Agent Liz Carlyle
4 primary works
Book 1
'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.
Book 2
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.
Book 3
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.
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.
Book 4
MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle is summoned to a meeting with her boss Charles Wetherby, head of the Service's Counter-Espionage Branch. His counterpart over at MI6 has received alarming intelligence from a high-placed Syrian source. A Middle East peace conference is planned to take place at Gleneagles in Scotland and several heads of state will attend. The Syrians have learned that two individuals are mounting an operation to disrupt the peace conference in a way designed to be spectacular, laying the blame at Syria's door.The source claims that Syrian Intelligence will act against the pair, presumably by killing them. No one knows who they are or what they are planning to do. Are they working together? Who is controlling them? Or is the whole story a carefully laid trail of misinformation? It is Liz's job to find out. But, as she discovers, the threat is far greater than she or anyone else could have imagined. The future of the whole of the Middle East is at stake and the conference deadline is drawing ever closer.