I have never read Michael Ridpath before and looking at the cover, I thought the story may be all about submarines. The story is about a submarine but is also so much more! Launch Code weaves a story of a family and the secrets they keep from each other and the outer world. The lies they tell in order to "protect" other family members, even as the death toll continues to mount. The story is set during the Cold War and it reminded me of how the world was as I was growing up. We tend to forget the cloud we all lived under. Launch Code is also all about nuclear weapons and how the biggest risk to the world is not the weapons themselves but the computers that governed them and human common sense. I was gripped to the end, wondering who the killer was and why. A great book, I thoroughly enjoyed it!