Title: The Geneva Trap (Goodreads)
Author: Stella Rimington
Series: Liz Carlyle #7
Published: Bloomsbury, 2012
Pages: 328
Genres: Thriller
My Copy: ARC from Publisher
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
The Geneva Trap by Stella Rimington is my first real look into the Liz Carlyle series but this is book seven. So be warned that I’ve not read the other six books so my opinions of this book are only based as a standalone book. Liz Carlyle is a counter terrorism agent for MI5 who is approached by a Russian intelligence officer with some vital information of a cyber-sabotage plot on an American defence program. Liz now has to determine if this is the Russians sabotaging the West’s defences or if this is something much worse.
Stella Rimmington brings all her knowledge to this book as a former MI5 agent and she tries to tangle a story of intrigue and suspense in this novel. But does it work as well as it should? For me I haven’t had much experience with espionage novels so I don’t know what most people would expect from one. For me I often think of James Bond or George Smiley when looking for an espionage novel. The Geneva Trap isn’t as far fetched as an Ian Fleming book and is not as complex as a John le Carré novel, it sits somewhere in the middle which is where I’m lacking in experience with these types of books. I often look for a light high-energy read or something that will make my head hurt when I read spy thrillers. So I’m not too sure I like having a book that falls in the middle.
The Geneva Trap has its fair share of moles and shady intelligence practices but in the end I found the book to feel a little too clichéd and predictable. I also felt like most of the characters in the book were too flat and I never really got to see any dimension in them; this could be a simple fact that this is book seven in the series but I still expect a book to be able to be read as a standalone as well so I would of liked more character development within this one.
Rimmington has put together a good mix of intrigue and action in this spy thriller, I would like to see less predictability and more character development in the future but The Geneva Trap was still an enjoyable book to read. I will definitely be looking to read another one of her books, maybe even in the same series because I did enjoy reading this book even if this review sounds like my issues with the novel outweighed my enjoyment of it. It might have been just my lack of experience or that I should have read the other six first.
I’ve felt like my blog is starting to be overrun by book reviews and there is less to do with random book banter than I would like. So I plan to rectify this with introducing some more regular segments. In this one, I want to look at thinks that I find in books that either annoy or don’t sit right with me. Everyone has pet peeves with literature, it can be topics that have been overdone, cliches or just the way people seem to write. So I wanted to go though some of my literary bête noires as a therapeutical way to vent and maybe generate some interesting conversations in the comments.