Stella Rimington joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1965 and was appointed Director-General in 1992.She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996, she became a non-executive director of Marks and Spencer and published her autobiography, Open Secret. The first Liz Carlyle novel, At Risk, was published in 2004.