Transcription by Kate Atchinson

This is somewhere in between her books that revolve around World War II and her Jackson Brody series.  There is a bit of a mystery going on, and the book, while largely taking place in and around the war, does have some close to present day action as well.
It is  a flat out traditional spy story, with double agents, disappearing ink, corpses spirited away in rugs, recording devices hidden in walls and a plucky young heroine who knows how to use a pistol — and even a sharp knitting needle — when backed into a tight corner.
Juliet Armstrong is an 18-year-old file clerk in 1940 when the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5, plucks her out of her routine and throws her into the dodgy world of “counter-subversion.” Together with a couple of recording engineers, Juliet spends days crouched over listening devices in a London flat, eavesdropping on conversations that her boss, Godfrey Toby, conducts next door with his visitors, all of whom are “fifth columnists,” or British Nazi sympathizers.  The book, in the usual Atkinson style, jumps between the war and times into the near and then far future, but it is all well done, and keeps you guessing along the way.