I Spy: A Bletchley Park Mystery by Rhian Tracey

 

Bookseller blurb: Twelve-year-old Robyn has grown up in Bletchley Park, where her father works as a driver. When she's not at school, there's nothing she likes more than helping her dad in the garages. Then the war begins and everything at Bletchley changes. Robyn is assigned to help with the carrier pigeons that take messages to the Allies. But first, she must sign the Official Secrets Act and is ordered not to leave the grounds of the park. While Bletchley is buzzing with people recruited for the war effort and all eyes are on the skies, Robyn becomes convinced that there's something sinister going on within Bletchley Park itself. Together with her friends Mary and Ned, Robyn resolves to uncover the enemy in their midst . . .  This is a part of World War II UK history that is probably unfamiliar to many young readers of books about WWII.  

It is my blog policy to only talk here about books I have loved or at least enjoyed reading. I didn't really enjoy I Spy mainly because Robyn is such an unappealing child and so I became annoyed at the way she just kept 'breaking rules'. One Good Readers reviewer said "One of the first thoughts I had of young Robyn was that she would not be a good role model for other children. Ignoring her parent's rules and the strict rules and regulations of the Bletchley Park security officers. Plus, one of the first things she does is steal a bike, and yes, she gets a reprimand, but still."

I do like the cover and I always on the hunt for good stories about World War II, but I took over a week to read this book - it just didn't hold my attention. I did enjoy reading about the pigeons and the women workers at Bletchley Park. I was fairly sure Robyn was on the wrong track in her identification of the spy in their midst, so the ending was both expected but also a surprise. 

Listen to an audio sample from the first chapter.

There are three main historical topics mentioned in this book:

• Pigeons and their use to send and deliver messages during WWII
• The work at Bletchley Park to break German codes and especially the use of the Enigma machine
• The request by Winston Churchill to move and save precious artworks taking pieces from big cities such as London to more secure and secret locations (sorry this is a story spoiler).

Here are some other books about pigeons and World War II

Here is a splendid book about the way art was protected during the war