Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

I read this for 2019 week 36: a book featured on an NPR Best Books of the Year list - it was on the list for 2018. Here's the GR synopsis:
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been 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 realize that there is no action without consequence.

Beautifully written, and a page turner too. Perfect!

I think the only thing that I found objectionable about the book was that I get the feeling that Kate Atkinson does not like cats! I do not mean to be facetious but what I particularly liked about this book was that we do not know a lot about Juliet nor do we really get to know a lot about her real personality except that she loved the dog, did not suffer fools and sympathized with the working class. Probably the most telling sentence in the book for me was the comment about how good Juliet is at lying. I was not at all surprised that she was a double agent. I thought her character could be acerbic and this book reminded me of the play Plenty as well as a terrific movie Glorious 39 about the start of the war and fifth columnists although for different reasons.