Girl spy

Transcription does not make a very interesting title for a book, anymore than the word makes a very interesting job description. Turns out both the book, Kate Atkinson's latest, and the job of her main character, Juliet Armstrong, are much more exciting than they sound.

In 1940 London, Juliet is hired to listen to recordings of conversations with Nazi sympathizers and to put their words into written form. Gradually, however, Juliet's job for M15, the British espionage agency, entails more than just transcription. She is asked to gain the confidence of a prominent London woman whose loyalties lie with Germany. And so begins her life as a spy.

Ten years later, now working for BBC, Juliet still plays the spy game, at least part time. This time it's the Russians, not the Germans, trying to learn British secrets.

Atkinson moves the action back and forth from one decade to the next, gradually revealing how the two situations are alike, yet how they are different. If surprises are few in the early going, they multiply in the final third of the novel, when what started out as a lighthearted, girl spy sort of story turns into a thriller.