National Bestseller

The incredible true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived—the Adam and Eve of the National Security Agency—an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology and used their brainpower to help win World War II
 
In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of an extraordinary woman who played an integral role in our nation’s history, breaking codes and catching spies from the Great War to the Cold War. Fagone reveals how a young Quaker schoolteacher and poetry scholar named Elizebeth Smith helped catch gangsters and smugglers, exposed a Nazi spy ring in South America, and fought a clandestine battle of wits against Hitler’s Reich, cracking multiple versions of its Enigma machine with nothing but pencil and paper. All the while she served as muse to her husband, William, a brilliant codebreaker and master of puzzles who eventually broke Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma—at a terrible cost to his personal life.
Fagone unveils for the first time America’s codebreaking history through the prism of one remarkable woman’s life, bringing into focus the unforgettable events and colorful personalities that shaped the modern intelligence community.
 
Contributor Bio(s)
 
Jason Fagone is a journalist who covers science, technology, and culture. Named one of the “Ten Young Writers on the Rise” by the Columbia Journalism Review, he has written for GQ, Esquire, The Atlantic, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, and Philadelphia magazine. Fagone is also the author of The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies. He lives in Swarthmore, PA.