Review: The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie.Review: Cursed Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber.This is a book that I really enjoyed reading, and I would highly recommend it. Atkinson presents us with an array of hints and clues throughout, but I didn’t work out any of the twists before they came. I was determined to piece together the mysterious events happening to Juliet in the 1950s, but I knew that the revelation wouldn’t come until the ending of the novel. Transcription is most definitely one of those books that keeps you reading, but that you also don’t want to end. The descriptions of her espionage missions were exciting to read, and contained plenty of peril – it meant the book contained plenty of drama. Juliet was a likeable protagonist, but also a realistic one her bewilderment at who to trust and believe was completely understandable. This was an amazing book from beginning to end, and I did not want to put it down. In this story, nobody is quite who they seem. Juliet’s double life inevitably leads to danger, and she is both haunted by an event from the past but also troubled by the question of who amongst her contacts she can trust. When she runs into 2 former agents that she worked alongside in the war, she begins to suspect that all of these events happening at the same time is more than a coincidence. However, he goes missing after she has kept him safe overnight, and Juliet can’t shake the feeling that she’s being watched. Not knowing his actual name, she does know that his codename is ‘flamingo’. She is asked to look after a man overnight before he is moved onwards.

In the 1950s Juliet still has contacts in Intelligence agencies, who occasionally use her as a safe house. From this role, she is further drawn into espionage as she is asked to infiltrate a different right wing group acting against the British war efforts. Working for MI5 she begins by typing the transcripts of conversations between an agent and a group of Nazi sympathisers who were looking to assist the German invasion of Britain. Working for the BBC in the 1950s producing childrens’ educational radio shows, Juliet can’t quite shake off her former life as a spy in World War 2. Transcription tells the story of Juliet Armstrong, jumping back and forth between World War 2 and the 1950s. When I read the plot summary of Transcription, also by Kate Atkinson, I knew this was a book that I wanted to read. It was beautifully written and the kind of story that I didn’t want to end. Last year, I read the amazing Life After Life by Kate Atkinson it’s stayed in my memory for a long time (not least because several chapters deal with the Spanish Influenza and the way in which chains of transmission made a difference to the protagonists life: going through a pandemic means those sections have remained vividly in my mind).

Kate atkinson transcription review