As a reminder, my The Killing Code review contains links to affiliate sites. Clicking and purchasing at these links helps fund A Modest Hiccup.
I’m excited to join TBR and Beyond Tours‘ The Killing Code Tour! Please check out the full schedule to visit my fabulous fellow hosts.
Goodreads Synopsis:
A historical mystery about a girl who risks everything to track down a vicious serial killer, for fans of The Enigma Game and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.
Virginia, 1943: World War II is raging in Europe and on the Pacific front when Kit Sutherland is recruited to help the war effort as a codebreaker at Arlington Hall, a former girls’ college now serving as the site of a secret US Signals Intelligence facility in Virginia. But Kit is soon involved in another kind of fight: Government girls are being brutally murdered in Washington DC, and when Kit stumbles onto a bloody homicide scene, she is drawn into the hunt for the killer.
To find the man responsible for the gruesome murders and bring him to justice, Kit joins forces with other female codebreakers at Arlington Hall—gossip queen Dottie Crockford, sharp-tongued intelligence maven Moya Kershaw, and cleverly resourceful Violet DuLac from the segregated codebreaking unit. But as the girls begin to work together and develop friendships—and romance—that they never expected, two things begin to come clear: the murderer they’re hunting is closing in on them…and Kit is hiding a dangerous secret.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ My THE KILLING CODE Review:
Murder mystery, historical fiction…love story? The Killing Code is hard to fit into just one genre box!
I devoured this novel, unraveling each character’s history and motivations like so many lines of code. Kit, Dottie, Moya, and Violet are loveable characters brought together during the war effort to help crack coded transmissions from overseas – only to have a threat appear on their doorsteps. Someone is killing women stepping up from the shadows and fear builds as they race to figure out who is behind these senseless killings.
Featuring the dual urgency of a murder on the loose and codebreaking, this novel also deftly incorporated historical issues and a romantic side plot to round out its must-read status on your TBR! I almost always love “let’s just solve it ourselves!” mysteries – especially featuring such a rich cast of characters and The Killing Code did not disappoint.
There were a couple of hiccups where things got a little too filled with hijinks in an otherwise sharper and darker YA Mystery than fans of Karen McManus are used to.
Thanks to TBR & Beyond Tours for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Order Your Copy of The Killing Code:
Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indigo | IndieBound
Meet Author Ellie Marney:
Ellie Marney is a New York Times bestselling and multi-award-winning crime author who has gone behind the scenes at the Westminster Mortuary in London and interviewed forensic and technical specialists around the world in pursuit of just the right details for her brand of pulse-pounding thrillers.
Her titles include The Killing Code, None Shall Sleep, the Every trilogy, No Limits, White Night and the Circus Hearts series. She has lived in Indonesia, India and Singapore, and is now based in Australia with her partner and their four sons.
Ellie has been involved in the creation of the national campaign called #LoveOzYA to promote and advocate for Australian YA literature. She contributed to the critically-acclaimed Begin End Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, and co-runs the popular #LoveOzYAbookclub online. She also co-coordinates an online info-sharing group for Australian women self-publishers. She teaches writing and publishing through Writers Victoria, advocates for Australian women’s writing as a Stella Ambassador in schools, and is a regular speaker at festivals and events.