The decipherment of Linear B, this mysterious script first brought to light by Arthur Evans during his excavation of Knossos in 1900, was one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the 20th century.

For about five decades, some of the most significant figures in the fields of philology and archaeology, among others, wrestled unsuccessfully with the endeavor of solving this ancient riddle, which would open a window to the study of Aegean prehistory. The solution was ultimately provided in 1952 not by a specialist, but by a passionate amateur, the English architect Michael Ventris.

However, most accounts of this fascinating adventure omit the name of a great protagonist: the American philologist Alice Kober. Working quietly and meticulously in her home in New York, Kober was considered one of the leading experts in Linear B writing worldwide until the mid-20th century.

Although largely forgotten today—for several reasons, including the fact that history is almost always written by the victors, and that she was a woman in a male-dominated field—she came close to decipherment shortly before her untimely death in 1950. Her groundwork was crucial in elucidating the mystery of Linear B.

Margalit Fox composes a captivating narrative, a kind of scientific mystery story, artfully balancing between scientific documentation and the portrayal of the personal histories of the protagonists in this intellectual adventure. She allows even the non-specialist reader to follow step by step the journey of this intellectual feat.

The reader is introduced to the techniques of cryptography and decipherment, simultaneously giving flesh and blood to all those individuals who dedicated their lives to solving the puzzle. In the Afterword of the Greek edition, translator H. E. Maravelias presents, among other things, the contribution of the most important Greek researcher of Linear B, K. D. Ktistopoulos, to the decipherment effort and his correspondence with Alice Kober.