The Enemy (Desmond Bagley novel)

Infobox Book
name = The Enemy
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = 1986 UK paperback cover
author = Desmond Bagley
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Thriller novel
publisher = William Collins & Sons
release_date = 1977
media_type = Print (hardcover and paperback)
pages = 255 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-00-616534-6
preceded_by = Flyaway
followed_by = The Snow Tiger

"The Enemy" is a first person narrative espionage thriller novel by English author Desmond Bagley, first published in 1977.

Plot introduction

Malcolm Jaggard is, on the surface, a marketing research consultant. However, his real job is with MI5 in industrial espionage counter-intelligence. On a whim after he becomes engaged to genetics researcher Penny Ashton, he runs a computer search on her father, the wealthy and respectable entrepreneur George Ashton. Much to his amazement, he finds that any and all information regarding George Ashton is classified at an astronomically high level, and that he is not regarded as having a “need to know”. Furthermore, the very act of researching information on George Ashton sends alarm bells ringing in multiple departments in the Whitehall hierarchy. If this was not bad enough, a mysterious attacker throws acid in the face of his fiancé’s younger sister, causing the mysterious George Ashton to flee England. With being allowed to know more about Ashton, Jaggard is sent on a desperate search to find Ashton, racing the KGB to the forests of Sweden, and eventually to the Scottish highlands, where he finds that the true enemy is much closer to home.