Book Review – The Enigma Girl by Henry Porter @QuercusBooks

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Enigma Girl by Henry Porter. My thanks to Sophie and Poppy at Ransom PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Quercus for my review copy via NetGalley.

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About the Book

Slim Parsons is all but burned.

Her last deep cover job for MI5 ended with a life-and-death struggle on a private jet that caused her to go on the run from both the deadly target and her angry bosses in the Security Service. They say that violence comes too easily to her; that she’s bordering on delinquent and unsuitable for the roll of an MI5 operative.

Yet she is recalled and asked to infiltrate a news website that’s causing alarm in the highest circles. It is staffed by a group descended from wartime codebreakers operating from an unassuming office block near Bletchley Park. Operation Linesman looks like a come down, the curtain on a brilliant career in the shadows. However, she accepts the assignment on condition that the Security Service searches for her missing brother.

Linesman turns out to be anything but simple. Her personal loss, her previous deep cover role, and a threat to MI5 itself from her original target come together in a three-way collision.

And all the while she is watched by someone even deeper in the shadows than she is.

Format: Hardback (496 pages) Publisher: Quercus
Publication date: 7th November 2024 Genre: Thriller

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My Review

You could be forgiven for thinking when you start the book that you’re reading the latest in a series because Slim’s just finished a dangerous undercover mission. The action she was forced to take to ensure her own safety during that mission has landed her in hot water with her superiors. With her cover blown, it’s meant she’s had to go to earth – quite literally – and she fears her career may be ancient history. She also just happened to make off with something that a very dangerous enemy would like to have back.

With the previous operation seemingly closed down, she’s assigned to a new undercover role that starts out looking innocuous but turns out to be anything but. It becomes a battle between press freedom, civil liberty and government control of information. And perhaps that previous operation isn’t so dead after all?

At nearly 500 pages, you might think the author would have a job maintaining the pace of a thriller but he throws in plenty of action scenes during which Slim proves just what a ferocious, fearless and resourceful opponent she is, fashioning weapons out of anything to hand. She’s also adept at the tradecraft of a spy: dodging surveillence, juggling multiple identities, disappearing off the radar and generally keeping her wits about her. As a reader, you’ll need to keep your wits about you as well because there are quite a lot of characters to get to know and keep track of.

Some of the buildings used for wartime code-breaking at Bletchley Park feature in the story but it’s modern code-breaking technology that ultimately provides the vital information about just exactly what’s been going on. And those goings-on include things such as people trafficking, modern slavery, money laundering, bribery and corruption. What also gives the plot such a contemporary feel is that Slim’s adversary is a billionaire with dubious morals and friends in high places. (Recent real-life examples may come to mind.)

There’s always a danger that the hero/heroine of a spy thriller will come across as a little one-dimensional – all action and no inner life. There’s no chance of that here because Slim has a complex private life and is facing some very difficult personal challenges. She may be ruthless when it comes to her job and give the impression of complete self-dependence, but she needs love and support just like everyone else. And perhaps someone to watch over her…

Slim Parsons has been likened to Lisbeth Salander, the fictional character created by Stieg Larsson. Lisbeth had more than one outing so perhaps The Enigma Girl is not the last we’ll see of Slim?

In three words: Taut, intricate, suspenseful
Try something similar: The Traitor by Ava Glass

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About the Author

Henry Porter was a regular columnist for the Observer and now writes about European power and politics for The Hive website in the US. He has written several bestselling thrillers, including Brandenburg, which won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, A Spy’s Life and Empire State, which were both nominated for the same award. He is also the author of the Paul Samson spy thrillers: Firefly, which won the 2019 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and White Hot Silence. Henry Porter is frequently described as the heir to John le Carré. He lives in London. (Bio: Publisher author page/Photo: X profile)

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