Author: Stella Rimington
There is something quietly unsettling about a thriller written by someone who has actually run an intelligence service. At Risk, by Stella Rimington, a former director of MI5, builds tension in the spaces where decisions are made without certainty, and where danger is not theatrical but administrative, procedural, and almost invisible.
The novel introduces Liz Carlyle, an MI5 officer working in counterterrorism. She is competent, analytical, and measured, not a glamorous spy but a professional navigating paperwork, inter-agency politics, fragmentary intelligence, and the persistent fear that something essential has been missed. The central premise revolves around the possibility of an “invisible” terrorist: someone who can move freely within Britain, holding legitimate documentation and blending into ordinary life. The threat is realistic, as we learn throughout the book, because a disgruntled British citizen is indeed aiding terrorists. This character is portrayed and described well because Rimington does not just write a thriller; she also shows readers why some people become terrorists, which was compelling to read. It also created uncertainty about what will happen as the book progresses, which I enjoyed more than in conventional thrillers, where the ending and book progression are somewhat expected.
Liz Carlyle herself is one of the novel’s strengths. She occupies a world still shaped by masculine traditions of security and authority, yet her competence is never framed as exceptional because she is a woman. Instead, she operates within institutional constraints, balancing professional responsibility with personal life in ways that feel credible rather than symbolic. The novel does not turn her into an action heroine; it presents her as a thinking one. I particularly liked how her gut feeling was described and taken seriously by her male boss, who may have thought about things differently but gave her freedom to keep investigating.
It is the insider credibility of the author that makes this novel compelling, not just its writing style (which is great too). You read and wonder, was this real, did this really happen, and this then makes you wonder what the ending will be like. In other words, when you read other thrillers, which are written by talented authors who have never worked in intelligence services, you kind of have an idea of how the book might end, but here, you keep wondering. Then you also end up surprised, because the book does not end as you expect, or at least, I didn’t expect the exact ending.
At Risk is a thriller built on plausibility, and that is precisely what makes it quietly unsettling. This is also book 1 in the series of 10 books that follow Liz and her career. I aim to read other books too and will do so in order because online reviews I found suggest that, despite all books standing alone, they also make references to other books, which could spoil reading, so beware.
Thank you for reading!