Breaking Cover

May 15, 2016
Now that Vladimir Putin is flexing his muscles in the international arena, Rimington, who always has a sharp eye for contemporary headlines (Close Call, 2014, etc.), provides another dose of Cold War tension for MI5 and MI6. Whether they're civil liberties lawyers like Jasminder Kapoor or bedmates of MI5 staffers like lecturer Tim Simpson, Peggy Kinsolving's lover, British citizens are understandably wary of the new surveillance regime they think is tracking their every word and move. Sir Peter Treadwell, the new chief of MI6, has the novel idea of creating the position of Communications Director for someone who can serve as the service's public face in briefings and conferences designed to make its workings more transparent. Liz Carlyle, who doesn't want to leave MI5 to take the job, recommends Jasminder for the position, and the rest is history--Cold War history, since Jasminder comes under increasing pressure from her lover, Norwegian private banker Laurenz Hansen, to make MI6 operations even more transparent for him and a close circle of his associates. Meantime, Liz, who knows nothing of Jasminder's troubles, gets word from Mischa, a walk-in Russian informant, that Russia's Federal Security Service, FSB, buoyed by its recent successes in Crimea and Ukraine, has hatched Operation Pincer, a plot to infiltrate both MI5 and MI6 by compromising and turning staffers in both organizations. It looks like a dark day for her majesty's government unless Liz and her network of colleagues and friends can spot the clues and follow them in time to prevent the U.K.'s intelligence services from becoming wholly owned subsidiaries of FSB. Perhaps the most vividly plotted of Rimington's recent spy thrillers, though still less persuasive when it ventures into foreign waters than when it exposes interpersonal rivalries among staffers who are supposed to be on the same side.

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May 2, 2016
At the start of Rimington’s intermittently compelling ninth novel featuring British MI5 agent Liz Carlyle (after 2014’s Close Call), Jasminder Kapoor, a thoughtful advocate for greater transparency by security services, is mugged in London. She’s saved from serious injury by Laurenz Hansen, a charming but secretive private banker who becomes her lover. Meanwhile, MI6 wants to hire someone to handle communications and Kapoor ultimately gets the job, but her new position makes her a target for the book’s villains. Over at MI5, Carlyle and her colleagues are trying to prevent another Litvinenko-style assassination by Russian agents. In particular, they’re worried about the safety of anti-Putin oligarchs living in England, such as Sergei Patricov. Sources lead them to a plot to infiltrate both of the key British intelligence services. Rimington, who spent decades at MI5, does a fine job of depicting the up-to-the-minute tradecraft, but the plot could have benefited from a greater sense of urgency. Agent: Georgina Capel, Capel & Land (U.K.).

Starred review from May 1, 2016
Rimington has enormous credibility as a writer of spy thrillers. In her almost 30-year career with the British Security Service (MI5), she worked countersubversion, counterespionage, and counterterrorism and became the first woman appointed Director General of MI5 in 1992. Her Liz Carlyle novels (this is the ninth) have a clarity in procedure and a focus on character that's sometimes lacking in spy novels that rely more on constant changes of setting than on sense. In the latest, Rimington presents us with two compelling narrative threads. The first stars Carlyle, back from Paris after losing her lover in an antiterrorist operation, and assigned to MI5's counterespionage desk. This is supposed to offer her a breather, but Putin's new attitude and rumors of another Russian spy in Britain amp things up almost instantly. The other story concerns civil-liberties lawyer Jasminder Kapoor, who becomes the new chief of communications for MI5. The subplot of her romance with a chameleonlike man is fascinating to watch as it unfolds and its consequences spread. Rimington gives us a number of richly delineated characters, some of whom we watch grow and change from novel to novel. And, from the gasp-inducing opening scene forward, Rimington keeps things tense. Readers may want to check out Rimington's autobiography, Open Secret (2011).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)