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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.
Stella Rimington joined
Britain’s Security Service (MI5) in 1969. During her
nearly thirty-year career she worked in all the main fields
of the Service’s responsibilities–counter-subversion,
counter-espionage, and counterterrorism–and became successively
drector of all three branches. Appointed drector general of
MI5 in 1992, she was the first woman to hold the post and
the first director general whose name was publicly announced
on appointment. Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996,
she became a non-executive director of Marks and Spencer and
published her autobiography, Open Secret, in the
United Kingdom. She is currently at work on her next novel.
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