The Woman Who Smashed Codes

This is a gripping true story of one of history’s most overlooked heroines, Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a brilliant linguist turned codebreaker who helped invent modern cryptography while quietly outwitting gangsters, smugglers, and Nazi spies.

Moving from World War I through Prohibition and into World War II, the book traces her rise from literary scholar to master of secret codes, revealing a hidden life spent cracking enemy communications and dismantling spy networks—often without recognition. Smart, fast-paced, and quietly enraging, it’s a story about genius, partnership, and the long history of women doing critical work while someone else gets the credit.