A fantastic, humorous, very well-written memoir by Britain's top codemaker and Director of Communications for SOE during WWII. At age 23 Marks leaves home hoping to do his bit for his country. While everyone else in his cryptographic class heads off for Bletchley Park, Leo ends up on Baker Street with the SEO. He becomes the head of code making for the British. His story is honest, self-deprecating, and funny. But he never forgets the agents lost, especially Violette Szabo and Yeo-Thomas. The title refers to a conversation Marks had to convince the purse-string holders to produce his codes on strips of silk. He says the agents lives may very well come down to his silks, or cyanide. Highly recommended. (Read and reviewed in 2017) ( )

Another WWII book that's quite different. Unbelievable that Leo Marks was a master cryptographer and was only in his 20's. Irreverent, funny, sarcastic and readable describing very hard to describe methods of encrypting agents messages and the value of communications in war and peace time.
This on will move along to a non-BC reader in Utah. ( )

British codebreaker’s memoir of WWII, where he tried to keep agents safe and occasionally succeeded. Dry British humor and lots of bureaucratic infighting. ( )

A good book and generally interesting but too long ( )

Was on my tbr for years because someone(s) recommended it as really good. But very hard to read. Important and interesting story to tell but the writing style is so convoluted (and author tried so hard to be amusing) what should be a really suspenseful story loses all tension. ( )