Castlemaine multi-award-winning crime author Ellie Marney is in the US this week for the worldwide release of her latest book The Killing Code based on the inspirational story of the role of female allied codebreakers in World War II.
Prior to jetting off to promote her latest work the local writer, teacher and mother of four sat down with the Mail to chat about her new offering.
The Killing Code is a thrilling standalone historical fiction novel from the author of None Shall Sleep – which recently hit the top 10 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Ellie said everyone knows about Alan Turing’s codebreaking efforts during the war, made popular by Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game. But what people don’t realise is that 70 per cent of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park in the UK and Arlington Hall in the US during World War II were female, and the average age of these female codebreakers was just 19.
The author says that while Alan Turing’s achievements were rightly celebrated, the thousands of women who did much of the “grunt work” and likely help save more than 15 million lives during the war were not permitted to talk about their top-secret work until it was declassified in the mid-1970s. Some of these incredible codegirls took the secrets to their graves.
Ellie said she first heard about the codegirls of Bletchley Park in the UK after seeing the television mini-series The Bletchley Circle.
Fascinated she began researching the codegirls and learned about Arlington Hall.
“The strange ways they were recruited was what first fascinated me about them,” Ellie said.
“They were asked two questions ‘Do you like crosswords?’ and ‘Are you in a relationship?’ Unattached women with an affinity for crosswords, mathematics, science, astronomy or even poetry, language and music were promoted to the next phase of the recruitment process. They needed those who could recognise and identify patterns,” she said.
Ellie discovered that Arlington Hall used to be a ladies finishing school, before being turned into a signal intelligence school.
She wanted to create a novel about these forgotten women of history, centred on a group of smart, stylish, capable and talented young female codebreakers – through the lens of a queer love story. She was in part inspired by real-life historical figure Ann Caracristi, a queer woman who later became the first female deputy director of the America’s National Security Agency.
Ellie’s story follows Kit Sutherland, a young female codebreaker at Arlington Hall who joins forces with other female codebreakers Dottie, Moya and Violet to hunt a vicious murderer.
“It was a really unusual time, not just because of the war but socially. Women were allowed to work, they were allowed to wear pants for the first time. It was a really dynamic time and when the war ended they were expected to just go back to the way things were before. Many like Ann didn’t. They were trailblazers,” she said.
Ellie said she was looking forward to undertaking her first trip to the US to promote the book, incredible considering three of her novels have now been based there.
“Many of my books have been set in places that most people are not permitted to visit such as an FBI training facility, US Marine base Quantico and Arlington Hall, so the description of these places has been largely left to the imagination.
“However, I am really look forward to visiting Vermont up near Canada and conducting research for my next novel,” she said.
Ellie launched The Killing Code with an appearance with a reading and book signing at Books Of Wonder in New York City on Tuesday.
“I also look forward to having a Melbourne launch at Readings in Carlton next Thursday, September 29.”
Locals can get their hands on a copy of The Killing Code at Stonemans Bookroom and online.