I feel like the blurb sold a completely different book than what this was. I was expecting a much more straightforward novel about encryption and decoding and maybe some Cold War stuff in between, but this book had next to none of that. This was a disguised biography (of someone who doesn't exist, of course), told by other people. The beginning was somewhat confusing with so much focus on families and generations and if you are not familiar with Chinese names, especially nicknames, you're going to lose track fast like I did. And then so much maths, which I might have enjoyed if it wasn't drowned in flowery prose. I really wish there had been much more stuff about actually breaking codes, about the work, instead of vague "he broke the code, and everything is top secret so you get bits and pieces that have very little to do with anything interesting". This could have been good. And don't come tell me it's just slow and not a western spy novel - Le Carre might be western, and slow, but his books work.