Rip Tide

Liz Carlyle #6

by Stella Rimington

Light wear to the covers. Orders received by 3pm Sent from the UK that weekday.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Mystery, Crime, Spy Thriller, Mystery Thriller

384 pages, Paperback

First published June 6, 2011

About the author

Dame Stella Rimington was a British author and Director General of MI5, a position she held from 1992 to 1996. She was the first female DG of MI5, and the first DG whose name was publicised on appointment. In 1993, Rimington became the first DG of MI5 to pose openly for cameras at the launch of a brochure outlining the organisation's activities.

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry insightful espionage novel, the sixth in the Liz Carlyle series by Rimington. Not for those who want super hero espionage warriors who kill a terrorist a page, these British novels are set in an Anglocentric interpretation of the world and feature investigations, more of the nuances of tradecraft, the upending of terror cells through good old fashioned footwork and smarts.

Bloodshed is minimal, but Rimington knows her craft and her characters and they all are shown to good effect in this smart novel.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stella Rimington has a formula that works. Her books start slowly, focusing first on one character, then on another. Gradually the threads between each of their stories become stronger and more closely intertwined. At the same time the pace increases and the tension rises until it's impossible to put the book aside.

That didn't happen this time. It started slowly and continued at that pace. Instead of letting the tension build, each situation was resolved within a few pages. As I passed 250 pages I thought that it would have to pick up, but it didn't. It just ended. The only notable difference between this and her previous books is that this time the enemy wasn't really characterized at all. The cat and mouse game that Rimington's characters play requires an enemy that presents a challenge.

[Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a Kindle deal of the day book that I purchased for around the £1 region. Having never read any of Stella Rimmingtons books before, but being a long time fan of the TV show Spooks, I wondered how I could've missed out on this author. I would describe this book as good but no more, it certainly felt convincing and Dame Stellas long career in MI-5 and knowledge of the security service has clearly made this world come alive on paper. Unfortunately this story felt a bit flat, like a run of the mill operation, MI-5 bread and butter if you like. That is not to say I won't be reading any more Liz Carlyle novels because I most definately will. According to reviews I have read the earlier books are a lot more fast paced and tense. All in all though this was a good read that kept me interested all the way through and well worth a quid.
3.5 Stars.

[Michael Martz · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Rip Tide' is a competently done spy novel starring Stella Rimington's MI5 agent Liz Carlyle. Rip Tide has a lot of the characteristics common to the Carlyle series: unspectacular writing, decent tradecraft, hint of romance, lots of commentary about looks and clothing, and a plot with a hole in it that essentially spoiled the whole thing for me.

It begins with the hijacking by Somali pirates of an aid ship heading to Africa. A French patrol boat intervenes and captures the pirates, among whom is a Brit of Pakistani descent. He has no good explanation on why he was with the Somalis, so they begin treating him as a possible terrorist. Carlyle is called in to interrogate him, gets nothing, but in the meantime it's discovered that British-Pakistani young men are leaving England for Pakistan and aren't returning by any official means. Are there terrorists being trained for a big attack? Some additional complications are that the pirates seem to be focused on one aid organization's shipments, but only on the most valuable of them, the aid org is based in Greece but is headed by an American who turns out to be ex-CIA, and the charity is staffed by a crew who have some pretty sketchy backgrounds. The investigators seem to think the pirates are getting a heads-up on which shipments to attack and also may be smuggling terrorists onto the African mainland. They set a trap which, in the end, sort of works...

Liz Carlyle is a good character, but the incessant internal conversations she has with herself over wardrobe, ex-boyfriends, current lover, who may or may not be interested in her, etc. are fairly annoying. Even more troubling in this novel was the (SPOILER ALERT) trap set to identify how the information about shipments was being leaked. A document was created and put in a desk that was locked with only 2 keys being in use: one held by the document creator, one by the guy in charge. The info, of course, gets out.... Now, wouldn't you think that one of the greatest, most technologically capable spy intelligence operations in the world would have something else monitoring that desk (like, for example, a hidden $40 video camera) so the young lady who created the document would not have to luck into finding out how (but not who) it was compromised?

Again, a decent novel with an unfortunate hole in the story, at least for me.....

[Esther Turnbull · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. As Stella Rimington was the DG of MI5 I'm sure her books are factually correct. She really makes the stories exciting.

[Lizzie Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Rip Tide’ by Stella Rimington
Published by Bloomsbury, July 2011. ISBN: 978-1-4088-1112-2

Mitchell Berger who has lived in most places in the world, is now living in Athens and co-ordinating aid for the charity UCSO. A call that an aid ship bound for Mombasa had been subject to a hijacking attempt, which had been foiled by a French Navy patrol is on the face of it good news. However this is the third hijacking of an aid ship and Mitchell surmises that it is no chance attack, as like the earlier two hijacking this particular aid ship was carrying unusually expensive cargo. With a sigh Mitchell telephones the London Headquarters of UCSO and alerts his boss David Blakey to the problem. An ex-MI6 officer David decides to have a chat with an old colleague.

Meanwhile, the problem reaches MI5 Officer Liz Carlyle by a different route as the French Navy who captured the pirates have found that one of the gang has a British passport. Would Liz like to question the prisoner? During the decade that Liz Carlyle has been in MI5 things have changed dramatically following 9/11. So a British citizen of Pakistani descent in a gang of Somalis pirates raises a red flag.

As Liz investigates the background of the prisoner Amir Khan, and tries to make sense of the chain that has resulted in Amir being part of a pirate gang, a separate prong of attack is being put in place in Greece.

Whilst the investigation steps up, and Liz and her team try to get a handle on the facts and information that they are uncovering, equally fascinating are the behind the scenes politics and relationships inside MI5 and MI6

On a personal level Liz is currently enjoying a relationship with a French counterpart, but can relationships ever stand still?

An exciting entry in this excellent series, this book is recommended.
-----
Lizzie Hayes

[Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this while ill with a bad cold and it was great for that. It's short and demands little of the reader while having enough narrative tension to keep you going.

Pros: authentic feel, as you'd expect, I can well believe that intelligence work is mostly long periods of procedural faff and going in circles punctuated by long stakeouts and brief bursts of action. Somehow this is depicted without being too dull in the book. Characters are likeable if not much more. Honest attempt to describe causes of radicalisation among British Pakistani youth. Main character is a capable female officer without also being Bruce Lee and is not somehow a master of combat or physical action.

Cons: prose is very wooden and description-laden. Characterisation is often described rather than shown. I don't need every spy thriller to have a complex double-crossing plot or a villain who is secretly running MI5, but there really weren't any surprises and the "insider" villain wasn't hard to pick. For all the exposition about radicalisation, all the characters whose heads we were inside were basically western in worldview, and at the end the characters (and author) only shake their head in bafflement at someone who would blow themselves and others up for an imaginary martyrdom. I didn't feel I actually gained any new insight into this through the novel.

[Eric Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story, about the pirating of selected aid ships off Somalia, reads well. The only quibble I have is the change in protagonists from chapter to chapter. Liz Carlyle of MI5 is the main character, but the story is told as well from the perpsective of others in the plot to radicalize Pakistani young men and ship them off to join terrorists in Somalia.

Ms Rimington's extensive experience in MI5 gives the book outstanding authenticity of detail.

While the book did not crackle with tension, it gave the reader some happy summer hours of relaxation.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent.

All the reasons I've given for liking the previous four Liz Carlyle novels I read could be repeated here, but I'll just refer you to my previous reviews.

In an earlier review, I expressed a desire for Liz to get a life. It seems she's gotten one! I really hope that Rimington doesn't kill Martin off (or kill the relationship off); I really like him.

[Hermien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable, tense and a good plot line.

[Dave Appleby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stella Rimington was the Director General of MI5; she now writes spy novels featuring a female MI5 operative. She can hardly be accused of writing about what she doesn't know!

The book is in the classic thriller mould. It uses the past tense with told by an omniscient narrator who adopts multiple-perspectives - I counted fourteen separate characters who acted as a third-person narrator. This enables the author to keep the story moving along; the next bit of the narrative is always available because somebody can tell that segment of the story. However, there are two disadvantages of multi-PoV. Without using an unreliable narrator (which might be regarded as 'cheating' in this genre) the author cannot narrate from the PoV of one of the baddies ... so the reader can cross each narrator off from their list of suspects. The second disadvantage is, for me, more critical: only an exceptional author would be able to create fourteen characters sufficiently distinctive that they can convincingly narrate.

It was interesting to note that wherever Rimington does describe the traits of a character it is almost always by saying what one of the other characters thinks of them, as if the author believes that the dictum 'show don't tell' can be circumvented by having one of the fictional characters do the telling.

I understand that a novelist isn't obliged to give a balanced account of the socio-political structure of the world . There were moments when Rimington tried to offer a balance, for example when it was explained why Somali pirates were forced into piracy and when the villains were allowed to offer justifications (though these seemed shallow, the platitudes of fanatics, rather than any sort of personal soul-searching) but these were momentary paragraphs, lost in the bulk of the book, and had the appearance of unconvincing tokens. I reiterate that it isn't the function of a novel to offer balance. But the best spy novels (eg those of John le Carre and Graham Greene) are able to be intensely personal accounts of individuals seem from only their perspective and yet can still suggest that the world of espionage (like the world itself) is full of moral ambiguities. This book reverts to a simplistic division between goodies and baddies; the baddies are almost all dyed-in-the-wool villains and the only possible criticism that can be levelled at a goody seems to be that he (or, more rarely she) is incompetent or inefficient.

But character doesn't really matter in this genre. The plot is everything, and Rimington has constructed a workable if fairly standard plot. It gets off to a slow start with the inciting incident being delayed until the end of chapter two but again that is standard within the genre; there is almost always a little bit of scene-setting first.

Despite the jarring use of the word 'expatiating' in the second sentence, there is little to object to in this book. It was a thoroughly competent example of the genre; the story rattled along in 63 short chapters (averaging less than six pages each chapter).

But if there is little to object to, equally, there is little to celebrate in this book.

Fundamentally, this novelist can't seem to see that there are always many more than two sides to every story. That's a deficiency for a novelist (and scary in a spymaster) but perhaps it's inevitable if you have fourteen viewpoints.

The story rattles along, told in 63 short chapters. A perfect example of the genre. Competent but not my cup of tea.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a young British man turns up among a boatload of captured Somali pirates, Liz Carlyle rushes to France to interview him. Amir Khan holds a driver's license from Birmingham. He's of Pakistani descent and, as soon becomes clear, he had previously traveled to Pakistan at the urging of a radical cleric in his home town. Is Khan one member of a cell of England home-grown terrorists? Is he Al Qaeda? And is the connection with Somalia significant? Carlyle's job is to uncover the truth.

The making of England home-grown terrorists
When Liz asks a colleague "how does someone like Amir end up in Somalia?, the answer reflects a dilemma now common in the West. "I think they go through a sort of identity crisis," the colleague says. "All this Western culture is only skin-deep with them; a lot of these kids don't feel they can ever truly be English, and once they realize that, they feel alienated both from their parents and from this country and Western culture as a whole. Most of them don't share the same work ethic as their parents; without that, they're very vulnerable to the concept of a cause. Enter the extremist imams." Al Qaeda and ISIS have attracted thousands of young people in similar ways.

An action-packed novel that casts light on the world we live in
Rip Tide, the sixth novel in Stella Rimington's Liz Carlyle series, is an action-packed novel that rockets from one locale to another: on the seas off the Somali coast and on the coast itself, to Athens, Paris, Birmingham, and London. Carlyle and her sidekick, Peggy Kingsolver, prove themselves to be consummate professionals. Somehow, too, they manage to maintain relationships with their lovers, and Liz succeeds in fending off the none-too-subtle advances from a senior officer in MI6 with whom she's forced to work. Home-grown terrorists in England are just one of several challenges Carlyle faces in her brilliant career at MI5 even two decades ago.

A woman in the man's world of espionage
Only in recent decades have women emerged in leadership positions in the intelligence services. The US military has done a far better job of promoting women to flag rank. The Navy is best of all by far, counting an astonishing 93 current or former US Navy female admirals. Their counterparts in the intelligence services have been overwhelmingly male. Today, as an exception that proves the rule, Gina Haspel serves as Director of the CIA. To date, no woman has served in a comparable position in Britain's MI6. But Dame Stella Rimington broke through the glass ceiling at MI5 more than two decades ago as the agency's Director General. She retired in 1996, and no other woman has followed in her footsteps. Rimington now writes the Liz Carlyle series of spy thrillers. It seems likely, doesn't it, that Carlyle's career reflects the author's own experience? You can be sure that Rimington was forced to deal with home-grown terrorists in England. Al Qaeda was in its infancy during her time at MI5.

[Eyejaybee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liz Carlyle, Stella Rimington’s engaging and resourceful MI5 officer makes a welcome return. Now back on the mainland after her brief posting to Northern Ireland, she finds herself picking up the investigation into the involvement of a young British national who was captured by a French Navy patrol boat when it came to the rescue of a freight ship being attacked by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa. While the prisoner maintains a stoical silence, closer investigation into his background reveals that he had, until fairly recently, been a regular attendee at a mosque in Birmingham that had already caught the attention of local Special Branch officers.

As relevant now as it when it was first published ten years ago (which was ten years after the attack on the World TraceCentre sparked the War Against Terror in earnest), the story follows the intelligence services’ concerns about the risk of radicalisation. Dame Stella obviously know her stuff – she was, after all, Director General of MI5 (and one would like to think that many of Liz Carlyle’s quality reflect the author herself). Indeed, my own sister was vetted by her forty years ago when they were both based in the UK’s diplomatic community in Brussels.

Stella Rimington’s novels plot a course somewhere between the grim, bleak and somewhat shabby world inhabited by the characters of John le Carre’s world, and the hedonistic and hi tech romps of Ian Fleming. She does not offer the glorious prose of le Carre, nor his searing exploration of the human condition, but she does promise her reads compelling characters and plausible plots.

One of the prevailing themes is the occasionally strained relationships between the various intelligence organisations. While it is only natural that the agencies of other countries might have differing, and even diametrically opposed, objectives to their British counterparts (and in this book we find the American and French intelligence organisations participating), we also regularly encounter conflicts within the British secret community, with MI5 and MI6 treading on each other’s toes.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable story, leaving me keen to read the next in the sequence.

[Jason Ravara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, uhm, this is a well-written and well-paced story about the involvement of an MI5 officer named Liz Carlyle in a certain case where an English Pakistani was suddenly found involved in a hijacking incident. The plot thickens as they finds out how he ended up there from the relatively peaceful community he lived until then.

It contains mostly the usual elements found in spy-and-secret-agents novels like cover stories and informants although with the slight addition of the talks between different countries' intelligence departments; namely, Britain, America, and France.

It was a kinda-slow-but-good-paced type of story which makes it barely a page-turner. The only reason for my low evaluation is that the way it ended left a lot of questions unanswered and a lot of plot elements without closure. It's like I was reading it one moment, thrilled because some parts of the mystery got unveiled and excited for the rest to come to light when suddenly the book ends. It's my first time reading a book that just doesnt build up to an ending and it is not a good experience :(

Disclaimer: Read this from Reader's Digest Select Editions so I'm not sure how it compares to the actual unabridged book.

[Tom Thornton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd love to read her memoirs but her fiction is underwhelming. I'm starting to think that Stella Rimmington's writing career is kept afloat more by 'who she is' than 'how she writes'. I'll keep an eye out for any non-fiction by her, I feel like her expertise would be better suited there.

It's just all too easy for the main character. She's never challenged, she's never wrong and everything falls in to place too easily. At no point is there any danger of the outcome not running smoothly. The heroes are all very 'privileged' and Stella Rimmington reminds me of a matriarchal headmistress who is very intelligent, authoritative and successful but who comes unstuck when branching out beyond her immediate circle., as in, the working class characters are poorly written.

When she talks about MI5, the only option is to listen and respect it as the most accurate account available. I enjoyed the inside information about the work of the security forces. I don't regret reading this book but I'll be moving on to other authors.

[Becky Motew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good one!

I wondered initially how a hijacking off the Horn of Africa was going to connect to Liz C, but of course it does and it leads her to a terrorist indoctrination center in Birmingham UK.

I always get a smile from the portrayals of Americans in the series, most notably Andy Bokus, CIA chief of station in London. Loud, brash, always raring to go into any situation with excessive firepower--okay, I can buy that. Liz also thinks he is smarter than he looks so we Yanks can take comfort there I guess. Shimkin, another Langley agent with the same traits, has a big rear end and I'm not sure what to make of that.

SR doesn't always get the American vernacular just right. Shimkin offers to pay for a meal (to another American) and says, "my shout!" You wouldn't hear that stateside.

That's about it for objections.

An excellent read!

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, why this book is titled Rip Tide is beyond me. It has no relevance to the plot.
The first half of the book was frustrating and confusing. So many characters to keep straight. Half way thru I paused and went back thru the book and created a character cheat sheet. From that point it was easier to follow. But one major character was David and another Dave. Really?! Plus, there was too much back story about characters not relevant to this book. So the first half was rather a slog.
However, things picked up. I was interested in the crimes. I know such crimes exist, but this novel fleshed them out. Then I became interested in a brother and sister who played major roles in the book. Some parts in the second half were tense and exciting.
So in the end, I gave it four stars. I’d read another in the series.

[Jackie Cain · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a clever book with evidence of real detection and intelligence gathering with some interesting characters.

I thought the opening chapters presented a really neat way of re-introducing us to Liz Carlyle, who she is and where she is professionally and personally. It didn't feel overly burdensome as back story. It just felt natural but also informative.

It has an exciting conclusion with lots of story lines coming to conclusions with mixtures of military might and concerned citizenry. Oh, and I was right about the mole in one of the key organisations - although, maybe that wasn't hard. Whatever: it felt satisfying!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a valuable shipment is targeted off the Somali coast, the pirates are captured by the French Navy. MI5 and Liz Carlyle get involved when one of them is identified as a British citizen. Much of the plot involves MI5, MI6, French intelligence, and the CIA - as well as the military forces of the three countries - jockeying to run the show. As usual, Liz finds that there are few she can trust, even among the Brits. To me it is astounding that an aid organization sending large amounts of cash to Africa would choose to do so by means of a cargo ship. But, given this device, the story is intelligently plotted and Liz an interesting character.

[Scott Sharp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one had a good middle. The regular characters are enjoyable to read about. A cliche has developed for these books- there is a former spy or current spy gone bad, or in this case the cause of some major problems, in each book so far. And Dave after another difficult adventure, he's just now questioning his career choices. The Pakistani characters also could have been better developed. Over all this is an average thriller with characters i like - so three stars. Ill still read more of them, however.

[Andrew Spink · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was a fairly light thriller, believable plot (the author's pedigree helps, I suppose) an attractive and convincing central character and enough twists to keep interest right until the end. I liked the way that she dropped enough clues so that you could have a good guess what was coming up, but also a fair number of red herrings so that it was never quite sure. It was my first Stella Rimington, but I think not my last.

[Christine Ottaway · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy Stella Rimington books. Knowing very little of the world of MI5 and MI6 it is good to have a window on it through these novels.

In this novel Liz Carlyle gets caught up in the world of Somali pirates and Muslim extremists operating out of a Birmingham mosque. There are the usual tensions between MI5, MI6 and CIA and the story moves swiftly form the Somali coast to London, Birmingham and Paris.

The denouement at a concert in Birmingham ends the story on an exciting note..

[Mary Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I have enjoyed all the previous books in the series. I love this type of book yet the series is more of a gentle read than a lot of other books in this category. It doesn't lose anything by this however, just makes it more relaxing to read. After reading lots of books that are more gritty, it's nice to read something that is interesting yet not as gritty, if that makes sense.

I look forward to the next book and to see how Liz's personal life develops.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another in the Liz Carlyle series, not a bad read. Pirates attack a cargo ship off the Somalian coast and the ship is rescued by a French naval ship and one of the pirates does not get away. It is discovered he is a British born Pakistani, and Liz Carlyle from MI5 is brought in to investigate. The ship was taking valuable cargo of medical supplies for a charity called UCSO, and this is not their first cargo that has been hijacked by pirates. There is a leak in the UCSO Greek based office about their cargoes, and why are British born Muslim men being used as part of the pirate crew?

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plots are entertaining but good god, Liz Carlyle, the titular main character, is such a bore. I have no interest in what passes for her love life and she rarely seems to be a character who advances the plot in any meaningful way. The plot just seems to happen around her. If the author wants a female character to focus on why not Peggy Kinsolving, the stereotypical former librarian? She, at least, does more than dither about her romantic entanglements.

[Brigid Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rip Tide is my first Stella Rimington read, but it definitely won't be my last.
As a big fan of spy thrillers, I really enjoyed the excellent cast of characters, the slow build up of the plot, and the realistic portrayal of intelligence work.
She highlights the complexity of unravelling the truth, and the difficulty in bringing perpetrators to justice.
I have ordered all the Liz Carlyle series, and will now read book 1.

[Rose Sandoval · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best of the series so far!

As a true fan of spy novels I have been enjoying reading the series. I think the writer just keeps getting better. I'm looking forward to the next few books in the series. These are interesting stories – perhaps less conventionally spy novels than Standard, but nevertheless very interesting.

[Gillian Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m sure this book was true to life as it was rather tedious. One of the main focuses is the rivalry between MI5, MI6 and the CIA. Everyone is more interested in protecting their patch and reputation. The story itself is quite interesting but a bit disjointed. This book doesn’t have the pace of other Liz Carlisle books.

[Robert Webber · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exciting story of counter terrorism with a likeable hero in Liz Carlisle. The portrayal of MI6 operatives as louche, duplicitous and scheming individuals while MI5 operatives are invariably tough, competent and humane is a little grating at times but overall this is an excellent series written in economical and clear English. Looking forward to the next adventure. Recommended.

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Container ships getting attacked by pirates in small boats off Somalia lead to bigger countries taking action. Tracing passports, driving licences and movements are much of the story. I didn't really enjoy this one but others may get more out of it. I don't know the main characters and suggest it might be better to start with an earlier book in the series.
I read a paperback.