Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In September 2011, things are going well for Carina Dymek. The intelligent, determined young woman has expertly carried out her duties as EU Coordinator for the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A promotion is likely any day now.
She's moved past her divorce and found true love in the arms of Jamal Badawi, an Egyptian-Swedish national. And she's been chosen to represent Sweden at an international meeting in Brussels on joint security policy. But she gets far more than she bargained for at the conference, when a nervous-looking man who only identifies himself as "Jean" approaches her during the lunch break outside and presses a USB drive. Carina is shocked and disturbed by what the contents of the letter reveal: High-level plans for a new pan-European intelligence service, bound by few if any national laws or international rules of conduct -its objectives are equally questionable, with a clear agenda to curb foreign immigration into the EU, and freely violate civil rights for the sake of pre-empting Arab terrorism.
When Carina dutifully presents the documents to her superiors at the MFA, they are not happy. Before long Carina is suspended, escorted from the building by security, and under investigation by SAPO, Sweden's Intelligence Agency. Initially SAPO agent Bente Jensen--another strong, resourceful woman--focuses on the question of how a rank-and-file MFA employee obtained this ticking time bomb of intelligence.
This gripping debut novel captures the ways in which spies and diplomats are occasionally swept up into the grinding gears of international intelligence operations--often with devastating human costs.
Synopsis
Stockholm, September 2011. Carina Dymek is on a fast track for promotion at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when she is approached by a stranger and given a USB stick containing a report to circulate in her department. Unwittingly, she delivers a time bomb of classified information that sends her career up in flames and puts her on the radar of the security service, S po.
Tasked with investigating how Dymek gained access to the confidential report, the formidable Bente Jensen of S po is quietly approached by the British MI6, who have an undisclosed interest in the leak. She finds out that Dymek's boyfriend is an Egyptian Swedish national. But it's MI6 who link his family to an extreme faction within the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.
The case explodes into an international manhunt. Liaising with the ruthless MI6, Bente uncovers the secretive plans contained in that leaked report: plans for an omnipotent Europe-wide Intelligence Service. Forces hone in on Dymek, while Bente begins to suspect she is a red herring caught in a far wider net: one in which social media is abused for intelligence and civil rights are sacrificed to national security.
Andreas Norman, a former Swedish Ministry official, has written an explosive expose of Anglo-American spying and surveillance on European civilians in the name of counter-terrorism. This dizzying thriller anticipated the Edward Snowden revelations and rocked Sweden on publication.