Wartime Sins And Secrets Haunt 'Transcription'
Kate Atkinson's new novel follows a young woman recruited to Britain's MI5 spy agency during World War II. Juliet's wartime deeds may come back to haunt her — but she still has her old spy skills.
Juliet Armstrong was a spy.
Is a spy, will forever be a spy. During the war, in London, 1940, she worked as a typist for MI5, was lifted out of the obscurity of the secretarial pool to be the audio transcriptionist for an operation meant to ensnare British fifth columnists itching for the day that the Wehrmacht marched down the streets of London, then put into the field to infiltrate their anti-Semitic ranks in person.
She had a cover identity. She carried a small Mauser pistol in her handbag.
