When Liz learns from one of her agents that suspicious meetings are taking place at an Islamic bookshop, she trusts her instinct that a terrorist cell is at work. Her boss, Charles Wetherby, Director of Counter Terrorism, trusts her as well and immediately puts a surveillance operation into place. An attack seems imminent. So Liz is surprised when Wetherby suddenly takes her off the case. And she's shocked to hear the reason why: he has received a tip-off that a mole is at work inside British Intelligence. If true, then the potential damage to the Service itself could be immeasurable. Now, as her colleagues scramble to avert a terrorist strike, Liz must find out who the mole is, and what their intentions are, before it is too late.

From the former head of MI5 and author of the bestselling At Risk comes a heart-stopping new thriller that returns us to the high stakes world of MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle.

MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle learns from one of her agents that suspicious meetings have been taking place at an Islamic bookshop. She feels instinctively that a terrorist cell is at work and when she reports this to Charles Wetherby, the Director of Counter Terrorism, a surveillance operation is immediately put into place. An attack seems imminent.

So Liz is surprised when Wetherby takes her off the case - this is just her sort of operation. However, Wetherby has some very disturbing news. He has received a tip-off that a mole has been planted in one of the branches of British Intelligence. If true, then the potential damage to the Service itself could be immeasurable.

As her colleagues try to counter an impending terrorist strike, Liz must use all her skills to find out who the mole is, and what their intentions are, before it is too late.

In Secret Asset, the second Liz Carlyle novel, Stella Rimington once again brings all her experience to bear in a truly compelling thriller that takes the reader into a world where no-one can be trusted and nothing is what is seems.

'Liz Carlyle is an MI5 agent with the traditional thriller-heroine mix of dysfunctional personal life and steely ambition' Daily Telegraph

Stella Rimington joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1965 and was appointed Director-General in 1992.She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996, she became a non-executive director of Marks and Spencer and published her autobiography, Open Secret. The first Liz Carlyle novel, At Risk, was published in 2004.

2007-12-15 Not very secret and not much of an asset

I hadn't expected great writing but, given that Stella Rimington once headed MI5, I did imagine that her experience would enable her to construct an original plot and, most particularly, to leave readers feeling that they had been given insights into the workings of the intelligence services that other authors couldn't provide. Nothing of the sort, I'm afraid - perhaps she's being paid to make us LESS interested in what the security services are up to. The plot is as pedestrian as the writing, the book as a whole as overlong as it is thin and the characters struggle to achieve even two dimensions. You'll certainly know who the mole is well before MI5 do. After the plot's climax - such as it is - the book unaccountably whimpers on for another chapter or two whilst the characters have a bit of a muse and swop a few platitudes - including (can you bear it?) the old 'Quis custodiet' etc. Oh, dear me.