So Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, is to be the chair of the Man Booker prize. Perhaps it's an elaborate plan to ensure total discretion on the part of the judges – Moscow rules and all – or conceivably, the appointment is based on her literary record as the author of controversial memoirs and a string of spy thrillers. For her first novel, At Risk, she acknowledged the "help with the research and the writing" of none other than the Observer's excellent dance critic, Luke Jennings, who is a novelist as well as the author of the recent Blood Knots, a dark and fascinating memoir of his life as an angler. It is worth recalling what Philip Hensher wrote when reviewing At Risk for the Observer: "I would suggest that we are more likely to find out the details of MI5's well-known assassination of Roland Barthes than how much Mr Jennings has done, so let us be charitable and call it Ms Rimington's work. On that basis, she may be quite a reasonable novelist, but, goodness, what a rubbish spy she must have been."