Parents' Guide to The Enigma Game: Code Name Verity, Book 4

Parents need to know that The Enigma Game is a thrilling,complex, nuanced, and ultimately uplifting story of various characters, mostly teens and mostly "outsiders" of one type or another, who find themselves thrown together in an all-out effort to stop the Nazis in the early days of World War II. Some of its characters have appeared previously in Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief, but the story works well on its own, and its central character, 15-year-old, biracial, Jamaican-born, and newly orphaned Louisa, is an inspiration as she tries to make her way, do the right thing, and use her love of music, her fascination with flying, and her considerable brain to help the war effort and support her friends. Many of the characters are on the receiving end of prejudice. For example, Ellen, who's a Traveller but currently blending in due to her RAF uniform, wonders how Louisa manages to deal with being visibly different from the locals, including a small boy who screams because he's never seen a Black person before and thinks she must be a German. Much of the story takes place in and around a pub in a remote Scottish village that's home to an air base. There's much smoking and drinking by adult and teen airmen, many of whom don't return, and in one shocking, drunken scene they start beating each other up and slinging words like "Yid!" and "Sheep-shagger!" Characters are complex and capable of surprises. Throughout, there is risk, danger, death, and heroism. Also harrowing loss, enduring friendship, love, and creative thinking.