At Risk
MI5 – keeping our country safe
Thames House is the headquarters of MI5, an imposing eight storey high edifice a few hundred yards from the Palace of Westminster.
Stella Rimington joined MI5 in 1965 and during her career worked in counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism, directing all three branches in turn. She was appointed Director-General of the whole of MI5 in 1992, the first woman ever to hold the post, and was awarded the prestigious Dame Commander of the Order of Bath in the 1996 New Year Honours.
In 2004 she published her debut novel with the principal character based on herself: At Risk.
Liz Carlyle is an agent-runner in the counter-terrorism group based at Thames House, ten years into her term of service, anxiety her constant companion; to be effective she must herself be placed at risk. Her life is dominated by her work; unpredictable, stressful and shrouded in secrecy. By nature and inclination she is totally suited to the task.
… her quiet sage-green gaze masked an unflinching determination. A hunger for the fierce, close-focused engagement of the chase.
She dresses in nondescript clothes calculated to be non-memorable in any environment, always low profile even in success. It’s a lonely path, work-intensive, below the radar, the lives and security of all her agents and contacts in her hands, national security her daily preoccupation.
As soon as relationships become demanding or complex, she must end them.
She had found herself unable to compromise her independence in order to accommodate the emotional needs of a lover.
That this cycle led to her denying her own emotional needs she was well aware. Each parting was an excision, a scalpel’s downstroke, for which the only cure was immersion in work.
And now she has ‘an invisible’ on her patch; the ultimate intelligence nightmare – a terrorist who, because he or she is an ethnic native of the target country, can cross its borderds unchecked, move around that country unquestioned, and infiltrate its institutions with ease. As soon as we know that, each new character becomes an instant suspect.
Painstakingly Liz and her colleagues piece together a picture of two people who have traumatic experiences in their past that have precipitated them into fanaticism and vengeance. Both have had training in weapons and killing. Both have managed to travel to the UK and close to their ultimate target. But along the way they have killed innocent people, and the combined skill and weight of all the relevant services responsible for counter-terrorism and law and order is being amassed. It’s a race against time to outwit this deadly pair; time marked by a fast-approaching sinister anniversary. Curiosity, tension and dread keep the pages turning, and I for one didn’t anticipate the twist at the end which challenged me to consider how I would react in these circumstances, just how robust my own moral code would be.
It’s chilling to absorb the cold dispassion of trained suicide bombers and assasins; sobering to feel the weight of responsibility MI5 and MI6 and the police force carry to keep us safe; awe-inspiring to see how they sift and search and second guess and deduce to stay a step ahead of the most devious and devilish minds and prevent the most heinous massacres; scary to see how personal agendas and self-interest can pervert even the most disciplined. Stella Rimington has done us all a service by giving us insights into this secret world in such a rivetting and accessible form.
Odious comparisons
For the most part I don’t like to compare different authors. They aren’t in competition; they each have their own tale to tell, in their own way, for their own audiences. But this week in the course of reducing the number of books on my tbr bookshelves (ready for an anticipated influx next month!) I’ve been struck by the power of celebrity.
Stella Rimington? Yes, of course, we’ve all heard of her. Director General of MI5 in her professional life. High profile. Known name. But did I like her fiction? I did not. I chose At Risk – written when she’d got into her stride as a novelist. MI5 officer Liz Carlyle investigates a possible terrorist threat to a high security counter-terrorism meeting at Gleneagles. Looked promising given the author’s credentials. But … Style? No thanks. Plot? No thanks. Overall merit? No thanks. OK, this clever lady (Rimington, I mean), writing in her own area of expertise, may have successfully brought out 9 novels with bona fide publishers, but I have a sneaking suspicion her position had something to do with that. And I won’t personally be searching for more of her works.
Iain Banks? Yeah, we probably all remember his famous proposal to his girlfriend when he was terminally ill: would she do him the honour of becoming his widow. I hesitate to speak ill of the works of the dead but I’m afraid, for me, Banks has slithered into the same camp as Rimington: Canal Dreams had little to commend it for me. A famous Japanese cellist with a fear of flying gets caught up in civil unrest in the Panama Canal aboard the tanker on which she’s a passenger. Alongside the horrors of being help captive by lawless violent men, she has a series of dark inexplicable dreams and flashbacks to various traumas in her life. Hmmm. End thought: what was there to commend this book? And yet, this guy has written and successfully published 24 novels. He is and will remain, famous. Happily he doesn’t need the endorsement of a nonentity like me.
So, my point thus far? Reading is subjective. I am not swayed by fame or fortune. I shall not like something simply because I’m told I should by others no matter how high they rank in the literary echelons. These writers don’t appeal to me. Simple as that. I did do them both the courtesy of finishing their books to give them a sporting chance (well, it’s a basic tenet of mine, not to say obsession, as you know) but that’s it.
On the other hand …
Marcelle Bernstein? Ever heard of her? Her name doesn’t crop up in quizzes, she doesn’t get major reviews, so probably not. Sacred and Profane has only one review on Amazon and yet it’s one of my top twenty favourite books. A nun collapses at prayer, crying out in agony. Thousands of miles away, a female prisoner wakes panic stricken at exactly the same moment. What links these two women? I was utterly gripped. Oh, and just so you know, Bernstein has in fact won awards as well as having many other strings to her bow.
And then there’s Jaishree Misra …? Me neither. But her book was on my shelf and I discovered this lady is high profile in India; and she’s published by mainstream publishers. Not my usual kind of reading, but I took a big breath and got stuck into Secrets and Sins by way of illustration for this blog. 
Riva Singh and Aman Khan meet briefly at college and have a short liaison. Now she’s a bestselling novelist and he a Bollywood heartthrob, both married to other people, when they meet again at the Cannes Film Festival. Will they follow their hearts or their heads? It wouldn’t feature on my top one hundred, I wouldn’t rush to find it’s sequel, but, viewed dispassionately, I found it easier to read that either of the celebrated works above.
However, best of all was my as-yet-unknown debut author of last week’s blog – remember him? I enjoyed his writing enormously even in its first draft form. Plot? Yes. Message? Yes. Overall merit? Yes indeedy. I guess I ought to put my mark against the day when he too is famous. You heard of him here first! He’s currently hard at work editing. Bring it on!