The public's seemingly insatiable appetite for all things connected with Bletchley Park has been well served in recent times, with many a headline focusing on the Home of the Codebreakers.
From the long-overdue Royal pardon of codebreaker Alan Turing to the restoration of the historic huts on site, and the opening of the new visitor centre by the Duchess of Cambridge.
Most recently The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, has seen the Park under the spotlight.
Now comes a new book, The Debs of Bletchley Park, and Michael Smith's page turner effectively says, 'let's hear it for the girls.'
When Bletchley Park was at its peak, 12,000 people worked there, three quarters of that number were women.
'From the debutantes who chauffeured the boffins to and from work or, like Baroness Trumpington, were employed as filing clerks, to the mass of girls from ordinary working families who operated machines or listed endless streams of figures, together these brave women cracked German messages, largely unaware of the major impact their work was having on the war.'
Smith - whose past page-turners include the Sunday Times number one bestseller Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park - tells the stories of the ladies; how they ended up at the Park, and the lives they left behind in order to pitch up for the war effort.
From the aforementioned Baroness Trumpington to the 'Stripper' and many others who contributed to the Park: 'All these women were essential cogs in a very large machine that ensured the codebreakers' vital intelligence reached the commanders who used it to help win the war,' says the synopsis. For the full story you need to make a copy of The Debs of Bletchley Park your own.
And so you should - it is wonderfully written, and gives a very welcome tip of the hat to the ladies who gave so much to the war effort.
A small selection of pictures - the Debutantes being given a lesson in curtseying, the codebreakers arriving at the Park in 1939 to name a couple of examples, are great additions, perfectly complementing the words.
The book is published by Aurum Press at £20.
Total MK has five copies of the book up for grabs in this week's competition.
To be in with a chance of winning a copy, simply email your details - name, address and a daytime telephone number to: info@totalmk.co.uk putting 'Bletchley Park book for me' in the subject box.
The first entries selected at random on January 21, 2015 will each take a copy. Good luck!
