In 1942, General Erwin Rommel led his Axis army swiftly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Even as Rommel received detailed updates on British positions, Allied cryptographers worked relentlessly at Bletchley Park, deciphering the Enigma Code. Telling the cinematic story, Gershom Gorenberg portrays the conflict as a spiraling series of failures, accidents, and desperate triumphs that decided the fate of the Middle East and quite possibly the outcome of the war.