Close Call
A Liz Carlyle Novel
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4.2 • 12 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The Arab Spring has swept through the Middle East and Liz Carlyle and her compatriots in the Thames House's counter-espionage division are racing to investigate arms deals in Yemen. There's a UN embargo forbidding any member country from supplying arms to either side in the uprisings, but Andy Bokus, head of the CIA's London Station, has evidence that the weapons being smuggled into Yemen are not only being sold to both sides, but are coming from a connection in the UK-a highly embarrassing black mark on the government and, if true, full of disastrous consequences.
British-American cooperation widens as Liz teams up with her old rival Bruno McKay, MI6's Head of Station in Paris, and Isobel Florian of the French domestic service, the DCRI, to trail and trap the elusive weapons dealer. The evidence points to a former French intelligence officer, Antoine Milraud, who leads them all on a mad chase across Europe until investigators witness him passing something to an elegantly dressed, very mysterious man.
When Milraud is caught and informs on his fellow conspirators, Liz finds herself embroiled in a larger, potentially explosive situation that twists all the way back to what she feared most-that the arms are being sold through the UK, and the mysterious man is closer and more capable of brutal violence than she ever could have imagined.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A paucity of action mars former MI5 director Rimington's disappointing eighth novel featuring British intelligence officer Liz Carlyle (after 2012's The Geneva Trap). Carlyle and her MI5 colleagues closely monitor a shipment of guns and bombs from Yemen making its way across Europe, at one point arresting a former French intelligence officer who has gone rogue and become an arms dealer. With the aid of the CIA, Carlyle and company track the weapons to a warehouse outside Manchester, where terrorists appear to be planning a major attack at a soccer stadium. Administrative politics and investigative procedure dominate the tedious second half of the novel, which builds to an anticlimactic finale. Fans may be saddened by the loss of a key series character in this outing, but they will be more upset with its overall lack of urgency.
