WWII American Espionage
The Traitor Beside Her
New Adult, Young Adult, WWII American historical fiction
Dreamscape Media
June 5, 2023
Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook, Audio CD
368
Justine Byrne can't trust the people working beside her. Arlington Hall, a former women's college in Virginia has been taken over by the United States Army where hundreds of men and women work to decode countless pieces of communication coming from the Axis powers. Justine works among them, handling the most sensitive secrets of World War II―but she isn't there to decipher German codes―she's there to find a traitor. Justine keeps her guard up and her ears open, confiding only in her best friend, Georgette, a fluent speaker of Choctaw who is training to work as a code talker. Justine tries to befriend each suspect, believing that the key to finding the spy lies not in cryptography but in understanding how code breakers tick. When young women begin to go missing at Arlington Hall, her deadline for unraveling the web of secrets becomes urgent and one thing remains clear: a single secret in enemy hands could end thousands of lives.
Set during the time of peak United States involvement in World War II, The Traitor Beside Her is a fascinating look into the world of American code breakers. Justine Byrne is a highly educated woman in her twenties who has recently been hired and gone through the initial training as a government agent. When it comes to light that there is an enemy mole working amongst the code breakers of Arlington Hall, Justine and her best freind Georgette go undercover as government employees to help find the traitors and stop them before their actions result in more American deaths.
Kimberley Wetherell narrates The Traitor Beside Her. With a wide array of accents she brings to life a large cast of characters that include young and old, male and female, Americans and foreign born individuals. While I found Kimberley to have great skill to create believable personas there just seemed to be too many characters for just one person to cover effectively in this story. I found myself confusing characters or even having my mind start blending them all together. I would loved to have had Kimberley and a male narrator take us through this action and suspense story.
The Traitor Beside Her highlights a captivating aspect of the American war effort during WWII. I loved the historical component of the book and was fascinated by all of the code breaking details and the complexity of the work that so many young women engaged in for the US Government while living in dorm like conditions at Arlington Hall. It became obvious that their unsung contributions were instrumental in the war effort. I was also intrigued by the plotline to root out the traitor who was tippling off the enemy to the movements of US and allied forces. However, I was disappointed with the relationship plots, especially the one between Justine and her crush/boss. Their’s and the interpersonal buildups of other characters did not seem to amount to much in the end or there were relationships that seemed to materialize out of no where. This left me feeling dumbfounded with it all. Finally, I struggled with the ending that wraps up like a cliffhanger, with an occurance that seems not to fit with the situation of the characters, but with no indication that this a series. I guess we will see if we get to find out what happened to this character.
Overall, The Traitor Besider Her is an interesting book that I might have had a more favorable experience with had I read it instead of listening to it, which again is not a negative reaction to Kimberley’s skill as a narator but more of a casting preference. Mary Ann did a great job researching and provides a detailed window into a time with different societal norms both because of its place in history and because of the toll that wartime took on everyone. If you enjoy historical fiction, especially during the time of WWII, I would recommend you read The Traitor Beside Her.
Tanya’s love for books has been a lifelong passion that she likes sharing with others. Reading is also the thing that relaxes her after a day of juggling the many responsibilities that come with being being wife to an amazing man, mother to four great kids spread around the world, business manager, and farm hand on their place in southwest Missouri; home to Akaushi cattle and a menagerie of pygmy goats, horses, chickens, dogs and cats.
