Liz Carlyle

7 total works

Secret Asset

by Stella Rimington

Published 3 August 2006

When MI5 agent-runner Liz Carlyle is moved from Counter-Terrorism to the Industrial Espionage Section, it looks very much as if she has been sidelined. While vetting the director of a top-secret research establishment in the Peak District, however, Liz realises that her subject is lying to her and is a potential blackmail risk. Other more malign forces have arrived at the same conclusion, and soon a lethal Intelligence game is in play. With Martine Charrat, her opposite number in the French secret service, Liz is drawn into a desperate race. But as Liz soon discovers, their unknown enemies hold all the cards.

Breaking Cover

by Stella Rimington

Published 30 June 2016

Still reeling from the loss of her boyfriend in a botched anti-terrorist operation, Liz Carlyle has been posted to MI5's counter-espionage desk, where she's hoping to have relative security to find her feet. However, Russia's incursions into the Crimea and President Putin's determination to silence those who oppose him, wherever they may be, quash that hope. Liz soon finds herself on the hunt for a Russian spy in Britain. And with MI5 and MI6 under painful public scrutiny in the post-Edward Snowden world, security seems like a remote possibility for Liz's team. --

At Risk

by Stella Rimington

Published 1 July 2004

'Our concern - and we've communicated this over the weekend to all stations - is that the opposition may be about to deploy an invisible.' An invisible is CIA speak for the ultimate intelligence nightmare: the terrorist who, because he or she is an ethnic native of the target country, can cross its borders unchecked, move around that country unquestioned and infiltrate its institutions with ease. An invisible on mainland Britain was the worst possible news. For Liz Carlyle, an MI5 Intelligence officer, this report from MI6 marks the start of an operation which will test her to the limit and put her own life in jeopardy. As she sifts the incoming evidence and gets reports from her agents she realizes there is an immanent terrorist threat. But who or what is the target? And who and where is the invisible? Time is of the essence in this desperate search and it becomes clear that it is Liz's intuitive skills, her ability to get inside her enemy's head, which offer the only hope of averting disaster. In this terrifying and tautly drawn debut thriller Stella Rimington takes us to the heart of the Intelligence world. It is a place she is uniquely qualified to describe.

The Moscow Sleepers

by Stella Rimington

Published 20 September 2018

For fans of Spooks, Homeland, McMafia and The Night Manager, the latest thriller in Stella Rimington’s bestselling espionage series sees Liz Carlyle investigating a sinister Russian plot – tense, gripping and global in scope

A man lies dying in a hospital in upstate Vermont. The nurses know only that he is an academic 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 in mysterious circumstances.

The latest expertly plotted thriller in Stella Rimington’s bestselling series, The Moscow Sleepers is a white-knuckle ride through the dark underbelly of international intelligence, simmering political animosities and global espionage.

THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN, the brand-new thriller from Stella Rimington, is out now.

Illegal Action

by Stella Rimington

Published 2 August 2007

Liz Carlyle has been transferred to Counter-Espionage, along with her research sidekick Peggy Kingsolving. Once the hub of MI5 operations, the department has been reduced in size since the end of the Cold War, and priority within the service is on counter-terrorism. Yet there is plenty for Liz to do. In fact, there are more spies operating in London today than during the height of East-West hostilities. This includes Russian spies, who continue to operate in number. What's changed is their targets - now they spy on the international financial community that has made London its base in the last twenty years, as well as on the wealthy influential Russian 'oligarchs', many of whom have also come to London to live. Liz learns of a Russian government plot to 'silence' one of these oligarchs, Nikita Brunovsky, who is an increasingly vocal opponent of the Putin regime. How he is to be kept quiet is unclear, but since the Foreign Office dread any kind of incident, Liz is assigned to keep it from happening. Almost simultaneously, Liz and Peggy also learn of the presence of an Illegal Support officer in London, one Vladimir Rykov, who is putatively attached to the Russian embassy.
An Illegal is someone who operates (often for many years) under a completely fabricated identity - and Rykov, it seem, has been sent to London to help an Illegal now based there. To protect Brunovsky from his Kremlin foes, Liz goes undercover and joins the oligarch's retinue. As she tries to determine who around the Russian might be willing to betray him, she has to consider too whether this traitor may not also be the Illegal she and Peggy are seeking.

The Geneva Trap

by Stella Rimington

Published 19 July 2012

Geneva, 2012. When a Russian intelligence officer approaches MI6 with vital information about the imminent cyber-sabotage of an Anglo-American Defence programme, he refuses to talk to anyone but Liz Carlyle of MI5. But who is he, and what is his connection to the British intelligence officer?

At a tracking station in Nevada, US Navy officers watch in horror as one of their unmanned drones plummets out of the sky, and panic spreads through the British and American Intelligence services. Is this a Russian plot to disable the West's defences? Or is the threat coming from elsewhere?

As Liz and her team hunt for a mole inside the MOD, the trail leads them from Geneva, to Marseilles and into a labyrinth of international intrigue, in a race against time to stop the Cold War heating up once again...

Close Call

by Stella Rimington

Published 3 July 2014

CIA agent Miles Brookhaven was attacked in a souk while infiltrating rebel groups in the area. No one was certain if his cover had been blown or if the act was just an arbitrary attack on Westerners. Months later, the incident remains a mystery.

Now, Liz Carlyle and her Counter Terrorism unit in MI5 have been charged with the task of observing the international under-the-counter arms trade. With the Arabic region in such a volatile state, British Intelligence forces have become increasing concerned that extremist Al-Qaeda jihadis are building their power base, ready to launch another attack. As the pressure mounts, Liz and her team must intercept illegal weapons before they get into the wrong hands.

But when MI5 learns that the source of the arms deals is located in Western Europe, Liz finds herself on a manhunt that leads her to Paris, to Berlin and into her own long-forgotten past.

A past buried so deep that she thought it would never resurface . . .

THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN, the brand-new thriller from Stella Rimington, is out now.