The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life by Amy Butler Greenfield

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life by Amy Butler Greenfield Elizabeth Bush Greenfield, Amy Butler The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life. Random House Studio, 2021 [336p] illus. with photographs Library ed. ISBN 9780593127209 $21.99 Trade ed. ISBN 9780593127193 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593127216 $11.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 6-12 Dissatisfied with her first teaching experience but beholden to her father for his college tuition loan, Elizebeth Smith left small-town Indiana for big city Chicago in search of work. A chance exchange about Shakespeare with an employee at the Newberry Library swept her into contact with George Fabyan, eccentric—and soon to prove sinister—owner of an estate at which he advanced the research of scholars who shared his interests and tolerated his oddities. Smith was set to work culling through a Shakespeare First Folio to ferret out what was believed to be the Francis Bacon cipher and, through it, evidence that he was the true author of famously miscredited work. The project was a dud, but the cipher work opened the door to Smith’s future career; together with fellow Fabyan employee William Friedman, whom she married, she became a valued asset to the United States government on the brink of entering World War I, and the pair established themselves in parallel careers of service as cryptanalysts for military and federal civilian government organizations well beyond World War II. Friedman’s story reads like a gripping novel, with true blue romance, a Machiavellian employer, glass ceilings and uncredited labor, a brilliant husband battling mental illness, and a series of career assignments cracking communications of wartime spies and Prohibition-era bootleggers and gangsters, which often put her life in danger. Greenfield delivers the tale with enthusiasm and narrative flair, including lots of photos of her photogenic subject and fascinating “Code Break” insets in cryptography. A bibliography and source notes are included. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois