Image: Gill Books
The cover of Code Breaker did its job in Easons at Christmas and the back cover made my purchasing decision easy. An Irish polymath librarian versus a Nazi spy that infiltrated Ireland during World War II, of course I wanted to read about that! :-)
I recently finished reading Code Breaker and I can recommend it.
Even though the cover and back-cover slightly over-sell the book, it is a fascinating account of the work of Richard Hayes and G2 Irish Army Intelligence during World War II, as well as the numerous, and sometimes hilarious, attempts by the Abwehr and the Nazis at infiltrating Ireland using undercover spies. While the book is titled towards the story of Ireland's code breaker, it is much more than that and gives a wide overview of the activities of German spies in Ireland in collaboration with former and current republicans, Richard Hayes' and the Irish Authorities' attempts at detecting, capturing and interrogating them, and how this all affected the delicate balance of Irish neutrality during The Emergency.
