Interesting news. I don’t envy her the job that she’s taking on, but I suppose there’s never a calm period in espionage and national intelligence. She’s no Dame Judy Dench, of course.
Love the fact that she was recently ‘Q’, revealing that James Bond really is alive and well. Although disappointedly she’s now ‘C’ and not M.
Well, at least Kincade won’t be mispronouncing her name as “Emma.”
I can’t help wondering if she is known as “Modesty”?
Hooray for this.
I also like that the outgoing director is named Sir Richard Moore. Just close enough to the actor Roger Moore to trigger a double-take.
I’m picturing someone much more like the First Desk in the Slough House universe (I can’t bring up her name at the moment, unfortunately).
Being prosaic, I’m imagining that most of her job will be about budget-wrangling and fighting off empire-building rivals from elsewhere in Whitehall.
Interrupted by the occasional gunfight while perched on a window ledge high above a busy boulevard, or supervising a torture session in a basement in [location redacted].
Ingrid Tearney was first desk and Diana Taverner was later acting first desk, but that was MI5, not the SIS (formerly MI6) in the Slow Horse TV series (but books don’t say what agency the Slow Horse work for).