Code Name Verity

Narrated by the protagonists, this story has a distinct young person’s tone but the tale it tells is definitely an adult one. Set against the background of the Second World War it is a story of friendship, one so strong that in the end it results in death but not perhaps as one would perceive at the outset.

It is told in two parts, firstly by Julie and then by Maddie. These two young women meet up during the war. Julie is a Scottish aristocrat, Maddie from a working class home, but they become firm friends. By chance Maddie then flies her friend to France to work there for Special Operations Executive (SOE). But things go awry and the plane crash lands after Julie has parachuted out.Maddie is found by the Resistance but Julie is caught when she makes a fatal mistake: she looks the wrong way for traffic.The story starts with Julie confessing, having revealed the codes for the eleven wireless sets, the wreckage of which are found in the burnt out plane. Or is she? The ‘confession’ is in the form of a first person narrative telling of her friendship with Maddie and the difficulties she has with the German interrogator and his assistant, Frau Engel. Maddie picks up the story in the second part of the book, but this time it is told from a very different angle. At the book's climax, the Resistance carry out a daring raid on a convoy taking Julie and other prisoners to a concentration camp, though this goes disastrously wrong.

This book takes its time to unravel the story, slowly gripping the reader who wonders if Julie is really the traitor she seems, and indeed, until the denouement there is no hint of the truth. Maddie is placed in a heartbreaking predicament and though this is a bit incredible, it makes for a rattling good story. Both young women are strong characters, and the class divide is credibly drawn as the war brings together disparate people. The wartime background is convincing throughout, catching the ephemeral nature of life at that time, and the whole makes for an unputdownable book.