Title: Code Name Verity
Author: Elizabeth Wein
Publisher: Hyperion Books
Publication Date: May 15, 2012
Ratings: 4/5
Plot ‘synopsis’ from GoodReads (I can’t even begin to summarize the plot for fear I’ll give something away):
I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.
That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.
He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.
We are a sensational team.
Book Review
Code Name Verity has put me in somewhat of an awkward position. It’s only May, and already I have read the best book I will read all year. It’s also the first book I have felt compelled to review in the midst of a lot of upheaval and extra work at my former job and amidst the transition to a new, wonderful but very demanding, career. Code Name Verity has set the bar so high that I may have to take a reading vacation to appreciate the next book fairly.
Ms. Wein’s plotting is impeccable. If you love twists and turns and revelations that have you scrambling back to the beginning to see where the author has dropped clues and foreshadowed in so subtle a way that you didn’t even notice it to begin with, this is your book.
Code Name Verity has adventure, suspense, strong female protagonists, three-dimensional characters (even the most vile of Nazis aren’t cardboard cutouts), and will inspire laughter and tears. I wish I could say more about the main characters and the plot but I would hate to spoil even one aspect for another reader.
This is a Perfect Book. They don’t come along very often in life, so don’t miss out on this one.