Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity

Cover of the 2012 Electric Monkey UK edition.
Author	Elizabeth E. Wein
Language	English
Genre	Young adult fiction Historical fiction Thriller
Publisher	Hyperion Books
Publication date	May 15, 2012
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	451
ISBN	978-1423152194
OCLC	748286341
LC Class	PZ7.W4358 Cp 2012
Followed by	Rose Under Fire

Code Name Verity is a young adult historical novel by Elizabeth Wein that was published in 2012. It focuses on the friendship between two young British women, one English and one Scottish, in World War II – a spy captured by the Nazis in German-occupied France and the pilot who brought her there. It was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book in 2013, and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

A loose sequel, Rose Under Fire, was published in 2013. A prequel novel, The Pearl Thief, was published in May 2017; it is a mystery involving Code Name Verity's protagonist Julie one year before the war starts.

Plot

In 1943 Nazi-occupied France, a British Lysander spy plane crashes in the fictional town of Ormaie. On board are two best friends, a pilot (Maddie, code name: Kittyhawk) and a spy (Julie, code name: Verity). The latter is soon captured by Nazi authorities, detained in a former hotel, and forced to write a confession detailing the British war effort, which she decides to write in the form of a novel. Through her confession, she tells the story of her friendship with Maddie, the pilot, and how she came to enter France in the first place. Also, scattered throughout the confession are hints about the hotel/prison, like (as with all the prisoners' rooms, my window has been boarded shut). In the second part of the plot, the story is told from Maddie's point of view, and reveals the events that transpired after the plane crash that left both women in France, and her plan to find Verity and bring her back home. In the end, Maddie kills Julie to prevent her from being tortured or sent Nacht und Nebel to Natweiler-Struthof as a specimen for medical experiments. After that, Maddie receives Julie's confession from Engel, a chemist at the hotel/prison who has had a crisis of conscience, and she and the French Resistance use the hints about the prison to blow the hotel, which the Nazis also use as their center of operations. After that, Maddie is flown back to England by Jamie, Julie's brother, and he and Maddie are sweet on each other. In England, she is acquitted of the murder of Julia Lindsay MacKenzie Wallace Beaufort-Stuart.

Characters

Julie/Queenie/Eva Seiler/Julia Lindsay MacKenzie Wallace Beaufort-Stuart

Narrates the first part of the book; has ancestors connected to Scottish royalty; has a French grandmother; is a SOE agent who is caputred by the Gestapo after being sent to France; knows French and German as well as English

Maddie/Maddie Brodatt

A British Jew living in Manchester who joins the British WAAF; is the main character of the book; narrates the second part of the book; flies Julie to France

von Linden/Hauptsturmführer von Linden

Head of the Gestapo's Ormaie office; interrogates all of the prisoners; used to be headmaster of a boy's school in Berlin before the war; committs suicide at the end of the book

Thibault/Scharführer Thibault/Etienne Thibault

An assistant at the Ormaie Gestapo prison

Engel/Fräulein Engel/Miss Engel/Anna Engel

The doctor at the Ormaie Gestapo prison; knows English as well as German; learned chemistry in Chicago; has a crisis of conscience at the end of the book and ends up helping Maddie and the French resistance blow up the Ormaie Gestapo headquarters.

Marie

A captured French Resistance fighter; gets guillotined at the end of the first part of the book

Paul

Head of the Damsk (Ormaie) circuit of the French Resistance; a womanizing lech; gets killed by the Gestapo when the French Resistance blows up a bridge<//dt>

Georgia Penn

Goes into Gestapo prisons to ascertain the location of Gestapo prisoners for the French Resistance; makes anti-war broadcasts designed to make American soldiers feel homesick to cover up this activity

Critical reception

Code Name Verity received critical acclaim. The New York Times praised it as "a fiendishly plotted mind game of a novel, the kind you have to read twice", and Kirkus Reviews called it a "carefully researched, precisely written tour de force". Code Name Verity is one of five young adult novels published in 2012 to receive starred reviews in all six trade journals.

The novel won the 2013 Michael L. Printz Honor Book, the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel, and the Golden Kite Honor in 2013. It was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.