Transcription/ Kate Atkinson/ 343 pgs (European setting)

The writing in this book was fantastic. The main character, Juliet, is engaging and funny. The story is intriguing as it flips back and forth between 1940, right in the middle of World War II, and 1950. What sapped all my enjoyment of this book was the ending. More on that in a minute. Juliet is a young woman with no family to rely on as the war begins. She's pulled in to the world of espionage as a transcriptionist. She types up the conversations that one of government's spies has with Britons who are sympathetic to Nazi Germany. It's hinted that things did not end well. Ten years after the war, Juliet works for the BBC, but receives a threat from someone in her past. The entire book is about Juliet tracking down the people she knew back then to figure out who is after her now. But then a twist is thrown in--a twist that Juliet was aware of but the reader was not. And to my eye, this twist made the book pointless. Knowing what she knew, Juliet could have easily figured out who was after her. So, great book until the end, alas.