A few tales from ‘The Secret Keeper’
New book shines the light on Canadian women’s contributions to the Second World War
Internationally bestselling author Genevieve Graham’s new book “The Secret Keeper,” published by Simon and Schuster, will be released Thursday.
This historical novel is about twin sisters who join the WRENS — Dorothy, or Dot, who works as a code breaker at Whitby’s Camp X, the famed centre for espionage training, and Margaret, or Dash, who becomes a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary in England.
In the book, Graham shines a light on the contributions of women during the Second World War. She was inspired to write the book after watching a CBC video called “Listeners.”
“We know so much about the Second World War, but so little about women’s contributions to it,” she says. “This was the first time Canadian women officially served in the military, and that created a major shift in society. Tens of thousands of women signed up and were put in traditionally male jobs to ‘free a man to serve.’ ”
Graham did a lot of research while writing the book, including learning Morse code herself to better explain it to readers.
“Learning Morse code turned out to be a really fun challenge,” she says. “In the book, I made it easy for readers to understand the general idea by having Dot’s father explain it to very young children.”
Those who listened to the Morse code messages were called “listeners,’ and those who had a special talent for seeing the patterns behind the dots and dashes, would be channelled into being a code breaker, as in Dot’s case, at Camp X.
They were sworn to secrecy for 40 years, as they were sometimes key players in the course of the war, such as the D-Day invasion. In “The Secret Keeper,” this creates misunderstandings and tension between the sisters and their family members. One character says that “sometimes in war secrets are necessary.”
“Hundreds of people passed through Camp X during the war, including a few notable names such as author Ian Fleming, who shared some of what he’d learned at Camp X in his James Bond novels,” she continues. “British screenwriter Paul Dehn, who wrote the screenplays for many of the James Bond movies, was also at Camp X.”
The other sister, Dash, starts out as a car mechanic and moves on to assembling the Hurricane planes designed by engineer Elsie MacGill at Fort William (now Thunder Bay), then actually flies the planes herself as part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Graham says that MacGill hasn’t received as much recognition as her male counterparts.
“Elsie MacGill, ‘Queen of the Hurricanes’ was the first woman to be admitted to the University of Toronto’s engineering program, and the first in the world to earn a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering,” she says.
“She became partially disabled due to polio, but that didn’t slow her down. In 1938, she accepted the job of chief aeronautical engineer at Canadian Car & Foundry, where she managed 4,500 workers (half of them women) in the construction of 1,451 Hawker Hurricanes for the RAF.”
In her books, Graham has a knack for creating relatable characters across all time periods, portraying her female protagonists and their friends who support each other through many challenges.
Graham is known for breathing life into stories from the past and has written 11 novels of historical fiction, including “The Forgotten Home Child,” which has been optioned for TV, about the Barnardo children, many of whom came to the Peterborough area, “Letters Across the Sea,” “Bluebird” and more.
The Secret Keeper is available in bookstores, libraries, and on Amazon. For more information, please visit www.GenevieveGraham.com, on Twitter and Instagram @GenGrahamAuthor.