The book starts in 1981 with the end; Juliet
Armstrong, aged 60, knocked down by a car and lying in a London street. The part of her life that flashes back to her
is the last time she was in England in 1950 working for the BBC producing
schools programmes for the radio.
That has its challenges, particularly for a
woman, but Julia is good at her job and usually gets her way. But she is troubled when Godfrey Toby, a
colleague from her job ten years previous, blanks her in the street. Then other strange things happen that causes
her to reflect back on those times.
That was in 1940, the early days of the war,
when as a nineteen year old she volunteered and like many young educated women
was recruited as a clerk in the intelligence service. Godfrey Toby was a double agent running a
ring of Nazi sympathisers in London; and when they met to talk sedition in his
flat their conversations were recorded next door by Cyril the technician and
transcribed by Juliet the clerk typist.
When Juliet is given the opportunity to participate in some low risk
field work she jumps at the chance and does well, discovering a talent for
dissimulation and lies. But even low
risk operations and transcribing have potential for cock-ups and danger.
And still in 1950, as well as the day job at
the Beeb, Juliet is pressed into a favour from time to time by her old
bosses. She is no longer a teenage
ingénue, but when a minor op again goes awry danger of a different sort raises
its head.
The narrative is light, the plot arc
deceptively simple and the time shifts, for once, are straightforward. That leaves plenty reader attention available
to be paid to the period nostalgia and the charming interplay between Juliet
and the (mainly male) hierarchy in the secret service and the BBC.
But how much of all that is a front; and
what is it hiding?
No comments:
Post a Comment