The Rose Code

by Kate Quinn

Women”—Dilly leveled a finger at Beth—“are more flexible, less competitive, and more inclined to get on with the job in hand. They pay more attention to detail, probably because they’ve been squinting at their knitting and measuring things in kitchens all their lives. They listen. That’s why I like fillies instead of colts, m’dear, not because I’m building a harem. Now, drink your gin.”

Dilly Knox was an amazing historical figure: so absent-minded he forgot to invite his brothers to his own wedding, so brilliant he was recruited for codebreaking work back in the First World War. At first, when I researched the team that really was known as “Dilly's Fillies,” I side-eyed his penchant for recruiting solely young women—but his ladies were adamant that he was no lothario, and they clearly doted on him like an eccentric genius uncle. His belief that female codebreakers brought less ego to their work than male meant that some brilliant women at Bletchley Park got a spectacular chance to prove themselves, and I loved writing him in as Beth's mentor.