The Bletchley Circle: Cracking a Killer's Code

1945, England in the midst of war. Bletchley Park manor has been taken over by the government and houses its Code & Cypher School. In one section, young women work code-busting. After one particularly fruitful day, two friends bed down in their dormitory-like room. Susan, skilled in pattern recognition, says, "Not bad for a few ordinary girls."Millie, a map expert, chuckles, "Ordinary girls! You couldn't be ordinary if you tried."Susan, "When this is over, we'll have to be ordinary."Skip to 9 years later. Susan has fulfilled her prophecy. She is a housewife with a loving professional husband and two young children. She loves her family, but she can't turn off the puzzle-solving part of her brain. The radio announcer says that the police have found the body of a woman, apparently the 4th in a series of similar murders. As they give some details of the latest murder, Susan mutters to herself. Something is not right. This latest murder isn't fitting the pattern unconsciously made by the murderer.Susan's attempt to alert the police to the mistake the murderer made amounts to nothing. No, it amounts to less than nothing, because her husband is embarrassed for her. What makes Susan such a great character is that she is confident in her abilities. When she knows that there is a pattern, she KNOWS it. She cannot let it go, because if they don't find the killer, more women will die. She enlists the help of three cohorts from her code-breaking days, and the Bletchley Circle is born."Cracking a Killer's Code" is a mini-series, covering the investigation of one murderer over a total of 135 minutes. It originally aired in England in September, 2012, in 3 parts.The single-disc DVD release has the 3 parts plus 1 DVD extra. English subtitles are available.The single DVD extra is the 30 minute "Interviews With Cast and Crew". This was enjoyable, with commentators including Guy Burt (writer), Julie Graham (plays Jean), Jake Lushington (producer), Anna Maxwell Martin (plays Susan), Sophie Rundle (plays Lucy), Andy De Emmony (director), Rachel Stirling (plays Millie), John Pardue (director of photography), Anna Robbins (costume designer) and Nike Gunn (designer).Lushington describes Bletchley Circle as "mystery and social drama". These intelligent woman got to flex their mental muscles during the war. Then the war ended and, as Stirling mentions, "they went back to their domestic life and were't allowed to ... claim what was rightly their part in the victory." What a Catch-22. If a former Bletchley "girl" should apply for a job requiring "manly" skills such as math prowess, she isn't allowed to say, "Give me a chance, I busted German codes during the war!" because of the Official Secrets Act. But she isn't taken seriously for any such job without experience, given her gender.When watching the show, I had to keep reminding myself that it was set in the 1950's, because it didn't look like the sharp colorful 50's, it looked like more like the war-torn 40's. Robbins, the costume designer explains, "In actual fact, the colors would have been brighter in the 50's. But I wanted to bring a kind of sepia tone, from the photographs I've got from Bletchley." She also points out something that I didn't notice my first time viewing the show: To keep the idea of the show on mathematical patterns, Robbins deliberately eliminated floral patterns from the clothing. However, please see the interesting comment added to this review, by P.G. Croft. She lived through this time in England.A fabulous, atmospheric, intelligent mystery. Very recommended.Happy Reader

Four women work at Bletchley during WW II. What they contribute to the war effort makes a difference.Flash forward. Now it's the early 1950's. All four have returned to their former - or other occupations.Martin's character, who had planned on traveling to see the world, has married, has two children, a husband, a home.Unfortunately, he has a very limited view of her intelligence. He thinks 'puzzle' books will keep her occupied.In reading about a series of crimes in the newspaper, she becomes convinced the crimes are related, the work of a serial killer.She struggles to get her viewpoint across to men who do not listen, who dismiss her because she is a woman.Martin brilliantly UNDERPLAYS her character. A very quiet, steady performance, connects us with her intelligence, with the diligenceof all four women.Just WELL PLAYED.This was a great deal of fun to watch. Good writing to begin with. Anna Maxwell Martin is superb. Supporting cast is excellent.

This British thriller is based on a very interesting premise- that a serial killer might leave a 'pattern' which someone skilled in breaking codes could follow and thus anticipate what the next step will be. The author (by the way, the series was written, produced, directed and filmed by men) chose as his detectives four women who were code breakers during WW2. Each brings different skills to bear on the solving of the crimes.The acting is excellent and the period (1952) feel of post-war Britain is wonderfully captured. The plot requires one or two leaps of faith, but the tension is maintained throughout. The method of solving the crimes is entirely believable (it actually bears a fairly close resemblance to the first 'Prime Suspect'), but the idea of using trained code-breakers was new to me and is brilliant.Well worth watching- let's hope another show is on the way.

The 4 lead characters are wonderfully disparate yet form a completely credible team. Their appearance, especially in the long winter coats, with hand-bags clutched tightly and hats carried perfectly, took me on a long trip down memory lane (I was about 12 years old at the time of the story). It was all so true to the period: ration books, steam trains, the little grocery stores, and not many cars moving. The story line sucked me right in: disbelief was emphatically suspended.Creating some of the scenes was clearly a struggle occasionally. The double green-screen with actors against a computer-graphic train arrivals and departures board, then overlaid on archive footage of steam trains inside the station, was a brave effort, but didn't quite work. Don't get me wrong: that's a minor quibble. Hunting down the outdoor shooting locations must have been a serious challenge: my congratulations to all the production crew.

This was a wonderful detective story, well written and very well acted. A series of murders brought a group of friends from Bletchley Park days back together again. These women who had been codebreakers in Bletchley Park decided to become detectives, planning their methods for discovery, and checking out different patterns of behaviour, just as they had learned at Bletchley, for the series of murders.Characterisation was well done, context was excellent, as in the right clothes, furniture, food for the era. The relationship between husband and wife (the main character) was particularly well done, with the wife's role carved out very clearly and the husband's reluctant acceptance of her interest in the murders.It's an excellent DVD which I shall watch again, but I am lending it round different family members at the moment.