Fall of Man in Wilmslow, David Lagercrantz
Fall of Man in Wilmslow, David Lagercrantz
3 Rating(s)
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Fall of Man in Wilmslow

Author: David Lagercrantz

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 12 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/03/2016


Synopsis

From the author of the #1 best seller The Girl in the Spider’s Web—an electrifying thriller that begins with Alan Turing’s suicide and plunges into a post-war Britain of immeasurable repression, conformity and fear
 
June 8, 1954. Several English nationals have defected to the USSR, while a witch hunt for homosexuals rages across Britain. In these circumstances, no one is surprised when a mathematician by the name of Alan Turing is found dead in his home in the sleepy suburb of Wilmslow. It is widely assumed that he has committed suicide, unable to cope with the humiliation of a criminal conviction for gross indecency. But a young detective constable, Leonard Corell, who once dreamed of a career in higher mathematics, suspects greater forces are involved.

In the face of opposition from his superiors, he begins to assemble the pieces of a puzzle that lead him to one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war: the Bletchley Park operation to crack the Nazis’ Enigma encryption code. Stumbling across evidence of Turing’s genius, and sensing an escape from a narrow life, Corell begins to dig deeper. But in the paranoid, febrile atmosphere of the Cold War, loose cannons cannot be tolerated and Corell soon realizes he has much to learn about the dangers of forbidden knowledge.

He is also about to be rocked by two startling developments in his own life, one of which will find him targeted as a threat to national security.

About David Lagercrantz

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, author David Lagercrantz was given the honor of finishing the fourth in the Millennium trilogy began by author, Stieg Larrson. He was happy to fulfill the request by writing and publishing The Girl in the Spider's Web, a free-standing sequel to the Trilogy. In August 2015, the book was published simultaneously by 26 publishers, in ten languages.

Lagercrantz's breakthrough novel was Fall of Man in Wilmslow. It is a fictional story about the real British mathematician, Alan Turing. In each novel, you can see a common pattern.......great talents who do not follow convention. It makes for creative and interesting themes.

Lagercrantz is the son of the publicist and literary scholar, Olaf Largercrantz, and Martina Ruin, and brother of the Swedish actress and diplomat Marika Lagercrantz. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden with his media executive wife, Anne Lagercrantz, and their three children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sharon on April 01, 2016

The pace of David Lagercrantz's novel 'Fall of Man in Wilmslow' feels frustratingly slow, so slow in fact that In the beginning I didn't think I could continue if the action didn't ratchet up a notch or two. After my initial uncertainty and perseverance, I adjusted and appreciated the languid pace,......more

Goodreads review by Cold War Conversations Podcast on April 23, 2015

This not your usual police procedural, but it’s much the richer for it. World War 2 codebreaker Alan Turing’s death has always been somewhat of a mystery and this novel from Swedish author David Lagercrantz uses his death to tell a story of 1950s Britain gripped by the paranoia of KGB espionage. Youn......more

Goodreads review by Thua on August 31, 2016

I really want to like this book. After watching the Imitation Game, Alan Turing had sparked an interest in me. But this book is devastatingly slow. I feel that the author is almost too detailed in the writing. I was hoping for a story about Alan Turing's than about the fictional character (this case,......more

Goodreads review by Alexw on April 16, 2025

When Swedish native Stieg Larson who wrote the dramatic thrillers starting with Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo passed away the Swedish publisher Norstedts picked Lagercrantz to continue the series. Obviously, the publisher didn't read the above book in their decision to pick Dave as this bears no rese......more

Goodreads review by Tripfiction on July 03, 2015

Novel set in Wilmslow and Bletchley (the Death and Life of Alan Turing…) David Lagercrantz is an extremely interesting author. He wrote the Fall of Man in Wilmslow in 2009, many years before the 2014 film of Alan Turing’s life, The Imitation Game (though I would suspect that this quite excellent tran......more


Quotes

“Absorbing. . . . Gets the synapses sparking.” —The Sunday Telegraph (London)

“Illuminating . . . a rewarding book to read.” —The Washington Times

“Lagercrantz has the lingo, the mood and the place down pat.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
 
“Winning. . . . A police procedural in which a dogged copper tries to crack a mystery in the teeth of bloody-minded intransigence.” —The Independent (London)

“Lagercrantz (The Girl in the Spider's Web) proves that he can succeed with wholly original work in this multifaceted look at the death of British mathematician Alan Turing in 1954. . . . Memorable prose . . . enhances the complex plot.” —Publishers Weekly

“Turing's life and death have become popular subjects, but this novel by a well-known Swedish writer offers an interesting and fresh angle. . . . A persuasive evocation of Turing's genius and of a Britain still suffering under rationing and repression.” —The Daily Mail (London)

“Lagercrantz neatly intertwines the facts of Turing's life with the fiction of Corell's quest for knowledge to create an unsettling story of state secrets and sexual hypocrisy.” —The Sunday Times (London)

“[A] pensive meditation on the life and death of the mathematician Alan Turing . . . [and a] quietly suggestive depiction of how the investigation affects the investigator. . . . Full of psychological insight.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[Lagercrantz] has the faintest whiff of W.G. Sebald; haunted characters determined to pull others down into turbid, oppressive currents of memory and ideas. You are willingly drawn down with them.” —The Spectator (London)
 
“Lagercrantz’s fictional variations on this true story make it seem fresh and even more appalling.” —The Star (Toronto)