Stella Rimington

Dame Stella Rimington joined Britain’s Security Service (MI5) in 1969. During her nearly thirty-year career she worked in all the main fields of the Service’s responsibilities – counter-subversion, counter-espionage, and counter-terrorism. Appointed Director General of MI5 in 1992, she was the first woman to hold the post and the first director general whose name was publicly announced on appointment. Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996, she became a non-executive director of Marks and Spencer and published her autobiography, Open Secret.

Stella is the author of the Liz Carlyle series of novels, including At Risk, Secret Asset and Illegal Action (published by Hutchinson in 2005, 2006, and 2007), and Dead Line and Present Danger (published by Quercus in 2008 and 2009). Rip Tide was published by Bloomsbury in 2011, the same year in which Stella chaired the Man Booker Prize. Subsequently, The Geneva Trap, Close Call and Breaking Cover were published in 2012, 2014 and 2016. Finally, the tenth novel in the series, The Moscow Sleepers, was published in 2018.

The first novel in Stella’s new Manon Tyler thriller series, The Devil's Bargain, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022, and the second installment, The Hidden Hand, was published in January 2025.

Stella Rimington

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