A man lies dying in a hospital in upstate Vermont. The nurses know only that he is an academic at a nearby university, but they have been instructed to call the FBI should anyone visit their patient. News of this suspected Russian illegal soon reaches MI5, where Liz Carlyle has been contacted by Mischa, a top secret source who is requesting a clandestine rendezvous in Berlin. Meanwhile in Brussels a Russian agent who has lived undercover for years is beginning to question his role, while suspicions have been roused about a Suffolk boarding school that has recently changed hands in mysterious circumstances....
MI5 intelligence officer Liz Carlyle has just been despatched to Northern Ireland. In Belfast, Liz and her team are monitoring the brutal breakaway Republican groups who never accepted the peace process and want to continue their 'war'. Intelligence is focused on the shady Fraternity, with links to drug-running, arms-dealing and organised crime. It is a perilous group to become involved with. Especially if your informant turns tail...
Liz has been transferred to counter-espionage the hub of MI5 operations during the Cold War, which has been scaled back as anti-terrorism has gained priority. But there's plenty for her to do: there are more spies operating in London in the 21st century than there were during the height of East-West hostilities. Even the Russians still have a large contingent, although now they spy on the international financial community and on the wealthy ex-pat oligarchs who make England their domain. In her new assignment, Liz quickly uncovers a plot to silence one of these Russians: Nikita Brunovsky, an increasingly vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin. The Foreign Office is adamant about forestalling a crime that could become a full-blown international incident, but there's not a single clue as to how the assassination will be carried out and Liz is solely responsible for averting disaster. So she goes undercover, attaching herself to Brunovsky's retinue: racing against the clock to determine who betrayed him and suddenly facing a wholly unexpected second task unmasking a Russian operative working undercover alongside her. Dame Stella has once again distilled her experience as the first woman Director General of MI5 into a spy novel of arresting psychological complexity and unflagging suspense. From the Compact Disc edition.
With her debut novel, At Risk, Stella Rimington introduced us to Liz Carlyle–a smart, impassioned MI5 intelligence officer whose talents and ambitions are counterbalanced by an abiding awareness of her job’s moral complexities. In Secret Asset, we are plunged back into her high-stakes, high-tension world.
Liz has always been particularly skilled at “assessing people,” and trusts her instinct that a terrorist cell is at work at an Islamic bookshop. But when her boss, Charles Wetherby, suddenly takes her off the case, she’s shocked to hear why: Wetherby has received a tip-off that a mole is at work in one of the branches of British Intelligence.
As her colleagues work to avert an impending terrorist strike, Liz is charged with the momentous task of uncovering and exposing the mole before it’s too late.
A tense, fast-moving debut thriller from the ex-head of MI5. Our concern and we've communicated this over the weekend to all stations, is that the opposition may be about to deploy an invisible. An invisible is CIA-speak for the ultimate intelligence nightmare: the terrorist who, because he or she is an ethnic native of the target country, can cross its borders unchecked, move around that country unquestioned and infiltrate its institutions with ease. An invisible on mainland Britain was the worst possible news. For Liz Carlyle, an MI5 Intelligence Officer, this report from MI6 marks the start of an operation that will test her to the limit and put her own life in jeopardy. As she sifts the incoming evidence and gets reports from her agents, she realizes the terrorist threat is imminent. But who or what is the target? And who or where is the invisible? Time is of the essence in this desperate search and it becomes clear that it is Liz's intuitive skills her ability to get inside her enemy's head that offer the only hope of averting disaster. In this terrifying and tautly drawn debut thriller, Stella Rimington takes us to the heart of the intelligence world. It is a place she is uniquely qualified to describe. From the Trade Paperback edition.
An announcement is made at a meeting of the British Intelligence Joint Counter-Terrorist group: The opposition may be about to deploy an invisible. An invisible is CIA-speak for the ultimate intelligence nightmare: a terrorist who is an ethnic native of the target country and who can therefore cross its borders unchecked, move around the country unquestioned, and go unnoticed while setting up the foundation for monstrous harm. Intelligence officer Liz Carlyle has had to prove herself in countless ways as she's come up through the ranks of the traditionally all-male world of Britain's Security Service, MI5. But this announcement marks the start of an operation that will test all her hard-won knowledge and experience and her intelligence and courage as nothing has before. Having analyzed information from her agents, she realizes that there is indeed an imminent terrorist threat. She may even have the invisible's point of entry. But what she cannot draw out of all the chatter is the invisible's identity and intended target. With each passing hour, the danger increases. As the desperate hunt continues, it becomes clear that Liz's intuitive skills, her ability to get deep inside her enemy's head, are her best hope for tracking down the terrorist. But will that be enough? And can she succeed in time to avert a disaster? Drawing from her experience as the first woman director general of MI5, Stella Rimington gives us a story that is smart, tautly drawn, and suspenseful from first to last. At Risk is a stunning debut novel that plunges us headlong into today's shadowy and fever-pitched battle between terrorism and Intelligence. From the Hardcover edition.
