The Code of Love - Hardcover
An astonishing true tale of secrets, love, and war.
Pamela Kirrage, beautiful and impulsive, met and fell in love with the dashing RAF pilot Donald Hill just months before Hill was shipped off to the Far East to protect the British colonies against Japanese aggression. They exchanged rings the day before he left, a promise to marry as soon as he returned. Little did they know that five years would pass before they saw each other again.
The Code of Love tells the stirring tale of Donald's experiences in the front lines of the Pacific Theater and Pamela's war efforts back in England in a dramatic, deeply moving portrayal of the World War II era and its aftermath. On the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they also moved into Hong Kong, where Donald had the misfortune to be part of a small group of officers in charge of a meager five planes. He spent the rest of the war in a POW camp, keeping a journal of the indignities he faced in complex, nearly unbreakable code. Meanwhile, Pamela was swept into the frantic swirl of a wartime society eager to live to the fullest. She cooked meals for secret agents and danced the nights away with handsome soldiers. But her love for Donald never altered, and the two married within weeks of Donald's release at the end of the war. The scars Hill bore from his years of emotional encoding would eventually wear away at their relationship, though never their love.
Andro Linklater skillfully weaves the many fascinating parts of this tale together into an unforgettable narrative. From the mesmerizing siege of Hong Kong, to the romantic roller coaster of a truly great love, to the unbelievable efforts of the mathematician who finally cracked the encoded diary, The Code of Love is storytelling at its very finest.
Pamela Kirrage, beautiful and impulsive, met and fell in love with the dashing RAF pilot Donald Hill just months before Hill was shipped off to the Far East to protect the British colonies against Japanese aggression. They exchanged rings the day before he left, a promise to marry as soon as he returned. Little did they know that five years would pass before they saw each other again.
The Code of Love tells the stirring tale of Donald's experiences in the front lines of the Pacific Theater and Pamela's war efforts back in England in a dramatic, deeply moving portrayal of the World War II era and its aftermath. On the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they also moved into Hong Kong, where Donald had the misfortune to be part of a small group of officers in charge of a meager five planes. He spent the rest of the war in a POW camp, keeping a journal of the indignities he faced in complex, nearly unbreakable code. Meanwhile, Pamela was swept into the frantic swirl of a wartime society eager to live to the fullest. She cooked meals for secret agents and danced the nights away with handsome soldiers. But her love for Donald never altered, and the two married within weeks of Donald's release at the end of the war. The scars Hill bore from his years of emotional encoding would eventually wear away at their relationship, though never their love.
Andro Linklater skillfully weaves the many fascinating parts of this tale together into an unforgettable narrative. From the mesmerizing siege of Hong Kong, to the romantic roller coaster of a truly great love, to the unbelievable efforts of the mathematician who finally cracked the encoded diary, The Code of Love is storytelling at its very finest.
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Review:
This affecting story of an English couple's struggle to keep their love alive despite the damage inflicted by the husband's years as a POW reminds us that real-life traumas are more terrible and less easily resolved than those in war movies. Beautiful, vivacious Pamela Kirrage and quiet, intense RAF pilot Donald Hill fell in love in March 1939, less than four months before Donald was shipped out to Singapore. Captured during the fall of Hong Kong, he spent three and a half years in a Japanese camp, where he subsisted on miniscule rations and saw his companions tortured and killed for their part in an underground operation he had also joined. He recorded his experiences in an encoded diary that came to symbolize for Pamela, who married him in 1946, the crippling sorrows he was unable to share with her. The psychological legacy of Donald's imprisonment, particularly his fits of anger and emotional distance, prompted the Hills to quarrel and Pamela to drink. Unable to live together, miserable apart, they divorced in 1978, but remarried a year before Donald's death in 1985. Only when a British mathematician finally cracked the secret code of Donald's diary (keyed to the letters in his and Pamela's names) in 1996 could she wholly understand his private hell. Veteran nonfiction author Andro Linklater ably interweaves three distinct stories: Pamela and Donald's star-crossed romance, the tragic drama of his wartime suffering and endurance, and the gripping, step-by-step adventure of cracking the diary's code. His sad, moving book acknowledges the agony of a generation haunted by wartime horrors it could never discuss, while honoring the power of love to assuage, if not eliminate, emotional pain. --Wendy Smith
From the Back Cover:
“It is impossible to read this book and not be moved.”–Daily Telegraph (London)
“A true romance, evocative of a passing generation and their triumphs and tribulations.”–Kirkus Reviews
"Linklater tells the story with great skill." -The Times (London)
“What makes the book compelling is its sympathy for real people coping with a world conflagration that had nothing to do with them." -The Herald (Scotland)s
“A true romance, evocative of a passing generation and their triumphs and tribulations.”–Kirkus Reviews
"Linklater tells the story with great skill." -The Times (London)
“What makes the book compelling is its sympathy for real people coping with a world conflagration that had nothing to do with them." -The Herald (Scotland)s
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- PublisherDoubleday
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0385501153
- ISBN 13 9780385501156
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages304
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The Code of Love: The True Story of Two Lovers Torn Apart by War (Fine First Edition)
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