Six weeks before she is due to take up her position as the first female head of MI6, Amelia Levene vanishes without a trace.
Her disappearance is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced for more than a decade. There has been no ransom demand, no word from foreign intelligence services, no hint of a defection.
Should news of Levene’s disappearance leak out, the consequences would be catastrophic. But for disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell, the crisis offers a chance for redemption. He is approached by his former employers and ordered to find her.
Kell’s search takes him first to France, then North Africa, where he discovers an extraordinary secret hidden deep in Levene’s past. it is a secret that could fatally compromise Britain’s national security – and for which Kell could pay with his life.
This is another first-rate intelligent thriller which will cement Cumming's reputation as one of the most engaging British novelists writing today.
Charles Cumming was born in Scotland in 1971. He was educated at Eton and graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1994 with First Class Honours in English Literature. In the summer of 1995, Charles was approached for recruitment by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). A year later he moved to Montreal where he began working on a novel based on his experiences with MI6. A Spy By Nature was published in the UK in 2001. This is his sixth novel.