The former Director General of MI5 has written a spy thriller. It should have been the equivalent of Jamie Oliver cooking you dinner or David Beckham teaching your kids how to play football. In fact, it was a bit like Bruce Forsythe telling you how to stay young. I don’t think I truly understood what an airport thriller was like until I read this.The problem with Secret Asset isn’t just that it wasn’t good enough to be good, it also wasn’t bad enough to be bad. At least bad books have the decency of helping you dislike it. But Secret Asset was just… bleh.There are two cases being investigated: an upcoming terror attack by Muslim extremists, and a mole in MI5 planted by the IRA back in the times of the Troubles. The cases, like in all such books, inevitably merge into one connected dose of criminality.Our leading lady, Liz Carlyle, is a likeable enough sort of a lead character, and Rimmington at least tries to flesh her out a bit; she is single, her flat is untidy and her mother has cancer. The cancer storyline in particular was about as random as it gets. We meet her mother in one brief scene and the treatment is mentioned a few times, always in the back of Liz’s mind. It seems like an afterthought by Rimmington to try to humanise her main character but fails. It adds nothing, isn’t developed and just seems like the keyboard meandered into a bit of a rut with that one.Among Liz’s less human abilities are omniscience, or so it seems. Every hunch Liz has, every bit of intuition, is - quelle surprise - spot on. But despite her superhuman mind being laid out before us, we never really get the chance to get to know her properly. There’s no sympathy or understanding of the character other than a name of the person driving the plot.The supporting cast is a simple collection of average fuzzy nobodys with nothing in particular to distinguish them from each other. They are a collection of stock characters, any of which could be dropped with no impact on the story.Whodunnit in the whodunnit is plainly obvious. Even when you figure it out in books, you want to at least doubt yourself a bit. But it’s so incredibly stark from the outset, even Rimmington doesn’t bother getting excited with the reveal. Liz tells her boss, ‘It’s so and so’, and her boss agrees she’s probably right (of course). It has all the excitement of a wet fart.When the story limps to its grand climax, it conjures all the enthusiasm of a cold pizza. The resolution of the villain’s crimes are ‘off-screen’, as it were, with some boring cameo character explaining what happened to them. There’s absolutely no reason we couldn’t have at least been shown that.On the plus side, the writing style is clear and readable. A lot of novels – especially thrillers – have heavy bits you need to wade through, but Rimmington at least manages to keep you going with relative ease, although that’s probably to do with the lack of substance rather than any particular craft or design.Remember, the author once ran the government body she’s writing about. Her former career as Director General is emblazoned on the front cover. And the inside flap. And the page before the inside flap. It’s a USP, and part of what drew me to the book in the first place, so it’s not unfair to expect some return on that boast. But instead of a unique insight into an intriguing world, instead of plots complex and villains insurmountable, we get a damp squib. It’s readable, and you’ll get through it fast. And then you’ll completely forget all about it.
I've really enjoyed the Liz Carlyle novels: two of them have have been part of my escapist fiction recently.This is the second of the novels written by Ms Rimington to feature MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle. I’ve read them out of order and while this hasn’t materially impacted upon my enjoyment of the novels, I would recommend new readers to start at the beginning. In this novel, Liz is investigating a tip-off that a mole has been planted in one of the branches of British Intelligence. This is happening at the same time as Liz’s colleagues are trying to encounter an impending terrorist strike and the juxtaposition of the two increases the tempo of the action considerably. Enter a world where perhaps no-one can be trusted and nothing is what it seems. Are there links between the possible mole and the impending terrorist strike? What is an effective balance between hard fact and intuition?All three of the Liz Carlyle novels are enjoyable. While the character development is gradual, this seems appropriate for this series. Ms Rimington has succeeded in moving beyond the Cold War into a more contemporary world. She has done so in a way that is both entertaining but recognises that while old issues continue to age, they are never truly forgotten and in many ways never cease to be relevant.
What do You think about Secret Asset (2007)?
What is a 'secret asset' in the language of the security services? We soon find out, but who is the secret asset in this story will remain hidden until well into the book. This is the second Liz Carlyle story. In the early pages it seems that the novel will centre around the Islamic bookshop in which an agent by the name of 'Marzipan' works. However Liz is side-lined into another project by her boss Charles Wetherby. This takes her back in time to the troubles in Northern Ireland. This certainly becomes a book of questions, but can all answers be trusted.What did Sean Keaney say to his enemy on his death-bed? Why did Maguire then seek out Keaney's estranged daughter? Is this linked to the death of the ex-Oxford don, O'Phelan who was now lecturing in Belfast?The tension builds steadily, moving to several locations in southern England. The accuracy of the location descriptions is excellent and enhance the story for me.
—Andrew
Although I don't experience the "can't put this down even though it's 3 a.m., and I'm exhausted" feeling that the best espionage fiction gives me, I really do like this Liz Carlyle series. Rimington does something that other post-Cold-War espionage novelists don't seem to be able to do, namely connect the characters' motivations to larger social, political, and historical themes in a believable and empathetic way. Here, she connects to the standard themes -- Northern Ireland and "home-grown" Islamic terrorists; that's something every espionage writer does, but she does it well. More interestingly, her main villain is actually motivated by hatred of the class system, of imperialism, ..., of major pieces of British history and culture that transcend Northern Ireland and Islamic terrorism. Very interesting (even though I am an American, not a Brit :=)).On a lighter note, I really wish that Liz would get a life. I've only read the first two books in the series so far; maybe that comes later.
—Joan
Stella Rimington sounds like the coolest alias for the coolest woman in the world. She's the real life M - the former head of British Intelligence, and the first woman to hold the position. And Stella Rimington is her real name! It's all too good to be true. I approached this novel with glee, just knowing that it would be awesome. Maybe I expected too much, but it wasn't very good. It started out well, with Liz Carlyle (MI5 employee) looking into an Arab terrorist plot that has ties with former IRA members, and finding a mole in her own organization. Good, good, yes, I'm following it. . . And then just when the book should have picked UP speed it started feeling like walking underwater - yes, we're still moving, but it's SLOW. We find out who the mole is, what his plan is, and then it ended with a whimper rather than a bang. When bad guys slip and fall to their demise it's a little anti-climactic. If only he had worn better shoes! (Technically that's a spoiler, but I promise I'm not spoiling much).
—Elisha Condie
