In the Enemy's House by Howard Blum

In the Enemy's House by Howard Blum
336 pages / 11 hrs, 12 mins

"In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner discovered that the KGB was running an extensive network of strategically placed spies inside the United States, whose goal was to infiltrate American intelligence and steal the nation's military and atomic secrets. Over the course of the next decade, he and young FBI supervisor Bob Lampshere worked together on Venona, a top-secret mission to uncover the Soviet agents and protect the Holy Grail of Cold War espionage--the atomic bomb...

"A breathtaking chapter of American history and a page-turning mystery that plays out against the tense, life-and-death gamesmanship of the Cold War, this twisting thriller begins at the end of World War II and leads all the way to the execution of the Rosenbergs--a result that haunted both Gardner and Lampshere to the end of their lives."  --from the publisher

It can't be easy to write about breaking codes and solving puzzles in an engaging way, but Blum managed it very well. Even with lots of real-life characters in the mix, the story is exciting and easy to follow. I give it four out of five stars.

The Winter Fortress by Neal Bascomb

The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb -378 pages

In Nazi-occupied Norway, the Germans planned to exploit production of "heavy water" at  one of the few plants in the world that produced it in order to use it as a stabilizer in a nuclear reaction. This book follows several brave Norwegians who escaped to Great Britain and volunteered to train as commandos to attempt to destroy the Norsk Hydro facility where the isotope was generated. Hitler ordered any captured commandos to be shot, and the Norwegians also had to contend with ferocious winter weather in the region where their raid was to take place. Bascomb's book is well-written and clearly explains the technicalities of the heavy water isotope. The participants in this operation are considered heroes in Norway, and they clearly deserve that title.