The Geneva Trap

July 2, 2012
Near the start of Rimington’s compelling seventh Liz Carlyle novel (after 2011’s Rip Tide), a Russian agent, Alexander Petrov, tells a British agent he approaches in a Swiss tennis club that he wants a meeting with “Lees Carlisle.” Liz, who barely remembers the Soviet dissident she encountered at university at the time of perestroika and the collapse of the Eastern bloc, agrees to meet Petrov in a Geneva cafe, where he warns her of a cyberattack on a joint U.S./U.K. software project for controlling unmanned drone aircraft. Fearing another cold war if the attack succeeds, Petrov claims that an unknown country, not Russia, is behind the scheme. Once the Brits alert Andy Bokus, the no-nonsense head of the CIA’s London office, this intelligent spy thriller is off and running. A family matter involving Liz dilutes the urgency of the primary plot somewhat, but the machinations of the intelligence business, which Rimington knows well as the former MI5 chief, fascinate. Agent: Georgina Capel.