The Enigma Effect

Librarian Patton Harcourt's quiet life in rural North Carolina ends abruptly when a sniper opens fire on her home. She ends up alongside Nemo, a professional assassin, and the two are pulled into a tangle of international treachery. Hunted by two German killers, they uncover a message encrypted with Enigma seventy-five years earlier. It leads them to Bletchley Park in England, where they seek out Ruthie Drinkwater, a codebreaker who was once romantically involved with Patton.

Their codebreaking work at Bletchley remains unfinished as they flee, and the Germans pursuing them serve Ingrid Weiss, a woman promoting a white-supremacist cause. Her grandfather had been a protégé of Heinrich Himmler, and she is following the same path. Once Patton, Nemo, and Ruthie crack the code, they find a claim that Himmler had mastered alchemy. Patton and Nemo find it hard to believe, but they are determined to keep Weiss from gaining the limitless wealth she would use to advance her agenda.

To obtain a book owned by Weiss, the group travels to Munich, where a break-in at her home plunges them into mortal danger. The Enigma message then guides them to Prague and on to the Italian Alps. What awaits them there draws the attention of Weiss and the Nazis, and the group must rely on allies from their past to survive the confrontation that follows.