Breaking Cover (Liz Carlyle #9) by Stella Rimington

Breaking Cover (Liz Carlyle #9) Reviews

• 
  Michael Martz

  I think Stella Rimington has reached the point where she's cranking them out too quickly. I began reading her in the middle of the Liz Carlyle series, went back to the beginning for the next 3 or 4, then grabbed her last one (9th?) when it became available at our library. Since the beginning, her novels have become progressively worse, which is a relative term since they're all at least pretty good. The writing is a bit less polished in each, the dialogue a little more stilted, the characters less colorful, and the plots more banal.
  
  Breaking Cover has some good points (typically good descriptions of tradecraft, for example, although even this is becoming less common). However, unless you've read all the preceding books in the series you'd be unaware of the personalities and capabilities of the major characters. The major problem I had with Breaking Cover was with the plot. In general, a thriller about a couple Russian 'illegal' agents loose in London and being chased by a group of crackerjack Brit intelligence specialists ought to be a winner. In this case, though, if you haven't figured it all out before mid-book and you haven't wondered why the author would portray her key players acting so stupidly/naively (or wondering how she could think her readers wouldn't notice it), I don't know what to say.
  
  Breaking Cover is readable but certainly not up to the standards of the early novels in this series. If you really want to get a feel for the characters and enjoy plots that are well-developed, begin at the beginning.
• 
  Jacki (Julia Flyte)

  This is Stella Rimington's ninth novel featuring the clever and resourceful MI5 intelligence officer Liz Carlyle. I enjoy this series although Rimington is at best a workmanlike writer. However what she brings to the table, as the former Director General of MI5, is an understanding of how Government intelligence operates and how investigations are undertaken. So as a reader you kind of look past the obvious villains and sometimes clunky dialogue and instead enjoy the way that information from intelligence "traffic" is pieced together, that surveillance is undertaken and operations are structured.
  
  The events of this book take place several months after
  Close Call and Liz Carlyle is still in mourning after the loss of a man she loved. It's a topical story that incorporates references to Brexit, cyber attacks and Alexander Litvinenko. Liz has been transferred to the counter-espionage division (focusing on foreign agents operating on British soil). She receives a tip that undercover Russian agents are working to undermine and destabilise the leading opponents of Putin in the UK. It's a vague tip which doesn't easily translate into actionable intelligence, but it's Liz's job to find any agent or agents who are in the UK. At the same time, there are reminders closer to home that employees of MI5 and MI6 may also be targeted as sources by Russian intelligence.
  
  If you enjoy this series - as I do - you'll also enjoy Breaking Cover. It features a host of familiar characters and it gives a sense of how MI5 might be operating in the face of today's intelligence challenges. What it lacks in the complexity of a le Carre or Cumming novel, it makes up in credibility. Just don't expect to be gasping "wow, I didn't see that coming!"
• 
  Jeanette Grant-Thomson

  Three and a half stars. I didn't like it nearly as well as some of the Liz Carlyle books, especially the first one, which was very good.
  What became of Charles Wetherby? Did I miss a book where he retires or something? A pity, I felt. While Jasminder is an interesting character, she lacks the strength to take as much plot-space from Liz and the others.
  A good read, interesting situation, but a bit disappointing, I thought.
  
  By the way - does anyone know how some of these writers get away with putting out radically negative stuff about living political characters? It's Putin, in this novel. Same with writers who wrote about Bin Laden etc. Are these people open slather because they are such public figures?
• 
  Tom Tischler

  Did'nt find this book all that interesting
• 
  Mal Warwick

  A prominent civil liberties advocate named Jasminder Kapoor is saved from muggers on a London street late at night by a passerby. Within weeks, she has fallen in love with the man, a Norwegian banker. There is something a little strange about him, but she can’t put her finger on it.
  
  Meanwhile, a Russian officer stationed in Ukraine witnesses the mangled bodies strewn about by the crash of a Malaysian airliner downed by a Russian missile. Disgusted by the experience, he approaches the CIA and volunteers to pass along information. A high-ranking CIA officer flies to Ukraine to interview him. The soldier has insisted on speaking with a “British expert,” and Miles Brookhaven fits the bill. In a short, tense meeting, Miles learns that the FSB has begun placing undercover Russian agents — “illegals” — in the West. One is in England.
  
  The CIA immediately informs MI5, where Liz Carlyle heads counterespionage. With no additional information to go on, Liz is stymied. Then Miles meets again with the Russian officer and learns there are two illegals in the UK, one a man, the other a woman, and that they work together. Both, he’s told, are getting close to successful penetration of MI5 and MI6. Liz’s search for the undercover agents begins, with the assistance of her resourceful aide, Peggy Kinsolving.
  
  As Jasminder is recruited into a senior post at MI6, in the agency’s new policy of openness, the tension mounts. No reader will be shocked to learn that her lover is one of the Russian illegals. But there are many other surprises in store as Liz and Peggy’s investigation — and the suspense — unfold over the weeks. Though the story is a little slow on the uptake, it steadily gains in momentum and rushes to an exciting climax.
  
  About the author
  
  It’s hardly unusual for a former intelligence agent to capitalize on a secret life by writing novels. After all, examples are abundant, from Ian Fleming to Howard Hunt. But it’s rare for the former director of a major intelligence agency to break cover in fiction. Dame Stella Rimington was the Director General of the UK’s Security Service, or MI5, from 1992 to 1996. In fact, she was both the first woman to hold the job, the first to be publicly identified, and the first to appear on-camera. Since leaving the agency she has built a new career as an espionage novelist. Breaking Cover is the ninth book in her series about MI5 agent Liz Carlyle.
• 
  Patricia Kaniasty

  Very slow starter. Almost no action. Very dull. Hard to see a point to the whole story.
• 
  Colby

  No. Just simply bad: plot, technique, dialogue, outcome.
• 
  Peter

  Dame Stella Rimington had a 27-year career (1969-1996) with MI5, Britain‘s domestic intelligence agency (equivalent to our FBI). From 1992-1996 she served as MI5’s first female Deputy General. She now uses her experience to craft spy novels with MI5 Agent Liz Carlyle as the chief protagonist. Breaking Cover (2016) is the ninth and latest in the Liz Carlyle series.
  
  The novel is not a spy thriller, though there are tense episodes of infiltration and deception. Rather, it is a very well written, has a nicely crafted plot, and gives cogent insights into spycraft and into what might go on inside the intelligence agencies. This involves committee meetings to assess issues, plan operations, and to inform us about the tensions between agencies and individuals that go on inside the agencies. These serve to introduce the characters and the issues. It also involves some operational matters—attempts by one side or another (British MI5/MI6 vs. Russian FSB) to subvert individuals in the foe’s agencies. All of this is done with historical references to specific real events: the 2006 FSB poisoning of the polyoccupational Alexander Litvinenko (FSB agent turned dissident), the assassinations of other Russian dissidents, Putin’s push into Crimea and the Ukraine.
  
  It opens with Jasminder Kapoor, a London civil rights lawyer working on the issue of privacy vs. security; she will soon become MI6’s first Communications Director and become directly involved in subversive activity. Jasminder is walking home one evening when she is accosted by two thugs who attempt to abduct her. A fisticuffs-adept passerby named Laurenz Hansen drives the thugs off. Hansen will soon become a figure in Jasminder’s life, and we will wonder if their meeting wasn’t just a bit less coincidental than it appeared.
  
  We then meet Liz Carlyle, an MI5 agent who—along with her assistant Peggy Kinsolving—attends a lecture given by Jasminder on the appropriate balance between individual privacy and intrusions from national security. Jasminder’s balanced analysis and her awareness of the pros and cons of each side impress Liz and Peggy. When a new position as MI6 Communications Director is created. Liz and Peggy recommend Jasminder for the position: to agency critics she has the credentials of an opponent to the secretive ways of intelligence, and to MI6 she is serious thinker about the openness of intelligence agencies.
  
  After Jasminder’s appointment, news comes down that MI5 and MI6 are the subjects of a “pincer” operation. Two Russian couples have been sent by the FSB to Britain to compromise two agency employees, one in MI5 and MI6, and gather information about the West’s intentions and capabilities. This is the core of the “thriller” part of the story, and it is told with authenticity. The details are predictable, but even then the story is a good read.
  
  Four stars.
  
  RATING SYSTEM:
  5 = I would certainly read another work by this author
  4 = I would probably read another work by this author
  3 = I might read another work by this author
  2 = I probably would NOT read another work by this author
  1 = Never! Never! Never!
  
• 
  Patrick SG

  This is the ninth in a series of novels featuring the MI-5 case officer Liz Carlyle. It's probably the weakest in the series, due to a plot device in the first chapter on which the rest of the story hinges. The plot device is so much a happenstance that it makes all that follows unlikely. Saying more would reveal spoilers.
  
  I also found the characterizations of the repeating figures a bit too bland. Part of the drama of the previous novels - which are written by a former Director General of MI-5 (and the first woman to hold that title) - comes from the tension that exists among the various security services in the UK and their "cousins" in the CIA. In this novel everyone is just too friendly to one another, so the dramatic tension is missing. Maybe all of them have worked together too long.
  
  The characterizations of the two female leads are also disappointing. It seems every male character they come in contact with wonders what it would be like to date them. That gets old after a while too.
  
  It may be after nine novels with these same characters there is not as much to say that's interesting anymore. Yet, in an increasingly perilous world, I don't think that's the case. Let's hope Dame Rimington regains her stride in coming episodes.
• 
  Robin Colesmith

  I was critical of the last Liz Carlyle novel but found this one a return to form. It seems to me Stella Rimington is better suited to the slower paced counter-espionage novel to the more action packs counter-terrorism novels. I haven't gone back to check, but I suspect that her novels peak each time Liz transfers back to the counter-espionage section. A relatively simple plot with twists so obvious I'm still not sure if they were meant to be twists or just obvious plot points. But well written with good characters and a good window into MI5.
• 
  Kerry Swinnerton

  Disappointing and somewhat predictable.
  It just seems to be a rehashing of similar plots in countless other author’s offerings. It seems to have been written too hurriedly, to have no real deep story, to have just this continuum of increasingly boring narrative.
  Being far from an expert, I would never be able to tell if a man’s suit was Saville Row and his shirt, Brooke’s Brothers....and “a well cut haircut”.......well if he looked scruffy and untidy obviously not, but anyone wearing an attractive suit and tie with a neat looking haircut, certainly wouldn’t mean that he was an employee of any particular discipline or employment.
  Is all the unnecessary descriptions of every man’s suit, shirt, tie and haircut just inconsequential padding to meet a required word count. If these MI5 and 6 employees are supposed to look like the man in the street, then needing to wear an Armani suit certainly puts them out of that category......and how do you tell? Are we seeing manufacturers labels on swing tags at the hem or sew on labels on the outer left cuff of the suit jackets.
  One other irritating point..... I am not a linguist......just a mere reader, and I become increasingly irritated with the non translation of (particularly) French language terminology that I need to look up to understand. Would it really hurt to have an English translation for those of us, non-European dwelling readers who have no clue what has been said, or what is being eaten? I have a quite sound education, but I live in Australia and am not multilingual and some descriptions in all these books so far have lost me and I’m fed up with having to break the train of thought to get the full context of the scene.
• 
  Tricia

  So in this book, a lawyer / human rights campaigner gets recruited to do PR for MI6. She is supposed to represent a new transparency, to counteract suspicions and mistrust rising amongst the public. So you might think transparency is some sort of metaphor. Instead, it is more like a one-word summary of how the plot develops. The broad strokes of what would happen were so obvious! I'm surprised Liz and Peggy didn't catch on more quickly, but then they didn't get to see quite as much as we readers did. It feels like Dame Rimington was just coasting on this one. Or maybe this is a not-so-subtle dig at transparency?
  
  Two positive points: it was interesting how the whole "Putin is trying to undermine the west" angle was somewhat prescient - this book was *published* in 2016! That is, before trump was elected and before the Brexit vote; we now know Russia worked hard to manipulate public opinion in both. Also intriguing to read (in late summer 2022) about the trip into Donetsk, given the current conflict in Ukraine. But the Jasminder angle just ruined it for me. She was hopelessly naive and easily manipulated - even before being "trapped" - despite being this tough, principled human rights campaigner. Hard to believe she wouldn't have been given more training by MI6, even (especially??!) in her role as a spokesperson.
• 
  Simon Skelton

  Fiendish Russkies are up to their old tricks again attempting to destabilise the country with infiltration of the intelligence services and political rabble rousing and can only be stopped by posh people speaking rather firmly and phone calls to special branch.
  
  If a good writer is to 'show not tell' then this is awful writing where the reader is 'told' something on every other page even if the thing we're being told has been told before in every other book in the series.
  Plot was a bit obvious (almost to the point of shouting 'he's behind you' panto style at the kindle screen) and the pace is slow but this is a matter of the style of the book not a writing failure.
  
  Good points were the handling of undercover stuff; meeting agents, secret identities, trailing folk about and interviewing scenes which can be either compassionate or ruthless as the situation demands. Given the authors background there is some authenticity here and one gets the impression that she too is more excited about these scenes than the intermediate ones. If the rest of the book held interest as these scenes did it would have received four stars not two from me.
  
  For the good bits I shall probably read the next.
• 
  Thomas

  Another solid offering from this former officer and Director General of MI5. If you want to get a taste of what the spy's life is really like, this is for you. I love the glimpse we get of MI6, the intelligence service made famous by James Bond. Not only do they not have the time for luxurious meals and playing baccarat, MI6 officers can barely fit in ten minutes to hit up the company canteen to grab a sandwich to bring back to their desks. That sums up the realism here.
  
  Sure, the dialogue's a bit clunky and stilted, but even that has become part of Dame Stella's signature. As is her "no sacred cows" rule. As she demonstrated in her previous Liz Carlyle book, Close Call, the spy's life is super dangerous. Anyone can meet their maker at any time. Just because you've grown attached to a character, don't assume they'll live to see the last page.
• 
  Peter Anderson

  Stella Rimington has a great writing style. This book, like her other eight, seem to be very much developed from a storyboard—perhaps she has a film or TV series in mind—paragraphs are short and restricted to a single "act". That said, the characterisation is very good.
  
  Breaking Cover is a counter-espionage story and therefore not as action-packed as some of her other books. It was still a good read, not her best perhaps, but still worth the effort.
  
  Deadly Refuge the 10th Liz Carlyle novel will be released in mid-September 2018. I can't wait.
  
  Breaking Cover is worth a read but if you are new to the series then perhaps try one of the earlier books first.
  
  Regards,
  Peter
• 
  Pgchuis

  3.5* rounded up.
  
  This was an enjoyable read if you can accept that Jasminder, a university lecturer, civil liberties lawyer, immigration adviser, and speaker on government surveillance would be a good choice for or even consider applying for the role of press liaison for MI6. Then you have to believe in her rapid transformation into a morally dubious and compromised girlfriend, who made one stupid decision after another.
  
  On the plus side, I found the plot coherent and the other characters fortunately competent and honourable (apart from their rather unlikely overwhelming sympathy for "poor" Jasminder).
  
  On to instalment #10.
• 
  Susan

  Liz Carlyle has been transferred to counter-espionage, where she has the thankless task of keeping Russian emigres from being murdered. One such emigre has moved to Manchester and his sights set on buying Manchester United. You know an author is good at characters when you want to jump inside the book to offer them advice or warnings. The setting in the British security services is compelling. A couple things happen that do not make any sense, but the plot is nevertheless suspenseful.
• 
  Richard Howard

  I always enjoy Stella Remington's books, as you know she knows the world she writes about. This story is topical, what with the new Cold War we find ourselves in. The subversion process is well described and the narrative moves at a cracking pace. My only criticism is one I have with all this author's books: the language, especially the dialogue always seems stilted and never rings true. People just do not speak as Liz Carlyle and her colleagues do.
• 
  Scott Sharp

  It started out so promising. I do enjoy these books and characters, but the cookie-cutter plots are starting to grate. One more in the series, i hope it ends well. I suppose, a decision whether to read her standalone novel hangs in the balance. For those of you looking for a Le Carré replacement, look elsewhere. For those of you looking for a mystery wrapped in a spy thriller, this series might suit you.
• 
  Catherine Maloney

  I really like the female character as I think there are so few strong, realistic female leads in the detective genre. My only disappointment was with the ending. SPOILER ALERT it reinforced that outsiders can't succeed in the spooks dept and it was especially irritating given it was a female character. It's the only reason I didn't rate it as a five.
• 
  Barbara

  This was a bit pathetic, ploddingly written and lacking in atmosphere. A third of the way through, I had worked out what was going on, but I kept hoping that she was going to put in a few twists before the end. But she didn't. The Telegraph though it was "damn good", apparently - I thought it was a damp squib.