The File on Fraulein Berg by the Scottish author Joan Lingard was first published in 1980, but the setting is mainly Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1944. The war has been dragging on for three years and there seems to be no end to it. Earlier in the war the Belfast shipyards had been targeted by German bombers but more recently that had quitened down. Actually with the neutral country of Ireland being just a few hours over the border, life seems to be a lot easier than on mainland Britain where the inhabitants are struggling under the strict ration system which makes life difficult, with food and clothing being scarce.

Three schoolgirls Kate, Harriet and Sally are great friends. They’re all keen readers of spy fiction and when a real German called Fraulein Berg arrives at their school to teach them their imaginations run riot. The girls are convinced that Fraulein Berg is a spy and take it in turns to follow her everywhere, even standing across the road from her flat for hours on end, and writing everything down in notebooks. They’re really persecuting her, determined to uncover her as a spy, but it’s obviously deeply unpleasant for Fraulein Berg.

Apparently there was a lot of smuggling going on across the Ireland/Northern Ireland border and the girls get involved in a bit of that when they travel to Dublin by train with Mrs McCabe and Auntie Nell, it’s quite a funny interlude.

This is well written as you would expect from Lingard, but the ending is very predictable, it’s probably supposed to be to the reader, but the book also throws some light on what life was like for people during those times, it’s an enjoyable and interesting read.