A Dead Line by Stella Rimington

Published : March 08, 2010 :: 16:03:52 [ 3,339 views ]

Dead Line is the fourth book in the Liz Carlyle series written by Stella Rimington, the former Director General of the Security Service MI5.

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 Middle East harmony is at stake and the conference deadline is drawing ever closer.

Peter Templeton, MI6′s head of station on Cyprus, is given the names of two people involved, business man Sami Veshara and journalist Chris Marcham. The Syrians do not want the conference disrupted and explain they will take action against these men.

Liz Carlyle, an attractive 35-year-old single MI5 agent, is given the job of investigating the two men but complications arise as the American CIA and Israeli Mossad become involved.

Is CIA agent Miles Brookhaven, a young Ivy League graduate, interested in her personally or just keeping a professional watch on her? Why is a handsome Israeli embassy official escorting Hannah Gold, a member of the peace movement, to concerts and dinner? Is it because of her $20 million dollar divorce settlement, or that her daughter-in- law Sophie had been in the Security Service, or is there another motive?

When someone attempts to kill Liz by running her down in the street, and two agents from different countries are unexpectedly seen together at the Oval cricket ground the investigators become confused. These complications are made more difficult for Liz as she struggles with her feelings for her boss Charles Wetherby, whose wife Joanne is dying, and the professional and personal jealousies of her colleagues in the Security Services of both the UK and the USA.

Stella Rimington’s Dead Line was an easy light enjoyable read but with all the authenticity one would expect from a former MI5 Director General, as well as more characterization and ‘red herrings’ than one normally gets in a spy novel. Some of the characters may seem a bit stereotype but I get the impression they are drawn from Stella Rimington’s own experience of thirty years plus in the intelligence service.

The relationships are fairly predictable such as the CIA boss Andy Bokus, from a state university and immigrant stock, having a difficult time with his Ivy League subordinate Miles Brookhaven, and the pompous, divorced Geoffrey Fane fancying Liz, but there are a few surprises along the way. Even when one learns, or works out, what is going on there is still a lot of tension to see if the conference will be disrupted.

This is an unpretentious but authentic novel, and within the parameters of a spy thriller it is successful. The bonus is the reader will learn something about the tangled world of the intelligence services and a little about Middle Eastern history and politics.

The novel moves at an exciting pace through its 374 pages but seems to stutter towards the end, if I think of it logically Ms Rimington saw most of her cases end that way and I’m just used to those frantic Hollywood ends.

Quick biography, Stella Rimington, Nee Whitehouse, born 1935, has two daughters, can you imaging the kudos when you tell your mates in school ‘my mums a spy’ you would be overwhelmed with friends and would have to beat away the excess with a shitty stick, great!.