The novel begins where it ends: with the dead body of Ezequiel Colina Ross, a professor of cryptography who taught the narrator of this story, Miguel Dorey. Miguel’s father plans for him to inherit his legal practice but his son’s interests lead him to the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature where he starts to attend Colina Ross’ classes. The professor is an expert both in lost ancient languages and codes used during espionage.

A group of students forms around Colina Ross and they found the Circle of Cryptographers. Caught up in the giddy atmosphere, Miguel Dorey starts to take part in political activities. At a demonstration he meets Eleonora, a student with a unique character who holds the key to several different secrets.

It is the early sixties: political differences are growing more radical and will eventually lead to the darkest dictatorship ever suffered by Argentina, which will have a profound effect on the lives of the protagonists. The Circle is a success: it publishes the Notebooks of the Sphinx and maintains excellent relations with universities from all across the world. Very soon, political needs take priority over academic ones and the Circle – thanks to Víctor Cramer, an old enemy of Colina Ross – becomes the tool of a guerrilla organization. In the past, Cramer and Colina Ross competed in their interest in the work of a British cryptologist who managed to decipher the enigmatic ‘language of Daedalus’. But it’s the sixties. Don’t they have more important things to do than mess around with ancient symbols?

In The Cryptographer’s Daughter, Pablo De Santis dazzles us once more with a dense, solid plot and shadowy atmosphere, a complex love story between Dorey and Eleonora, extreme rivalries, suspicion and betrayal.

Interview in Clarín (Spanish)

Interview in Infobae (Spanish)