ANOTHER thriller in the Liz Carlyle series by former Director General of MI5, Stella Rimington.
Rimington has developed a realistic depiction of an intelligence officer working in MI5 to combat domestic terrorism, navigating sexism on the job, and balancing the conflicts between her department MI5 and their counterparts at MI6.
This time, the trouble comes from a Moscow sleeper agent network throughout Great Britain, with ties to Germany and North America.
The subject is timely, as there is much evidence of existing Russian meddling in many governments today.
The story starts with a man who lies dying in a hospital in upstate Vermont. The nurses know only that he is a lecturer 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 in London where Liz Carlyle has been contacted by a top secret source known as Mischa who is requesting a clandestine rendezvous in Berlin.
Meanwhile in Brussels, a Russian sleeper agent who has lived undercover for years is beginning to question his role, while suspicions have been roused about a boarding school in Suffolk that has recently changed hands under mysterious circumstances.
Rimington juggles multiple characters and a complex plot with finesse. The best thing about her books is the way that she utilises her knowledge and experience in MI5 to describe spycraft in a fascinating manner - from minor things that FBI agents do to the way the agent is exposed and later extricated from a hostile country.
The plot centres on Russian efforts to use facilities in other countries to train individuals to conduct cyber-attacks. Scraps of intelligence from various sources gradually develops into firm data and the need to investigate a Russian operation on British soil. It develops at a good pace and there are several moments that are tense and exciting.
However towards the end, the story fizzles out. The villains make a couple of decisions that don't add up. Like why a couple of key characters who get terminated without explanation.
