Secret Asset (Liz Carlyle) [Hardcover]

Stella Rimington (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2007 | Series: Liz Carlyle

With her debut novel, At Risk, Stella Rimington established herself as a top-notch thriller writer, and 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 when one of her agents reports suspicious meetings taking place at an Islamic bookshop, she trusts her instinct that a terrorist cell is at work. Her boss, Charles Wetherby, Director of Counter-Terrorism, knows to trust Liz’s instincts as well: he immediately puts a surveillance operation into place.

So Liz is surprised when Wetherby suddenly takes her off the case. And she’s shocked to hear why: Wetherby has received a tip-off that a mole—a “secret asset”—has been planted in one of the branches of British Intelligence. If this is true, the potential damage to the Service is immeasurable. 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.

As she did in At Risk, Stella Rimington once again brings all her experience as the first woman Director General of MI5 to bear in a heart-stopping thriller that takes us deep into a “wilderness of mirrors” where nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After four months' convalescent leave, MI5 spy Liz Carlyle, returning from her debut in Rimington's At Risk, confers with her agent Marzipan, an Islamic bookshop clerk who has discovered a probable terror plot in the making. Soon after, Liz is charged with finding an IRA mole within the ranks of MI5. With the aid of fresh-faced co-worker Peggy Kinsolving, Liz goes about the task of ferreting out the mole, despite disappointment at being taken off the terror case, which she can't quite let go—with, it turns out, good reason. Much is made of the authenticity of Rimington's tradecraft (she was the first female head of MI5 in real life), and rightly so. But lots of writers get the details right, and for many readers, Rimington's ratio of action to personal detail will seem skewed: every character, no matter how minor, gets heavily profiled, and it slows things down. Still, those interested in old school British intelligence thrillers will find much to like in the smart, enterprising Carlyle.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Rimington, the former head of Britain's MI5, follows up her spy-novel debut, At Risk (2005), with this fast-moving thriller. We rejoin intelligence officer Liz Carlyle as she gets a hot tip that a terrorist cell is operating in London. But before she can begin her investigation, Liz is pulled off the case by her boss, the director of counter terrorism, who blindsides her with a startling revelation: there is a mole in British Intelligence. Racing against time to expose the traitor before he (or she?) can reveal more secrets, Liz realizes that her colleagues' success in busting the new terrorist cell may depend on how fast she can accomplish her mission. Rimington continues to deliver on the promise of spy fiction written not only by a former spy but also by the head of British intelligence. This is a smartly constructed, sharply written thriller that exudes realism and a professional's eye for detail. More surprisingly, Rimington also proves adept at building characters and constructing plots. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First edition (June 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400043956
• ISBN-13: 978-1400043958
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,386,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As real as it gets., November 17, 2006

By 

Guy Pommares "Early Hacker" (Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secret Asset (Hardcover)

If you like it real, then Stella Rimington is it. Imagine James Bond and his high flying exploits; disregard, and try to visualize the very extreme opposite. An unobtrusive middle class woman commuting to work in a uniform brick coloured world under a leaden grey sky and going over the numbingly dull details of hundreds of insignificant lives. From there she culls tiny little anomalies which would only stick out for an unbelievably fastidious mind. And little by little she pieces together the shadows of a puzzle that may or may not lead to the foiling of a plot to unleash very real violence on some people she doesn't know. Now where her real talent comes in, is that she makes it so real that it becomes absolutely riveting; and much more enjoyable than any sort of glamorous adventure fiction. As a matter of fact, when I closed the book, I went right over to my computer to consult Amazon and see what else she'd written.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant page turner/ Beach novel, September 7, 2006

By 

Sarah Durston (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Asset (Hardcover)

If you like spy thrillers you will almost certainaly love this book. As well as trying to stop a terrorist attack, Liz Carlyle must find an IRA mole (who infiltrated MI5, but was never activated.)

The characters are great and the story cracks along at a terrific pace. There are the usual twists and turns, and although I did guess who the mole was about half way through, there was always the chance that I was wrong (!) and it did nothing to spoil my enjoyment of the book.

Rimington also adds in some nice touches. Even characters who are only bit part players are well drawn and we find out small details about their lives and why they were in that place at that time.

If this is the kind of thing you usually enjoy then buy it! Safe houses, surveillance techniques, the inner workings of the terrorist mind, IRA informers.....this book has it all.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars four and a half stars, August 17, 2007

By 

Julia M. Walker (NY Finger Lakes) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Secret Asset (Liz Carlyle) (Hardcover)

This is the second book by former MI5 head Rimington and it's even better than At Risk. Rimington does excellent secondary and minor characters - the Oxford dons, the varied colleagues, the various civilians all come across crispy with just the right amount of detail to make them memorable and interesting. Once again, Liz is the least clearly drawn character in the book, but this time there are no gaping holes in her day to day life. The settings get more time and space here than in the first book - lovers of London and Oxford will be very very happy -- and the pacing of the plot, which was excellent in At Risk At Risk: A Novel, is truly outstanding: you'll stay up all night. The author combines the best elements of a procedural with the action scenes of a spy thriller.

And that brings me to the one problem. Rimington doesn't end well. In her first novel, she practically threw up her hands and offered the reader an explosive version of "whatever." Here she spends more time and ink, but it is still a weak ending for such a strong narrative.

But it's well worth your time and pocket change: lots of British-isms for Anglophiles.