The sprinkling of moments
    Which are my place at the table
    In a winner's world.

    Keep a space for me
    On your card
    If you are dancing still.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mark's style is odd, self-deprecating, and elliptical, but this is a gripping read for all that. It brings to life the suspense of wartime espionage, as seen from a distance by a man who developed codes for secret agents to use in the field, trained the agents in those codes, and waited tensely to hear how the agents fared.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good book reminding me of my days in the 'intelligence field', a misnomer if ever there was one. I never really got the hang of the way the different codes worked, but I believe that was intentional....can't have the hoi polloi picking up any ideas now, can we?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This one is absolutely as gripping as any novel I've read. The ending wasn't completely satisfying, but that can easily be forgiven, since the book recounts true events, and life isn't always satisfying. This book is highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed reading this book. It didn't feel like I was reading a book but that I had sat down with Leo Marks and he was telling me stories about his coding work during WWII. This was a fascinating look into the work that SOE did during the war. You can tell that Marks grew close to those he worked with and you could feel his grief when some of his most beloved co-workers were killed. It was heartbreaking reading about those deaths. I loved Leo's sense of humor; even with the seriousness of the war he still managed to make me laugh at odd times throughout the book. I would recommend this book to those wanting to know more about code making during WWII.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Last night I finished my third reading of Between Silk & Cyanide. I was up to the wee hours finishing it up; it is a very hard book to put down. This is the kind of book that you almost regret finishing. Leo Marks was a cryptographer with the British Special Operations Executive during World War II; this book chronicles his experiences during that time. It reads like a James Bond novel, and is made all the more fascinating by the fact that it is non-fiction. Leo Marks was a superior cryptographer. He became head of communications at SOE, where he ultimately transformed code-making techniques, and trained many of the most famous agents of the time in their use.While I didn't know it on my first reading of this book, Leo Marks was also a playwright, albeit largely unknown. He brings to his autobiography a narrative style that is at times self-effacing and humorous, and at others wrenching in the depths of the emotion it conveys.Here, take this excerpt:"For a short while the whole class seemed to be moving in orderly mental convoy towards the promised land of Bletchley. But amongst those potential problem-masters there was one confirmed problem-pupil. I knew that if I didn't break behaviour patterns as well as codes, I would be lucky to last the term - a prospect which made me keep peace with my teachers for a personal best of about a week. The regression started when I felt a code of my own simmering inside me. This unwanted pregnancy was accompanied by morning sickness which took the form of questioning the quality of the exercises which were supposed to extend us. I was convinced that the school's methods of teaching would be better suited to a crash course in accountancy. The decline was irreversible..."Hard to believe the man found little success as a playwright, but, then, screenplays are not a medium well-suited to prose. He should have become a novelist.The first time I read Between Silk & Cyanide, I had no idea what a significant impact its author, Leo Marks, had made. In his book he is self-effacing to the extreme, poking fun at SOE, his superiors within that organization, and most especially himself. So it was not until after my first reading of the book, when curiosity led me to Google him, that I realized that he single-handedly changed the way the British managed their codes and the agents using them in World War II.It reads like the plot of a Jack Higgins novel. This book has everything you’d expect to find in a novel. It has intrigue, excitement, adventure. But it packs an emotional punch that is wholly unexpected.At the beginning of the book, Leo Marks is young. Impulsive, impetuous, brash, and convinced of his own correctness. At the end, he's still young in years; this book covers a span of only a handful of years, so the author was entering his mid-twenties when the war ended. Still impulsive and impetuous (though more inclined to spare at least a moment's thought to something stupid before he actually does it), he is also tired. The kind of bone-deep weariness that comes from life's more difficult experiences, rather than from physical labor. And he's disgusted and a little angry, after so long a time trying to work around politics and infighting in his efforts to keep agents alive.During the war, he fell in love for the first time, and lost that love. His best friend, Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas, an SOE agent, is captured by the Nazis and tortured, and returns from captivity at the end of the war an old man in a young man's skin. Aside - Tommy's Google entry doesn't do him justice, but check it out anyway. He was a true-blue hero.The author learned to love codes at the age of 8 in his father's book store, 84 Charing Cross Road (yes, that 84 Charing Cross Road). He loved puzzles and codes. But at the end of the war he walked away from them without a backward glance. But the war, such a small fraction of his life in years, obviously left an indelible impression, and nearly forty years later, he wrote this book. At the time, some of what he described was still so sensitive that it was not until 1998 that the British government allowed it to be published. Fortunate for us that they finally did.I read a lot of history. In particular (though not exclusively), a lot of military history. This book is one of the finest examples of the genre I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The excerpts I've shared with you can give only a glimmer of the true impact of this book; it has to be read to be fully experienced, and it is an experience well worth the time. I haven't done it justice; it is impossible to do so. I hope you'll read the book and see for yourself.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I absolutely loved this book. The personal story of a British codemaker in World War 2, this vivid diary is extremely entertaining. The author provides lots of information and thinking around the making and breaking of codes -- if you are a "puzzle person" as am I, these parts in particular will be riveting. At times quite honest, at times self serving, it's a great read that leaves you with a twinkle in your eye.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The guy has a bit of an ego, and the book is too cutsey, but Marks is a sucessful screenwriter and it reads well. I would recommend this for anyone looking to learn more about cryptography. It makes the operational issues of creating and analyzing encry
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is one of the best books on the history of World War 2 that I have ever read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When this book was published one reviewer said "if you only buy one book this year buy this".Only a select few books deserve this praise, this is one of them.In the cliche stranger than fiction Leo Marks,son of the famous bookseller of 84B Charing Cross road tells of his work as a code breaker with the organisation responsible for agents sent to occupied France in the 2nd world war. But it is not the events but the style,wit and quality of the prose that grips you from the 1st word to the last. If you possibly can get hold of this book and read it, you wont regret it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Marks, Leo. Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941--1945. The Free Press, New York, 1998. A can't-put-it-down book! Marks's style is light and engaging (perhaps too light? Things went too fast in the beginning). I was drawn in and captivated by the story of deception, codemaking, and the utterly overwhelming heroics of WWII. Initially, I was disappointed because he didn't go into the details of how the codes worked. By the end, I cared too much about the lives of the agents in the field to care.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The author was a very young cryptographic expert for SOE during World War II, and was in charge of ensuring the security of the codes the agents being sent into occupied Europe were given to use when they sent back radio messages. A well-known story, but written from a unique viewpoint and in a personal and sometimes very emotional style.