A Good Read

Transcription by Kate Atkinson
The novel begins in 1981, Juliet Armstrong was 60 years old, and while she was distracted by her thoughts, she was struck by a car when she attempted to cross the street. Her story is told between 1940 and 1950 before landing back in 1981 again.
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet was reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, the work was both tedious and terrifying. But after the war ended Juliet presumed the events of those years would be relegated to the past forever.
Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realise that there is no action without consequence. Juliet discovers one is never entirely free of the spy business. Once a spy, always a spy.
One of Juliet’s thoughts from 1981: "The Russians had been their enemies and then they were their allies, and then they were enemies again. The Germans the same – the great enemy, the worst of all of them, and now they were our friends, one of the mainstays of Europe. It was all such a waste of breath. War and peace. Peace and war. It would go on forever without end".

This is an ingeniously plotted story, so much so that I initially had difficulty working out what was happening. But I did, and as usual, with Atkinson's novels, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

∼ Happy Reading∼ 

Polly x