At Risk

Who'd have thought that the leader of one of the free world's top spy agencies could also write excellent suspense thrillers? There's not a wrong note in Stella Rimington's novels. The protagonist, agent-runner Liz Carlyle, will remind you of Helen Mirren's Jane Tennison: smart, driven, discriminated against by the "boys," and prone to dead-end relationships. But boy (or girl), you just can't put this book down. Read them all!

Thirty-four-year-old Liz Carlyle, the protagonist of Stella Rimington's debut novel, is an intelligence officer with MI5, Britain's Secret Service. At Risk finds Liz heading up an investigation into the possible infiltration of Britain by an "invisible," a terrorist who is or can pass as English and so not arouse suspicion: a nightmare, in other words. Rimington leads readers through the investigation, following Liz as she and her team track and analyze the terrorists' activity, and following the terrorists as they make small but significant errors that render them vulnerable to capture. Rimington tells her story from multiple perspectives, including that of the invisible, whom she is able to make three-dimensional--not sympathetic, surely, but human. Among the good guys, Liz is a well-rounded character, and those working around her emerge as distinct personalities, though they are not explored in depth. The interaction between Liz and her colleagues feels right, in part because Rimington writes dialogue well, weaving together the personal and work-related threads of small encounters realistically. Rimington's writing also shines when she is introducing background information--most noticeably in the first chapter--which she does very deftly. It should hardly surprise us if the intelligence-related details in Rimington's thriller ring true. The author worked for the Secret Service for almost thirty years prior to her retirement in 1996, and she was appointed director general of MI5 in 1992. What is surprising is that Rimington has pulled off such a great piece of fiction her first time out, telling a complex story that is both riveting and well-written. The only criticism I have is minor, that Liz's problematic personal relationship--an affair with a married man who cannot know the nature of her work--plays as an afterthought and might well have been omitted. (Perhaps this relationship will be explored further in Rimington's sequel, Secret Asset.) Fans of spy novels take note: this smart intelligence procedural is a great read. Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)

I read this book, as many of the books that I read, because I "heard" that it was good. This one is. It is a "spy thriller" that keeps you guessing until the last page. The pace is fast... One thing that I enjoyed is that I did not feel like a fool for not seeing the end....o.k.....other readers might have caught on before I did, but, I felt that Ms. Remington was honest with her readers, and let us try to unravel the "situation" in the same time that her protagonist "Liz" did. Thank you, Ms. Remington for a good read. I look forward to your next.

When the ex-head of Britain's MI5 desides to write a mystery novel you's expect it to be both technically accurate and filled with examples of well constructed tradecraft. What you might not expect is that the crafting of her characters would be so well developed and the writing so well handled. The story revolves around a prospective terrorist action that is undefined but which is believed to be done by an 'invisible', that is a person in CIA talk who is a native of the country. He has the proper paperwork, a true history, even a family and friends to vouch for him. How do you find such a person? It makes for a damn good story. Also interesting is the interplay between the various agencies involved. The petty bickering, the CYA. It's far more important to keep your organization clean than to find the bad guy. At the end I found myself asking, "What do you say to the parents."

At Thames House, the Joint Counter-Terrorist Group employees learn that the al-Safa organization of the Islamic Terror Syndicate is planting an "Invisible". Pakistan cooperates and the Immigration Office combs the lists for possible suspects. However, the M-15 and M-16 attendees know how difficult to uncover an Invisible is as these terrorists are a special breed being a native of the host nation. An agent just in from Islamabad corroborates that al-Safa is a rare Islamic terrorist organization because it welcomes full blood Caucasians. M-15 agent-runner Liz Carlyle sees her work as a means to avoid her matchmaking mother and a place to hide from her married lover, Mark Callendar, who is no longer convenient. The need to track down the Invisible becomes imminent as the evidence mounts that something big is about to occur. Liz starts to put a human face that seems increasingly female to the trigger, but who she is and who is her handler remains just out of visible scope especially since agents allegedly on her side decide not to share information with anyone. This exciting counter-terrorist espionage thriller travels on two story lines that connect via the heroine. Readers receive an exciting race against the clock to prevent a catastrophe while also seeing the inner office shenanigans of hiding critical information behind a need not to know façade and sexual harassment towards the token estrogen in a testosterone world. The prime plot is typical of the sub-genre with its adrenaline rush to climax, but is slowed down somewhat by the office side, which is more interestingly unique (and perhaps autobiographical) though not as exhilarating. Spy fans are not AT RISK reading this fine tale. Harriet Klausner