At risk - Stella Rimington

Former head of MI5 Stella Rimington brings the high-stakes world of intelligence to life in AT RISK - the first novel in her bestselling and much-loved series featuring MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle.

For MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle the nagging complications of her private life are quickly forgotten at Monday's Counter-Terrorist meeting. An invisible may have entered mainland Britain.

An 'invisible' is a terrorist who is an ethnic native of the target country, who can cross its borders unchecked and move about unnoticed - the ultimate nightmare.

For Liz this signals the start of an operation that will test her to the limit. Who or what is the target? Where and who is the invisible? With each passing hour the danger increases. But as she desperately sifts the incoming intelligence and analyses the reports from her agents she finally realises that it is her ability to get inside her enemy's head that is the only hope of averting disaster.

Stella Rimington joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1965 and during her career she worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities - counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism - and became successively Director of all three branches. She was appointed Director-General of MI5 in 1992. She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. Her autobiography, Open Secret, was published by Hutchinson in 2001.

A cracking good thriller
The Observer

Intelligent... Undeniably pacy
The Guardian

This is something rare: the spy novel that prizes authenticity over fabrication
Mail on Sunday

Rimington makes adroit use of her expertise as former MI5 chief
The Sunday Times

Tense and terrifying
Cosmopolitan