Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Eighteen-year-old Juliet is recruited by an MI5 operative to be his girl typist and dogsbody. They are involved in an undercover wartime operation to root out fifth columnists, or Hitler sympathisers, who are called things like Trude and Betty. They do this by setting up office in the next door flat to their mole’s fifth column headquarters, a Dolphin Square apartment where ‘Godfrey’ lures these unremarkable women to condemn themselves, thinking that they are informing a Gestapo agent and helping the Third Reich (in between tea and biscuit breaks).

It is Juliet’s task to transcribe hours of recorded conversation, along with young Cyril whose job it is to maintain the equipment. Juliet is an orphan and has no one to turn to for advice, she is very naïve and yearns for her boss Perry to declare his love for her. She also hankers after more exciting work, which eventually comes her way. But this is probably a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’, especially in wartime.

Based on true stories and transcriptions from the national archives, the setting and atmosphere are exactly right, which is what Kate Atkinson is good at, with some fine writing, but the plot meanders around a great deal. I got rather confused with agents, double agents, double-double agents, it became a bit tortuous. But no matter, we get the general idea that this was complicated and dangerous work because you never knew who to trust, least of all MI5. 

We are partly in the head of an older Juliet, now working at the BBC, looking back at her young self with a mixture of affection and exasperation, and a dread that some awful truth is going to catch up with her.  The ‘service’ it seems will never let you go.
If you enjoyed Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, then this has a similar feel of women coping with the difficulties of wartime. This older Juliet appears to feel, what is the point of it all, war? And it's hard to disagree...