Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5

‘Stella Rimington’s memoirs are only the latest step on the long road towards a mature relationship between the security services and the public they exist to serve… The story of MI5’s transformation from a stuffy, paranoid, introverted, exclusively male, incompetent dinosaur into a modern, efficient, self-confident public service is fascinating. So, too is Rimington’s account of her rise in what was very definitely a man’s world… Fascinating, too, is the way in which Rimington juggled her domestic life as a mother of two young daughters (and in later years as a single parent) with the extraordinary demands of her job.’ Guardian

‘The former Director-General of MI5 has delivered exactly what was promised, an account of her trials and triumphs as the first woman to rise to the top in the Secret Service. She writes in a refreshingly self-deprecating style of juggling the roles of single parent and chief “spook”… Rimington displays a markedly irreverent attitude towards the mystique of the Secret Service, and particularly its misogyny.’ Independent on Sunday

‘I was seated with the fascinating Stella Rimington, another busy single parent, who sits on the board of several public companies including Marks and Spencer. Does she buy her underwear there? Indeed, she had been doing so that very afternoon. I have just finished her book Open Secret, which the press have got completely the wrong end of the stick about. It is not an exposé of MI5, it’s a real account of what it’s like to be a single working mother, and I commend it to you.’ Financial Times

‘It is easy nowadays to forget how much the face of MI5 has changed during Dame Stella Rimington’s quarter of a century in it, and how much she did to bring that change about. The fact that the Security Service now has a public face owes much to her. Thanks both to her period as Director-General and the controversies surrounding her memoirs, she is the first intelligence chief in modern British history to become something approaching a household name… Open Secret is a very personal account, not a partly derivative memoir.’ Christopher Andrew, The Times

‘Our intelligence services are better understood than they used to be, but there is still a long way to go. Whether or not you think this book should exist, it contributes usefully to that process… That is, as the old-style MI5 officers might have written, a not insignificant achievement.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Open Secret yields many surprising revelations’ Spectator

‘Open Secret is of some significance. The fact that it has been published at all is a gesture against the cult of excessive secrecy… Furthermore, she does document the huge and now sickeningly topical switch from cold-war operations to anti-terrorism.’ Sunday Times

‘One has to admire Rimington for what she’s prepared to say about herself.’ London Review of Books

‘Open Secret takes us inside the workings of MI5 – the heart of the security services – and provides a unique perspective on the historic changes of the second half of the twentieth century, not just in the international security field but also in the personal and political arena… How she dealt with all the problems of the job, coupled with the extra ones her own appointment brought is told here in an entertaining and page turning style – an unforgettable and powerful read which will long linger in the memory.’ Yorkshire Post