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Book Review: Between Silk and Cyanide, by Leo Marks
We have a little time left
The wise doctor said
Unless there’s a miracle
Which is another man’s tradeSelfish as always
I’ve started missing you now
Want to say so
Don’t know how
Want to hug you
Don’t know if I should
Hope you understand
I’d take your place if I could
In 1942, at the age of 22, Leo Marks joined the secret British agency known as Special Operations Executive. He soon became the organization’s Codemaster, responsible for the security of communications with SOE’s resistance and sabotage agents in occupied Europe. He usually briefed these agents — soon-to-be-legendary individuals like Violette Szabo and Forest Yeo-Thomas — before their departures and they all left indelible impressions on him. His memoir is a very emotional book: frequently heartbreaking, sometimes very funny. There is a lot about the technical aspects of cryptography, but these sections can be skipped or skimmed by those who are primarily interested in the powerful human story. Poetry, much of it written by Marks himself, played an important part in SOE’s cryptographic operations and hence plays an important role in this book.