by Leo Marks
7. A sketch of Violette Szabo (taken from a wartime photograph).
All three images were painted and drawn by the author’s wife, the artist Elena Gaussen Marks.
8. Noor Inyat Khan.
9. Tommy. Photograph taken for false identity papers, 1944.
10. The author at Cannes film festival, 1968, taken by Michael Powell, director of the film Peeping Tom.
11. Leo and his wife Elena at a special Forces Reunion dinner, 1982.
12. This article was published first in the Daily Telegraph’s Peterborough column, March 1995.
13. Comparing notes with Huib Lauwers, ‘Ebenezer’ in Holland, March 1995.
14. Ebenezer, painted by Elena Gaussen Marks, March 1995.
15. The famous bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road, where the author broke his first code.
16. Helen Hanff ’s 84 Charing Cross Road by Elena Gaussen Marks.
About the Author
Leo Marks’s father was the founder and owner of the bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road, which was made famous by Helene Hanff’s book. Leo’s disclosures about life inside 84 are just one of the many surprises of Between Silk and Cyanide. Leo himself is a legend both as a cryptographer and as a scriptwriter. His most famous work, Peeping Tom, a terrifying thriller about a killer obsessed with photographing the fear on the faces of the beautiful women he is about to murder, is a cult classic of 1960s cinema. He was also the voice of Satan in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ.
More from the reviews:
‘An irrepressibly witty and readable chronicle of a Candide in the madhouse of secret bureaucracy … at the age of 20, Leo Marks already had the fascination with character, the gift with words and the taste for black humour which inspire this book. A comedy about the British at war, this book ranks with the fiction of Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh. It’s made up of reconstructed dialogue and amazing anecdote, but it seems that it is pretty faithful to what really went on… . Many readers who think they are allergic to maths will be astounded to find themselves reading and even grasping the devilish poetry of figure-deciphering… . But at the centre of the book is the black mystery of the Englandspiel, the worst disaster of Britain’s secret war … his poem went with Violette Szabo into France. “The life that I have / is all that I have …” gets all the loss and hope of that war into a few lines. The fun and satire of Between Silk and Cyanide sparkle against a background of anger and grief.’
NEAL ASCHERSON, Observer
‘Fascinating and poignant… . Violette Szabo is remembered and her murderers are not, not for her courage – but because Leo Marks immortalised his feelings for a young woman in poetry that has carved her name in history. Between Silk and Cyanide is a bigger book than this moving story. It tells how people like Leo Marks, and the hundreds of FANYs who worked with them round the clock deciphering messages, helped to shorten the war. Their unrelenting dedication, and Leo’s own brilliance as a cryptographer can only now be told because the authorities gave clearance for some very sensitive material. If you only buy one book this year, make it this.’
PAUL ROUTLEDGE, Daily Mirror
‘A remarkable and exciting account told with clarity and honesty… . A demanding but thrilling read.’
PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY, Mail on Sunday
‘Brilliant… . Both a technical cryptography manual and a deft, poem-packed portrait of life inside SOE.’
QUENTIN LETTS, Daily Telegraph
‘An impressive achievement… . Particularly good at rendering the nuances of office politics, Marks manages to carry even readers not mathematically minded through the intricacies of these systems … acutely sensitive to the personalities he dealt with in wartime – with not just passing glimpses but moving portraits… . Marks has produced a document not just of historical importance but of human importance too.’
IAN OUSBY, TLS
‘Entertaining, lightly written and often funny book… . Most moving.’
ANTHONY ROUSE, Spectator
‘Leo Marks’ highly readable book links the business of codes and ciphers to the fates of individual agents and operations, thus transforming his tale into a human drama… . Words are in Marks’ blood.’
DAVID STAEFORD, The Times
‘A light witty style, completely authentic… . Every word is carefully chosen.’
KEREN DAVID, Scotsman
‘Labyrinthine and quirkily iconoclastic.’
Esquire
Copyright
First published in 2007
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QC
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2013
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has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
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and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 978-0-7524-7160-0
MOBI ISBN 978-0-7524-7159-4
Original typesetting by The History Press
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk