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Illegal Action

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Illegal Action

By: Stella Rimington
Narrated by: Emma Fielding
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About this listen

 Liz Carlyle has been transferred to Counter-Espionage, along with her research sidekick Peggy Kingsolving. Although the department has downsized since the end of the Cold War, there are still spies: including Russian spies who now keep an eye on the international financial community as well as the wealthy, influential Russian "oligarchs" in London.

Liz is assigned to stop a Russian government plot to "silence" one of these oligarchs, Nikita Brunovsky, who is an increasingly vocal opponent of the Putin regime. Almost simultaneously, Liz and Peggy learn of the presence of an Illegal Support officer in London, one Vladimir Rykov, who is putatively attached to the Russian embassy. An Illegal is someone who operates (often for many years) under a completely fabricated identity - and Rykov, it seem, has been sent to London to help an Illegal now based there.

To protect Brunovsky from his Kremlin foes, Liz goes undercover and joins the oligarch's retinue. As she tries to determine who around the Russian might be willing to betray him, she has to consider too whether this traitor may not also be the Illegal she and Peggy are seeking.

© Stella Rimington; (P) Random House Detective Espionage Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Spies & Politics Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Russia England Cold War
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Most relevant
Perhaps it was just me, but I found the number of characters to be confusing and it was hard to keep up with who was who?

Good but short and too many characters

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Light spyfi. Well read. Have enjoyed all of the Stella Rimington books. Looking forward to the next

Thoroughly enjoyable

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Built nicely and thankfully I seem to be listening in a chronological order (without knowing) so all following on but came to a head quickly and was over… shame.

Good little listen

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Stella Rimington brings the world of espionage to life with her books. A Good listen did not want to leave it until the end.

Classy A Great Spy Thriller

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whilst you need to have read/listened to others in this series to fully appreciate this book, it does a great job as a standalone read/listen. Credit also to Emma Fielding, the Narrator, who does a superb job of bringing characters to life.

This book is full of international intrigue, multi layered and, in a strange wa, highly relevant to today's political arena. Strange, because the original edition of this book was released in 2007. To remain relevant, some 16 yrs later is impressive.

As with all of Stella Remington's books I have this far read, the first half is pretty much building up the scenes, the characters and the background. The book comes alive midway and by the end, you simply can't put it down.

Best to read in conjunction with series

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