Lagercrantz excellently captures the fearful thinking, homophobic culture and larger than life personalities of England during WWII

His brilliant descriptions of Alan Turing made me feel I was there seeing and hearing Turing. Amazing!

But reading endlessly about Leonard Corell's every thought or feeling; large or small, was irritating and tedious.

Mais une chose restera ancrée en moi. C'est l'idée que ce qu'on appelle l'âme ne peut être essentiellement différent du corps ou d'ailleurs de l'univers. Nous sommes tous des morceaux de la même étole en train d'exploser et, tout comme la matière inanimée est régie par des lois, le vivant doit l'être aussi. Il doit y avoir une structure, une logique. (p322) ( )

Fascinating novel about Alan Turing and his work, made into a journey of investigation by a detective who goes where he shouldn't really have. Contacts (fictional) former colleagues of Turing and learns about higher mathematics. And comes to modify his views about homosexuality. Insights into gay life which make it so surprising that it is a translation from Swedish. Found the end a bit disappointing, it wasn't what I was expecting.

I came to this after reading several other recent novels which feature/discuss Alan Turing (Murmurs, Machines Like Me, Frankissstein, for example). But actually this really isn't about Turing at all. OK, it starts with his suicide and towards the end of the book there are a couple of scenes set in Bletchley during the war, but otherwise this is a quiet, introspective novel which centres on the fictional character of Leonard Corell, the first policeman to arrive at the scene of Turing's suicide.

Corell, a young and disillusioned policeman, finds himself digging into Turing's past and seems to understand his character. Corell himself becomes the focus of investigations as his research takes him deeper and deeper into the murky world of coding and espionage.

An enjoyable, if slow, read, this is definitely *not* an 'electrifying thriller'. The figure of Alan Turing haunts the book, but from the shadows, at the margins. It's more of a character study of the young Corell, but also about how one man's legacy has been shaped and reshaped over time. A worthy read, for sure, but perhaps a little too slow for some. ( )

I enjoyed this book. It wasn't meant to be realistic. It was a book of popular science disguised as a novel of postwar England. The realism lay all in the post-war setting. Besides that, there was an almost Virginia Woolf-like focus on the internal life of the main character, and numerous entirely unlikely discussions of Turing's work and thoughts, and when that was too preposterous even for this book, flashbacks. I am eager to read a serious biography of Turing, though. ( )