Spy and Political Thrillers ADRENALINE by Jeff Abbott (SAM CAPRA SERIES #1) Sam Capra is living the life of his dreams. He's a brilliant young CIA agent, stationed in London. His wife Lucy is seven months pregnant with their first child. They have a wonderful home, and are deeply in love. They have everything they could hope for... until they lose it all in one horrifying moment. On a bright, sunny day, Sam receives a call from Lucy while he's at work. She tells him to leave the building immediately. He does... just before it explodes, killing everyone inside. Lucy vanishes, and Sam wakes up in a prison cell. As the lone survivor of the attack, he is branded by the CIA as a murderer and a traitor. Escaping from the agency, Sam launches into a desperate hunt to save his kidnapped wife and child, and to reveal the unknown enemy who has set him up and stolen his family. But the destruction of Sam's life was only step on in an extraordinary plot - and now Sam must become a new kind of hero… A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS by Eric Ambler (CHARLES LATIMER SERIES #1) A chance encounter with a Turkish colonel with a penchant for British crime novels leads Charles Latimer, himself the author of a handful of successful mysteries, into a world of sinister political and criminal maneuvers throughout the Balkans in the years between the world wars. At first merely curious to reconstruct the career of the notorious Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an Istanbul morgue, Latimer soon finds himself caught up in a shadowy web of assassination, espionage, drugs, and treachery… 2 Spy and Political Thrillers ABSOLUTE POWER by David Baldacci The ultimate crime. The ultimate coverup. Set in Washington DC, this riveting thriller of unparalleled suspense dares to explore an unthinkable abuse of power and criminal conspiracy: a vicious murder involving the US President and a cover-up orchestrated by his zealously loyal Chief of Staff and the Secret Service. But, unknown to the President and his lackeys, one unlikely witness saw everything... Trapped behind a two-way mirror in a country house in Virginia, Luther Whitney, a professional burglar, witnesses an event that destroys his faith in justice. By the time he escapes, pursued by two Secret Service agents - a young woman has been sexually assaulted, then shot dead. And a breathtaking cover-up has been set in motion... THE FAITHFUL SPY by Alex Berenson (JOHN WELLS SERIES #1) John Wells is the only American CIA agent ever to penetrate al Qaeda. Since before the attacks in 2001, Wells has been hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, biding his time, building his cover. Now, on the orders of Omar Khadri - the malicious mastermind plotting more al Qaeda strikes on America - Wells is coming home. Neither Khadri nor Jennifer Exley, Wells’s superior at Langley, knows quite what to expect. For Wells has changed during his years in the mountains. He has become a Muslim. He finds the United States decadent and shallow. Yet he hates al Qaeda and the way it uses Islam to justify its murderous assaults on innocents. He is a man alone, and the CIA - still reeling from its failure to predict 9/11 or find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - does not know whether to trust him. Among his handlers at Langley, only Exley believes in him, and even she sometimes wonders. And so the agency freezes Wells out, preferring to rely on high-tech means for gathering intelligence. But as that strategy fails and Khadri moves closer to unleashing the most devastating terrorist attack in history, Wells and Exley must somehow find a way to stop him, with or without the government’s consent… 3 Spy and Political Thrillers THE ASCENDANT by Drew Chapman Numbers don’t lie. Governments do. Hidden deep within the figures tracking the ups and downs of the stock market lies a terrifying truth: America is under attack. Our government, our economy, our very way of life are in the crosshairs of a ruthless enemy - and no one knows. Except Garrett Reilly. He has a knack for numbers. He sees patterns no one else can. His gift has made him a rising star on Wall Street. But when he notices that two hundred billion dollars’ worth of U.S. Treasury bonds are being sold off at a terrifying rate, his gift makes him the most wanted man alive. The U.S. military wants him for his extraordinary abilities. They need someone to lead a crack squad of rogue soldiers to act as the last line of defense in a war that could mean the end of everything America holds dear. And everyone else? They just want him dead. In this explosive debut novel, ranging from the offices of Wall Street to the casinos of Vegas to the back roads of the Chinese countryside, Drew Chapman introduces readers to a new kind of action hero: one uniquely skilled to fight a new kind of war. THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy (JACK RYAN SERIES #1) A military thriller so gripping in its action and so convincing in its accuracy, that Tom Clancy was rumoured to have been debriefed by the White House… Somewhere under the Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision. The Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. And the most incredible chase in history is on... 4 Spy and Political Thrillers POWER DOWN by Ben Coes (DEWEY ANDREAS SERIES #1) A major North American hydroelectric dam is blown up and the largest off-shore oil field in this hemisphere is destroyed in a brutal, coordinated terrorist attack. But there was one factor that the terrorists didn't take into account when they struck the Capitana platform off the coast of Colombia - slaughtering much of the crew and blowing up the platform - and that was the Capitana crew chief Dewey Andreas. Dewey, former Army Ranger and Delta, survives the attack, rescuing as many of his men as possible. But the battle has just begun. While the intelligence and law enforcement agencies scramble to untangle these events and find the people responsible, the mysterious figure of Alexander Fortuna - an agent embedded into the highest levels of American society and business - sets into play the second stage of these long-planned attacks. The only fly in the ointment is Dewey Andreas - who is using all his long-dormant skills to fight his way off the platform, then out of Colombia and back to the U.S., following the trail of terrorists and operatives sent to stop him… A FOREIGN COUNTRY by Charles Cumming Six weeks before she is due to take up her position as the first female head of MI6, Amelia Levene vanishes without a trace. Her disappearance is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced for more than a decade. There has been no ransom demand, no word from foreign intelligence services, no hint of a defection. Should news of Levene's disappearance leak out, the consequences would be catastrophic. But for disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell, the crisis offers a chance for redemption. He is approached by his former employers and ordered to find her. Kell's search takes him first to France, then North Africa, where he discovers an extraordinary secret hidden deep in Levene's past. It is a secret that could fatally compromise Britain's national security - and for which Kell could pay with his life… 5 Spy and Political Thrillers GARDEN OF BEASTS by Jeffery Deaver Paul Schumann is a contract hitman for the mob in 1936. But with Prohibition over and the gang wars associated with it coming to an end, Schumann is finding less and less work. He is contracted for a hit. But this time, he's caught - and finds that he's been set up. He's taken to meet an official in Army Intelligence and given a choice: he can spend the rest of his life in jail, or he can help his country. He is to pose as a member of the 1936 Olympic team, travel to Berlin, and kill a high-ranking Nazi close to Hitler. Schumann has been picked because he's a second generation German-American and can speak the language fluently. Or at least that's what they lead him to believe... BERLIN GAME by Len Deighton (GAME, SET, MATCH TRILOGY #1) Brahms Four wants out. This alarming signal means that one of Britain's most reliable, most valuable agents behind the Iron Curtain is urgently demanding safe passage to the West. It sends a ripple of panic through the highest levels of the British secret service. Appropriately, it has fallen to Bernard Samson, himself once active in the field but now anchored behind a London desk, to undertake the crucial rescue. Even before Samson sets out on his mission, he is confronted with inescapable evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues, a traitor planted by Moscow Centre. To discover who it is, Samson must sift through layers of lies and follow a web of treachery from London to Berlin until hero and traitor collide… 6 Spy and Political Thrillers JACK OF SPIES by David Downing (JACK McCOLL SERIES #1) Set on the eve of the First World War, across oceans and continents, steamliners and cross-country trains, the complex and thrilling Jack of Spies takes us all the way back to the dawn of that most fascinating of 20th century characters - the spy. Jack McColl is a globe-trotting salesman for a luxury car firm. He is also a part-time spy for the fledgling Secret Service on the eve of the First World War, doing London's bidding wherever internal or external enemies threaten the security of the British Empire. As 1913 ends he is in China, checking out the German naval base at Tsingtao between automobile demonstrations in Peking and Shanghai. Caitlin Hanley is a young Irish-American journalist with the sort of views that most British men would find dangerously advanced. McColl is no exception, but once captivated he finds himself unwilling to give her up - even when Caitlin's radical politics and family connections threaten to compromise his undeclared career as a spy. Then the pair become involved in a plot that threatens the Empire in its hour of greatest need… 7 Spy and Political Thrillers EYE OF THE RED TSAR by Sam Eastland (INSPECTOR PEKKALA SERIES #1) Introducing Pekkala: He was the Romanovs’ most trusted investigator. Now he is Stalin’s greatest fear… One July, 1918, the imprisoned family of Tsar Nicholas Romanov was awakened and led down to the basement of the Ipatiev house. There they were summarily executed. Their bodies were hidden away, the location a secret of the Soviet state. A decade later, one man lives in purgatory, banished to a forest on the outskirts of humanity. Pekkala, was once the most trusted secret agent of the Romanovs, the right hand man of the Tsar himself. Now he is Prisoner 4745P, living a harsh existence in which even the strongest vanish into the merciless Soviet winter. But the state needs Pekkala one last time. The man who knew the Romanovs best is given a final mission: catch their killers, locate the royal child rumored to be alive, and give Stalin the international coup he craves. Find the bodies, Pekkala is told, and you will find your freedom. Find the survivor of that bloody night and you will change history. In a land of uneasy alliances and deadly treachery, Pekkala is thrust into the past where he once reigned. There he will meet the man who betrayed him and the woman he loved and uncover a secret so shocking that it will shake to its core the land he loves… 8 Spy and Political Thrillers LIE IN THE DARK by Dan Fesperman (VLADO PETRIC SERIES #1) Vlado Petric is a homicide investigator in war-torn Sarajevo. When he encounters an unidentified body near "sniper alley," he realizes that it is the body of Esmir Vitas, chief of the Interior Ministry's special police, and that Vitas has been killed not by any sniper's aim but by a bullet fired at almost point blank range. Searching for the killer in this "city of murderers," Petric finds himself drawn into a conspiracy, the scope of which goes beyond anything he could possibly have imagined… THE SMALL BOAT OF GREAT SORROWS by Dan Fesperman (VLADO PETRIC SERIES #2) In Lie in the Dark, we met Vlado Petric, a homicide detective in Sarajevo, a war-torn place where life itself had little worth. Now, five years later, Petric has escaped to join his wife and daughter in Berlin, and is scratching out a meager but stable existence at a construction site. So when he’s recruited by Calvin Pine - an enigmatic American investigator for the war crimes tribunal at The Hague - to join a search mission back in the ruins of his homeland, he finds it hard to resist. They’re seeking a general responsible for the massacre at Srebrenica, but Petric is also being offered as bait to lure another suspect whose activities in World War II make the current generation of killers look like amateurs. Getting hotter on a trail that eventually leads across Europe, Petric soon finds that great political powers make unsavory alliances, and that investigating the mysteries of the past can be as dangerous as navigating the war zones of the present… 9 Spy and Political Thrillers CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming (JAMES BOND SERIES #1) Introducing James Bond: charming, sophisticated, handsome; chillingly ruthless and very deadly. This, the first of Fleming's tales of agent 007, finds Bond on a mission to neutralize a lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called simply 'Le Chiffre' - by ruining him at the baccarat table and forcing his Soviet spy masters to 'retire' him. It seems that lady luck is taken with James - Le Chiffre has hit a losing streak. But some people just refuse to play by the rules, and Bond's attraction to a beautiful female agent leads him to disaster and an unexpected savior… TRANSFER OF POWER by Vince Flynn (MITCH RAPP SERIES #1) What if America's most powerful leader was also its prime target? On a busy Washington morning, the stately calm of the White House is shattered as terrorists gain control of the executive mansion, slaughtering dozens of people. The president is evacuated to an underground bunker, but not before nearly one hundred hostages are taken. One man is sent in to take control of the crisis. Mitch Rapp, the CIA's top counterterrorism operative, determines that the president is not as safe as Washington's power elite had thought. Moving among the corridors of the White House, Rapp makes a chilling discovery that could rock Washington to its core: someone within his own government wants his rescue attempt to fail… 10 Spy and Political Thrillers EYE OF THE NEEDLE by Ken Follett One enemy spy knows the secret to the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin code name: "The Needle" - who holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory. Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is beginning to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life. But her loyalty to the Allied cause may be his ultimate downfall... THE DAY OF THE JACKAL by Frederick Forsyth The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man. One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. And as the minutes count down to the final act of execution, it seems that there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal… 11 Spy and Political Thrillers CITY OF SHADOWS by Ariana Franklin A cultured city scarred by war. An eastern émigré with scars and secrets of her own. A young woman claiming to be a Russian grand duchess. A brazen killer, as vicious as he is clever. A detective driven by decency and the desire for justice. A nightmare political movement steadily gaining power... This is 1922 Berlin. One of the troubled city's growing number of refugees, Esther Solomonova survives by working as secretary to the charming, unscrupulous cabaret owner "Prince" Nick, and she's being drawn against her will into his scheme to pass a young asylum patient off as Anastasia, the last surviving heir to the murdered czar of all Russia. But their found "princess," Anna Anderson, fears that she's being hunted - and this may turn out to be more than paranoia when innocent people all around her begin to die... THE SECOND OBJECTIVE by Mark Frost A riveting World War II thriller, based on a shocking real-life German operation run by "the most dangerous man in Europe." Fall 1944. Germany is losing, and the Americans are starting to hope they'll be home for Christmas. Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, "Hitler's Commando," famed for his daring rescue of the imprisoned Mussolini, has just received orders for Operation Greif: He is to assemble a new brigade of 2,000 men, all of whom speak English, and send them behind Allied lines disguised as GIs, where they will wreak havoc in advance of a savage new offensive. And from those 2,000 men, Skorzeny is to select a smaller group, made up of the twenty most highly skilled commandos fluent in American culture, to attempt an even more sinister mission - the second objective - which, if completed, not only would change the course of the war, but would change the course of history… Filled with real characters and details only recently released by the United States military, The Second Objective is historical fiction at its most pulse-pounding, its most unpredictable, and its most compulsively readable. 12 Spy and Political Thrillers WHIRLWIND by Joseph R. Garber Charlie McKenzie is the best at what he does, and what he does best of all is the CIA's dirty work. At least he did until his bosses double-crossed him. Jailed and disgraced to cover up a mammoth intelligence blunder, Charlie wants to get even. Opportunity knocks when Irina Kolodenkova, a young Russian spy, stumbles across a top-secret technology called Whirlwind, the most important military breakthrough since the atomic bomb. Charlie's the only one with the very special skills needed to track her down and retrieve it. The desk jockeys who betrayed Charlie have no choice: they have to put him back on the job. But Charlie already knows too much. Once he recovers Whirlwind, his enemies plan to betray him again - this time for keeps. They put a lethal South African soldier of fortune on Charlie's trail. His orders: keep Charlie in your crosshairs until he finds Whirlwind, then take him down. However, Charlie has plans of his own, and he is not going to be an easy kill. Quite the contrary... 13 Spy and Political Thrillers TRIGGER POINT by Matthew Glass It's 2018. Tom Knowles, a moderate Nevada Republican, is the American president hoping to lead his country into a new era of stability and growth. He sees his change to put his stamp on world affairs when thirty-two American aid workers are massacred in Uganda by a terrorist organization. Knowles opts for military intervention even though China considers Uganda its African sphere of influence, and warn him to keep out. Six weeks later, stock prices on Wall Street are falling. Amid rumors of insolvency, a major investment bank leads the rout. When the bank refuses a government bailout, and it becomes known that the Chinese State Investment Corporation is its major shareholder, the market slide turns into a panic. Are U.S. stock prices being manipulated by the Chinese government in retaliation for the president's intervention in Uganda? As the president's team takes drastic action to protect to the U.S. economy, the Chinese government strikes back to protect its interests, and the confrontation shifts rapidly from Wall Street to the coast of East Africa, where the U.S. and Chinese navies stand eye to eye… THE GHOST by Robert Harris Adam Lang has been Britain’s longest serving - and most controversial - prime minister of the last half century. And now that he’s left office, he’s accepted one of history’s largest cash advances to compose a tell-all (or at least, tell-some) memoir of his life and years of power. As pressure mounts for Lang to complete this magnum opus, he hires a professional ghostwriter to finish the book. As he sets to work, the ghostwriter discovers many more secrets than Lang intends to reveal, secrets with the power to alter world politics - secrets with the power to kill… 14 Spy and Political Thrillers I AM PILGRIM by Terry Hayes Can you commit the perfect crime? Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation. But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder - and Pilgrim wrote the book. What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion. Pilgrim will have to make a journey from a public beheading in Mecca, to deserted ruins on the Turkish coast via a Nazi death camp in Alsace, and the barren wilderness of the Hindu Kush in search of the faceless man who would commit an appalling act of mass murder in the name of his God… 15 Spy and Political Thrillers RED CELL by Mark Henshaw (KYRA STRYKER & JONATHAN BURKE SERIES #1) After her first assignment in Venezuela goes disastrously awry, rookie case officer Kyra Stryker is brought back to Langley to work in the Red Cell, the CIA’s out-of-the-box think tank. There she’s paired with Jonathan Burke, a straitlaced analyst who has alienated his colleagues with his unorthodox methods and a knack for always being right, political consequences be damned. When a raid on Chinese spies in Taiwan ends in a shootout and the release of a deadly chemical, CIA director Kathy Cooke turns to the Red Cell to figure out why China is ready to invade the island nation without any fear of reprisal from the US Navy. Stryker and Burke’s only lead is the top CIA asset in China, code named Pioneer. But when Pioneer reports that Chinese security has him under surveillance, Stryker is offered a chance for redemption with a highly dangerous mission: extract Pioneer from China before he’s arrested and executed. The answers he holds could mean the difference between peace in the Pacific or another world war. From CIA headquarters to the White House to a Navy carrier in the South China Sea and the dark alleyways of Beijing, Red Cell takes readers on a whirlwind race against time as Stryker and Burke work to save Pioneer and discover the hidden threat to America’s power: China’s top-secret weapon… 16 Spy and Political Thrillers BODY OF LIES by David Ignatius Roger Ferris is one of the CIA's soldiers in the war on terrorism. He has come out of Iraq with a shattered leg and an intense mission - to penetrate the network of a master terrorist known only as "Suleiman." Ferris's plan for getting inside Suleiman's tent is inspired by a masterpiece of British intelligence during World War II: He prepares a body of lies, literally the corpse of an imaginary CIA officer who appears to have accomplished the impossible by recruiting an agent within the enemy's ranks. This scheme binds friend and foe in a web of extraordinary subtlety and complexity, and when it begins to unravel, Ferris finds himself flying blind into a hurricane. His only hope is the urbane head of Jordan's intelligence service - a man who might be an Arab version of John le Carré's celebrated spy, George Smiley. But can Ferris trust him? ISTANBUL PASSAGE by Joseph Kanon Istanbul, 1945. A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul has spent the war as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of post-war life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion. Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon's attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to make? 17 Spy and Political Thrillers THE INSIDE RING by Mike Lawson (JOE DEMARCO SERIES #1) The video begins with the President walking toward a marine helicopter. From a bluff overlooking Georgia’s untamed Chattooga River, an assassin fires three shots. The President of the United States is wounded; his best friend and a Secret Service agent are killed. Two days later, a man in Landover, Maryland, commits suicide and in the man’s home is overwhelming evidence that he was responsible for the assassination attempt. General Andy Banks, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is nursing a guilty conscience. Only days before the assassination attempt on the President, Banks had received a note with a dire warning: “Eagle One is in danger. Cancel Chattooga River. The inside ring has been compromised. This is not a joke.” The message - on Secret Service stationery - was signed “An agent in the wrong place.” Banks immediately passed the note on to Secret Service Director Patrick Donnelly, who proceeded to ignore it. Even after the assassin is found dead, Banks is determined to dig a little deeper. He turns to Speaker of the House John Fitzgerald Mahoney. The Speaker has a guy - an under-theradar, go-to guy he uses for things like this - things he can’t afford to have connected to his office. The guy is Joe DeMarco, an honest lawyer with a sordid family history. After one meeting with Banks, DeMarco realizes he’s in way over his head. But Mahoney finds the prospect of taking down Donnelly irresistible and sets DeMarco on a trail that twists through the Secret Service, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security and snakes all the way back to one of the more enduring mysteries of the twentieth century… 18 Spy and Political Thrillers BLACK OUT by John Lawton (INSPECTOR TROY SERIES #1) London, 1944. While the Luftwaffe makes its final assault on the already battered British capital, Londoners rush through the streets, seeking underground shelter in the midst of the city’s black out. When the panic subsides, other things begin to surface along with London’s war-worn citizens. A severed arm is discovered by a group of children playing at an East End bomb site, and when Scotland Yard’s Detective Sergeant Frederick Troy arrives at the scene, it becomes apparent that the dismembered body is not the work of a V-1 rocket. After Troy manages to link the severed arm to the disappearance of a refugee scientist form Nazi Germany, America’s newest intelligence agency, the OSS, decides to get involved. The son of a titled Russian émigré, Troy is forced to leave the London he knows and enter a corrupt world of bloody consequences, stateless refugees, and mysterious women as he unearths a chain of secrets leading straight to the Allied high command… THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD by John le Carré (GEORGE SMILEY SERIES #3) For Leamas, the espionage business has become an hermetic, enclosed world - detached from outside reality. He has watched his last agent being shot, crossing from East to West Berlin, and his death marks the end of the Circus' East German network. But Control is planning an operation against the head of East German Intelligence. And Leamas is to be the instrument, sent in East Germany one last time... 19 Spy and Political Thrillers ILLEGAL by Paul Levine A down-and-out L.A. lawyer with nothing to lose... A beautiful Mexican woman who disappears crossing the border… And the powerful and corrupt rancher who would destroy them both. Haunted by a personal tragedy and wanted by the cops, lawyer Jimmy (Royal) Payne wants to skip town. That's when he crosses paths with 12-year-old Tino Perez, newly arrived from Mexico, looking for his mother Marisol, who went missing after crossing the border with a vicious coyote. Before long, the cynical lawyer and the savvy kid are bonding and tracing Marisol's path, battling predators on both sides of the border. Most dangerous of all is Simeon Rutledge, a wealthy rancher, and the biggest employer of farm workers in California. Just why is Rutledge willing to kill Payne to keep Marisol under wraps? THE COMPANY by Robert Littell Racing across a canvas that spans the legendary Berlin Base in the 1950s - the front line of the simmering Cold War - to the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Bay of Pigs, the Afghan war, the Gorbachev putsch, and other major theatres of operation for the CIA, The Company tells a thrilling story of agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an enemy that was amoral, elusive and formidable. The Company tells it like it was: CIA agents fighting not only 'the good fight' against foreign enemies, but sometimes the bad one as well, with the ends justifying such means as CIAorganized assassinations, covert wars, kidnappings, and toppling of legitimate governments. Behind every manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, though, one question is constant… Who is the mole within the CIA? 20 Spy and Political Thrillers THE BOURNE IDENTITY by Robert Ludlum (JASON BOURNE SERIES #1) He was the perfect weapon… until he became the target. His memory is a blank. His bullet-ridden body was fished from the Mediterranean Sea. His face has been altered by plastic surgery. A frame of microfilm has been surgically implanted in his hip. Even his name is a mystery. Marked for death, he is racing for survival through a bizarre world of murderous conspirators - led by Carlos, the world’s most dangerous assassin. Who is Jason Bourne? The answer may kill him… MASQUERADE by Gayle Lynds (LIZ SANSBOROUGH SERIES #1) When the truth is too dangerous to trust, only the lies can save you… What Do You Do... When you gaze into the mirror-and find a stranger looking back? Liz Sansborough has no recollection of her past as a CIA agent; no idea what her future holds. For her, there is only the present - and the chilling knowledge that the world's most lethal assassin has set his sights on her... Who Do You Trust... When your only link to your identity is a stranger who claims to be your lover? Gordon is so gentle, so loving-and so secretive. If Liz dares to put her life into his powerful hands, will he guard it with his own-or snuff it out? Where Do You Turn... When violence explodes around you, when nothing makes sense, when nobody-including yourself - is who he or she appears to be? As Liz unravels a series of lies, she begins to suspect that the truth she encounters might be far more sinister - and deadly - than the original deception... 21 Spy and Political Thrillers RED SPARROW by Jason Matthews In the grand spy-tale tradition of John le Carré comes this shocking thriller written with insider detail known only to a veteran CIA officer. In present-day Russia, ruled by blue-eyed, unblinking President Vladimir Putin, Russian intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the postSoviet intelligence jungle. Ordered against her will to become a “Sparrow,” a trained seductress, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a young CIA officer who handles the Agency’s most important Russian mole. As the action careens between Russia, Finland, Greece, Italy, and the United States, Dominika and Nate soon collide in a duel of wills, tradecraft, and – inevitably forbidden passion that threatens not just their lives but those of others as well. As secret allegiances are made and broken, Dominika and Nate’s game reaches a deadly crossroads. Soon one of them begins a dangerous double existence in a life-and-death operation that consumes intelligence agencies from Moscow to Washington, DC. Page by page, veteran CIA officer Jason Matthews’s Red Sparrow delights, terrifies and fascinates, all while delivering an unforgettable cast, from a sadistic Spetsnaz “mechanic” who carries out Putin’s murderous schemes to the weary CIA Station Chief who resists Washington “cake-eaters”. Packed with insider detail, this novel brims with Matthews’s life experience of espionage, counterintelligence, spy recruitment, and cyber-warfare. Brilliantly composed, Red Sparrow is a masterful spy tale. 22 Spy and Political Thrillers THE SHANGHAI FACTOR by Charles McCarry A young, unnamed spy is living in Shanghai in order to observe and absorb the culture and language so as to aid a shadowy U.S. agency known only as 'HQ'. However when he meets a sultry and mysterious woman named Mei, they begin a torrid affair that threatens to expose him to HQ's enemies. Soon the head of HQ, Luther Burbank, gives the spy a task that will force him to risk everything: go undercover as the American ambassador for a massive Chinese multinational conglomerate, and learn the secrets of their powerful CEO Chen Qi, whom HQ believes to be a front man for the nearly uncrackable Chinese Intelligence, known as the Guoanbu. Soon the spy finds that HQ isn't the only one tracking his every move, and the deadly Guoanbu may be aware of his true identity. Danger lies around every corner, as the enigmatic Mei flits in and out of his life, yet every time he thinks he's closer to the truth, he finds himself drawn further into a deadly cat-and-mouse game between HQ and the Guoanbu that might not only end his life, but could upend the East/West balance of power. 23 Spy and Political Thrillers THE FIRST PATIENT by Michael Palmer Gabe Singleton and Andrew Stoddard were roommates at the Naval Academy in Annapolis years ago. Today, Gabe is a country doctor and his friend Andrew has gone from war hero to governor to President of the United States. One day, while the United States is embroiled in a bitter presidential election campaign, Marine One lands on Gabe’s Wyoming ranch, and President Stoddard delivers a disturbing revelation and a startling request. His personal physician has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and he desperately needs Gabe to take the man’s place. Despite serious misgivings, Gabe agrees to come to Washington. It is not until he is ensconced in the White House medical office that Gabe realizes there is strong evidence that the President is going insane. Facing a crisis of conscience - as President Stoddard’s physician, he has the power to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to transfer presidential power to the Vice President - Gabe uncovers increasing evidence that his friend’s condition may not be due to natural causes. Who? Why? And how? The President’s life is at stake. A small-town doctor suddenly finds himself in the most powerful position on earth, and the safety of the world is in jeopardy. Gabe Singleton must find the answers, and the clock is ticking… 24 Spy and Political Thrillers OATH OF OFFICE by Michael Palmer (DR. LOU WELCOME SERIES #1) What if a well-respected doctor inexplicably goes on a murderous rampage? When Dr. John Merriman goes on a shooting spree at the office, his business partner, staff, and two patients are killed in the bloodbath. Then Meacham turns the gun on himself. The blame falls on Dr. Lou Welcome. Welcome worked with Merriman years before as a counselor after John's medical license had been revoked for drug addiction. Lou knew that John was an excellent doctor and deserved to be practicing medicine and fought hard for his license to be restored. After hearing the news of the violent outburst, Lou is in shock like everyone else, but mostly he's incredulous. And when he begins to look into it further, the terrifying evidence he finds takes him down a path to an unspeakable conspiracy that seems to lead directly to the White House and those in the highest positions of power… A SPY’S LIFE by Henry Porter (ROBERT HARLAND SERIES #1) Robert Cope Harland ended his career as a British spy in an Austrian hospital, after being tortured and beaten by Czech security agents in the last days of the communist regime. He was young enough then to find a new life with the Red Cross and then with the UN. Twelve years later his UN plane crashes in mysterious circumstances at La Guardia airport, New York and Harland is the only survivor. Was it sabotage, and if so, was Harland the target? It is soon clear to Harland that the answers are to be found in his past, a past which, along with its secrets and tradecraft, he has desperately tried to forget. And now the crash has thrown him back into a world of relentless intrigue and mistrust, to his youth, and a life-changing love affair... 25 Spy and Political Thrillers GIDEON’S SWORD by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (GIDEON SERIES #1) At twelve, Gideon Crew witnessed his father, a world-class mathematician, accused of treason and gunned down. At twenty-four, summoned to his dying mother's bedside, Gideon learned the truth: His father was framed and deliberately slaughtered. With her last breath, she begged her son to avenge him. Now, with a new purpose in his life, Gideon crafts a one-time mission of vengeance, aimed at the perpetrator of his father's destruction. His plan is meticulous, spectacular, and successful. But from the shadows, someone is watching. A very powerful someone, who is impressed by Gideon's special skills. Someone who has need of just such a renegade. For Gideon, this operation may be only the beginning… THE 500 by Matthew Quick (JOHN FORD SERIES #1) “The Firm goes to Washington - only with a whole lot more action” - James Patterson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They’re the 500 most powerful in Washington. And they’ll stop at nothing to keep it that way… A year ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School, Mike Ford landed his dream job at the Davies Group, Washington's most powerful consulting firm. Now, he's staring down the barrel of a gun, pursued by two of the world's most dangerous men. To get out, he'll have to do all the things he thought he'd never do again: lie, cheat, steal - and this time, maybe even kill. Mike grew up in a world of small-stakes con men, learning lessons at his father's knee. His hard-won success in college and law school was his ticket out. As the Davies Group's rising star, he rubs shoulders with "The 500," the elite men and women who really run Washington - and the world. But peddling influence, he soon learns, is familiar work: even with a pedigree, a con is still a con... 26 Spy and Political Thrillers RULES OF DECEPTION by Christopher Reich (DR. JONATHAN RANSOM SERIES #1) The past is a lie. The future is deadly… Dr. Jonathan Ransom, world-class mountaineer and surgeon for Doctors Without Borders, is climbing in the Swiss Alps with his beautiful wife, Emma, when a blizzard sets in. In their efforts to escape the storm, Emma is killed when she falls into a hidden crevasse. Twenty-four hours later, Jonathan receives an envelope addressed to his wife containing two baggage-claim tickets. Puzzled, he journeys to a remote railway station only to find himself in a life-and-death struggle for his wife's possessions. In the aftermath of the assault, he discovers that his attackers - one dead, the other mortally wounded - were, in fact Swiss police officers. More frightening still is evidence of an extraordinary act of betrayal that leaves Jonathan stunned. Suddenly the subject of an international manhunt and the target of a master assassin, Jonathan is forced on the run. His only chance for survival lies in uncovering the devastating truth behind the secrets his wife kept from him and in stopping the terrifying conspiracy that threatens to bring the world to the brink of annihilation. Step by step, he is drawn deeper into a world of spies, high-tech weaponry, and global terrorism - a world where no one is who they appear to be and where the ends always justify the means… 27 Spy and Political Thrillers AT RISK by Stella Rimington (LIZ CARLYLE SERIES #1) Stella Rimington - who formerly headed Britain's intelligence service; comes in from the cold with a smart, clever, and brilliantly paced thriller that seems ripped from the headlines - if not today's, then probably tomorrow's… Liz Carlyle is an agent-runner in MI-5's Joint CounterTerrorist Group, which is facing the ultimate intelligence nightmare; an "invisible," a terrorist who's an ethnic native of the target country and thus able to cross its borders unchecked and move around its environs unquestioned. All Liz and her team have to go on is the suspicion that a local fisherman who was shot with an unusual armorpiercing gun known to be favored by foreign agents and whose body was found in the restroom of a transport café near a smuggler's beach may have been involved in helping an undercover operative known as "Vengeance Before God" enter England without benefit of passport or visa - a man whose mission, if not his identity, has been the subject of recent intelligence "chatter" from militant Muslim sources. And while Liz thinks she knows who the operative is an Afghani with forged papers last seen in a German port city - she doesn't have a clue about the "invisible" who's helping him, or the target in their crosshairs… 28 Spy and Political Thrillers THE ASSASSINS GALLERY by David L. Robbins (MIKHAL LAMMECK SERIES #1) New Year’s Eve, 1945. The assassin steps out of the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of a raging nor’easter. Cool and efficient, she’s a weapon of war superbly trained in the ancient arts of subterfuge and murder. And even though she’s outnumbered, she’s got one major advantage: No one knows she’s coming. Professor Mikhal Lammeck’s specialty is the history and weaponry of assassins. But even Lammeck is caught off guard when the Secret Service urgently requests his help: A gruesome double murder and suicide in Massachusetts has set off alarm bells. It’s only a hunch, but all too soon Lammeck suspects the unthinkable. In the waning days of the war, someone wants one last shot to alter history. An assassin is headed to Washington, D.C., to kill the most important soldier of them all: the U.S. commander in chief. As Lammeck and a killer at the top of her profession circle the streets of the capital in the hunt for FDR, one of them will attempt to kill the world’s most powerful man; the other, to save him. And between them, for an instant, history will hang in the balance… 29 Spy and Political Thrillers THE TWELFTH IMAM by Joel C. Rosenberg (THE TWELFTH IMAM SERIES #1) As the apocalyptic leaders of Iran call for the annihilation of Israel and the U.S., CIA operative David Shirazi is sent into Tehran with one objective: use all means necessary to disrupt Iran’s nuclear weapons program, without leaving American fingerprints and without triggering a regional war. At extreme personal risk, Shirazi executes his plan. A native Farsi speaker whose family escaped from Iran in 1979, he couldn’t be better prepared for the mission. But none of his training has prepared Shirazi for what will happen next. An obscure religious cleric is suddenly hailed throughout the region as the Islamic messiah known as the Mahdi or the Twelfth Imam. News of his miracles, healings, signs, and wonders spreads like wildfire, as do rumors of a new and horrific war. With the prophecy of the Twelfth Imam seemingly fulfilled, Iran’s military prepares to strike Israel and bring about the End of Days. Shirazi must take action to save his country and the world, but the clock is ticking… TRAITOR’S KISS by Gerald Seymour Officially the Cold War is over. Between former enemies, the hand of friendship is exchanged in public. In private, though, the intelligence war goes on... An English trawler strays into Russian waters. When it returns, the captain has a package to deliver to British intelligence. For the next four years a high-ranking Russian naval officer, Viktor Archenko, passes valuable information to MI6. Suddenly he stops using the dead drop. His contacts in London know nothing about him - but they know he is under suspicion. The time has come to get him out. But a new breed plays the spy game now; men like Gabriel Locke. They have no interest in irrelevant Cold War sparring, or the risk of a spy scandal. There are deals to be done and alliances to be made. They would rather leave Archenko to fend for himself. He is, after all, a throwback and an embarrassing one at that. Only one veteran agent realizes that there is much more at stake than a man’s life. Only he dares ask the question: if the war is over, who will fight the peace? 30 Spy and Political Thrillers THE KILL ARTIST by Daniel Silva (GABRIEL ALLON SERIES #1) Once a key operative in secret Israeli-intelligence missions, Gabriel Allon is on the run from his past, assuming a quiet life as a meticulous restorer of priceless works of art. But now he is being called back into the game. The agent with whom he is teamed hides behind her own beautiful mask-as a French fashion model. Their target: a cunning terrorist on one last killing spree, a Palestinian zealot named Tariq who played a dark part in Gabriel’s past. What begins as a manhunt turns into a globe-spanning duel fueled by political intrigue and deep personal passions. In a world where secrecy and duplicity are absolute, revenge is a luxury no man can afford-and the greatest masterpiece of all… GORKY PARK by Martin Cruz Smith (ARKADY RENKO SERIES #1) A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and the New York City police as he pursues a rich, ruthless, and well-connected American fur dealer. Meanwhile, Renko is falling in love with a beautiful, headstrong dissident for whom he may risk everything… 31 Spy and Political Thrillers THE TOURIST by Olen Steinhauer (MILO WEAVER SERIES #1) Milo Weaver used to be a "tourist" for the CIA - an undercover agent with no home, no identity - but he's since retired from the field to become a middle-level manager at the CIA's New York headquarters. He's acquired a wife, a daughter, and a brownstone in Brooklyn, and he's tried to leave his old life of secrets and lies behind. However, when the arrest of a long-sought-after assassin sets off an investigation into one of Milo's oldest colleagues and exposes new layers of intrigue in his old cases, he has no choice but to go back undercover and find out who's holding the strings once and for all… THE ECHELON VENDETTA by David Stone (MICAH DALTON SERIES #1) In his world, nothing is forgiven – or forgotten… Micah Dalton is not paid to ask questions. He's the man the CIA sends to clean up the mess when something goes wrong an agent gets in trouble, or worse. But when his colleague and friend Porter Nauman turns up dead in an idyllic Tuscan hill town, as a result of an apparent and unimaginably gruesome suicide, Dalton can't help but ask questions. And when Nauman's family is subsequently slaughtered back home in London, Dalton can sit back no longer. Moving from Venice to London to Washington, D.C., to the unbearably beautiful mountains of the American West, Dalton tracks the specter who, with a penchant for intricate knifework influenced by Native American mysticism, is killing a disparate group of agents, former agents, and contract menall of whom seem to have a connection to ECHELON, a mysterious company operation. The murders appear to be acts of retribution, but for what? Elegant, horrifying, and chillingly suspenseful, The Echelon Vendetta will keep you enthralled, through its final, supremely satisfying twist. 32 Spy and Political Thrillers CONTACT ZERO by David Wolstencroft Make contact… or die. Ben Locke is a recent graduate of Spy School and anxious to succeed on his first assignment. Like everyone in the Agency, he’s heard the stories about Contact Zero. When you have nowhere left to turn, when all is lost, only Contact Zero can save you. Some say it’s an isolated hideout run by ex-members of the Agency. Others say he’s a father figure, ready to protect and care for the dispossessed. To most, it’s an old spies’ tale, a myth to be whispered about behind closed doors and quickly dismissed as fantasy. But during Ben’s operation in South America, he is brutally framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Barely escaping with his life, he finds himself suddenly cast out by his handlers in London. On this same day, across the globe, seven of his fellow classmates have been found dead. The three left behind Ben, Lucy, and Nat - must join forces and quickly discover that, myth or no myth, Contact Zero is their only chance for survival. What ensues is a spellbinding quest that takes them from South America to the capitals of Europe in search of the most elusive treasure a fugitive spy can attain - sanctuary. 33
© Copyright 2025 Paperzz