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    * Ingenious
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JASON FAGONE

 * Kill Fee podcast
 * Home
 * Books
    * The Woman Who Smashed Codes
    * Ingenious
    * Horsemen of the Esophagus

 * Magazine & Newspaper Stories
 * About Me & Contact





HI. I WRITE NONFICTION STORIES AND BOOKS.


MY LATEST BOOK, THE WOMAN WHO SMASHED CODES, IS ABOUT ELIZEBETH SMITH FRIEDMAN,
A FORGOTTEN AMERICAN HERO. THE HARDCOVER WAS RELEASED IN 2017 AND THE PAPERBACK
IN 2018. YOU CAN ORDER THE PAPERBACK AT ANY OF THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS. CLICK A
BUTTON TO OPEN THE BOOK'S ORDER PAGE:




ELIZEBETH SOLVED THE SECRET MESSAGES OF GANGSTERS IN THE JAZZ AGE AND NAZI SPIES
IN WWII. THIS IS HER:

 

George C. Marshall Foundation Research Library

 


ELIZEBETH'S JOURNEY

She wasn't a mathematician. She wasn't from a rich or influential family. Born
to Indiana Quaker parents in 1892, the last of nine children, Elizebeth Smith
studied poetry in college and paid her tuition by working as a seamstress. She
was daring and brilliant but saw no jobs for ambitious women. She worried her
life would never be "anything at all uncommon."

Then, one day when she was 23, a chance meeting with an eccentric
multi-millionaire changed everything. The rich man, a Chicago textile tycoon,
believed that the plays of William Shakespeare contained secret messages. He
asked Elizebeth to help him find the messages—and whisked her away to a
mysterious laboratory on the prairie.

It was the start of an adventure. Thanks to the urgencies of the First World
War, the mission for which Elizebeth was hired—find secret messages in
Shakespeare—soon turned into a life-or-death hunt for actual enemy secrets. At
the tycoon's laboratory, Elizebeth met a young man from Pittsburgh who had a
knack for solving puzzles, like her.

The two youngsters soon transformed themselves into champion codebreakers:
people who solve secret messages without knowing the key. During the war they
worked as a team, revealing the thoughts and plans of the enemy. Then, after the
war, Elizebeth launched a spectacular career of her own. During Prohibition she
used her abilities to catch liquor and drug smugglers, appearing in court with a
flower pinned to her hat and testifying against the likes of Al Capone's
lieutenants. For a brief time she became famous, a front-page celebrity—before
the U.S. government recruited her for one of the most closely guarded missions
of the Second World War, whose secrets can now be revealed...

 


“IF I MAY CAPTURE A GOODLY NUMBER OF YOUR MESSAGES, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE NEVER
SEEN YOUR CODE BOOK, I MAY STILL READ YOUR THOUGHTS.”


— ELIZEBETH SMITH FRIEDMAN, CODEBREAKER

 

 

The paperback is available!

More about THE WOMAN WHO SMASHED CODES ⟶

 

Finlay MacKay / Huffington Post Highline

 


MAGAZINE & NEWSPAPER WORK

I’m an investigative reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, focusing on
long-term projects and narratives. Previously I reported and wrote feature
stories for a number of magazines and sites, particularly the Huffington Post
Highline, where I was a contributing editor. (The photo above, from a Highline
piece about a trauma surgeon, shows the trauma area at Temple University
Hospital in North Philadelphia.) In recent years I've also written for The New
York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Grantland, Washingtonian, and NewYorker.com.

See my magazine and newspaper stories ⟶

 

Edison2 Very Light Car render

 


MY EARLIER BOOKS

In 2004 I traveled around the country and the world interviewing competitive
eaters and documenting the birth of a weird new sport. The result was HORSEMEN
OF THE ESOPHAGUS (Crown, 2005). My next book, INGENIOUS (Crown, 2013), was about
small inventors, startups, and garage heroes striving to design and build a
radically new kind of car to revive the bankrupt auto industry and save the
planet.

More about HORSEMEN OF THE ESOPHAGUS ⟶

More about INGENIOUS ⟶




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