Best of
Action

2000

Eye of the Storm: 25 Years in Action with the SAS


Peter Ratcliffe - 2000
    It is laced with first-hand descriptions of ferocious and bloody fighting, sudden death and incredible heroism, and peopled with a cast of extraordinary individuals, hard-fighting soldiers of every rank and background.

Alex Rider Boxed Set, #1-6


Anthony Horowitz - 2000
    Stormbreaker They told him his uncle died in an accident. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt, they said. But when fourteen-year-old Alex finds his uncle's windshield riddled with bullet holes, he knows it was no accident. What he doesn't know yet is that his uncle was killed while on a top-secret mission. But he is about to, and once he does, there is no turning back. Finding himself in the middle of terrorists, Alex must outsmart the people who want him dead. The government has given him the technology, but only he can provide the courage. Should he fail, every child in England will be murdered in cold blood. 2. Point Blanc When an investigation into a series of mysterious deaths leads agents to an elite prep school for rebellious kids, MI6 assigns Alex Rider to the case. Before he knows it, Alex is hanging out with the sons of the rich and powerful, and something feels wrong. These former juvenile delinquents have turned well-behaved, studious—and identical—overnight. It's up to Alex to find out who is masterminding this nefarious plot, before they find him. 3. Skeleton Key Alex Rider has been through a lot for his fourteen years. He's been shot at by international terrorists, chased down a mountainside on a makeshift snowboard, and has stood face-to-face with pure evil. Twice, young Alex has managed to save the world. And twice, he has almost been killed doing it. But now Alex faces something even more dangerous. The desperation of a man who has lost everything he cared for: his country and his only son. A man who just happens to have a nuclear weapon and a serious grudge against the free world. To see his beloved Russia once again be a dominant power, he will stop at nothing. Unless Alex can stop him first... Uniting forces with America's own CIA for the first time, teen spy Alex Rider battles terror from the sun-baked beaches of Miami all the way to the barren ice fields of northernmost Russia. 4. Eagle Strike Sir Damian Cray is a philanthropist, peace activist, and the world's most famous pop star. But still it's not enough. He needs more if he is to save the world. Trouble is, only Alex Rider recognizes that it's the world that needs saving from Sir Damian Cray. Underneath the luster of glamour and fame lies a twisted mind, ready to sacrifice the world for his beliefs. But in the past, Alex has always had the backing of the government. This time, he's on his own. Can one teenager convince the world that the most popular man on earth is a madman bent on destruction-before time runs out? 5. Scorpia Alex Rider, teen spy, has always been told he is the spitting image of the father he never knew. But when Alex learns that his father may have been an assassin for the most lethal and powerful terrorist organization in the world, Scorpia, his world shatters. Now Scorpia wants Alex on their side, and Alex no longer has the strength to fight them. That is, until he learns of Scorpia’s latest plot: an operation known only as “Invisible Sword” that will result in the death of thousands of people. Can Alex prevent the slaughter, or will Scorpia prove once and for all that the terror will not be stopped? 6. Ark Angel The sniper’s bullet nearly killed him. But Alex Rider managed to survive . . . just in time for more trouble to come his way. When kidnappers attempt to snatch a fellow patient from the exclusive hospital where Alex is recovering, he knows he has to stop him. But the boy he saves is no ordinary patient: He is the son of Nikolai Drevin, one of the richest men in the world. The eccentric billionaire has been targeted by Force Three, a group of eco-terrorists who claim his project Ark Angel—the first luxury hotel in outer space—is a danger to the environment. Soon Alex discovers that Force Three will stop at nothing to destroy Ark Angel, even if it means sending four hundred tons of molten glass and steel hurtling down to Earth and killing millions . . . unless Alex can stop them.

Hot Springs


Stephen Hunter - 2000
    But even tough guys have their secrets. Plagued by the memory of his abusive father, apprehensive about his own impending parenthood, Earl is a decorated ex-Marine of absolute integrity and overwhelming melancholy. Now he's about to face his biggest, bloodiest challenge yet. It is the summer of 1946, organized crimes garish golden age, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good. Nowhere is this more true than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the reigning capital of corruption. When the district attorney vows to bring down the mob, Earl is recruited to run the show. As casino raids erupt into nerve-shattering combat amid screaming prostitutes and fleeing johns, the body count mounts along with the suspense.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?


Joel Coen - 2000
    With their latest work, O Brother, Where Art Though?, The Oscar-winning team returns to the period-piece films of their earlier career (Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy) and showcase once-again their pitch-perfect ear for hilarious and outrageous dialogue, as well as their penchant for the fantastic. Based on Homer's Odyssey, the movie stars George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill, along with Coen-mainstay John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as fugitives from a chain gang who embark on a mystical and musical journey through 1930s Mississippi. History and allegory are expertly entwined as, along the way, the three escapees encounter a blind prophet, are tempted by sirens, do battle with a Cyclops (in the form of a one-eyed Klansman), fall in with George "Baby Face" Nelson on a bank heist, and cut a blues record with a young guitar prodigy who bears a striking resemblance to the real-life Robert Johnson.

The Next President


Joseph Flynn - 2000
    Cade came home to southern Illinois from Vietnam and thought he’d never have to kill again. He was wrong. Someone starts blackmailing him. Not only does this new anonymous enemy know J.D.’s darkest secrets, he also implicates J.D.’s son in a death that could reignite a blood feud. The blackmailer wants J.D. to use his deadly skills to assassinate Senator Franklin Delano Rawley — the first African-American with a chance to become president of the United States. In order to save his son, spare Rawley and emerge alive, J.D. must somehow find out who is behind a conspiracy that could change the fate of a nation. (First published in June, 2000 — eight years before the election of Barack Obama. Also published before the first season of "24.")

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Kozueko Morimoto - 2000
    Unfortunately for her, she's assigned by the school board as the homeroom teacher for class 3-D, which happens to be the class of delinquent students. When the class attempts to make a living hell out of Yankumi's career, they fail as her persistence and aggression gain her respect. However, little does anyone in the school know that Yankumi is actually heir to the Kuroda Ikka - one of Tokyo's most powerful yakuza clans.

That Others May Live: The True Story of the PJs, Real Life Heroes of the Perfect Storm


Jack Brehm - 2000
    In battle, they fly behind enemy lines to rescue downed pilots. In peacetime, PJs stay sharp with daring civilian rescues, recovering victims from scorching deserts, treacherous mountaintops, raging seas, and natural disasters. Their almost unimaginable courage first came to the public's attention in Sebastian Junger's "The Perfect Storm," with that book's riveting account of how a helicopter of PJs plunged into the Atlantic during a tragic rescue attempt. Senior Master Sergeant Jack Brehm was the PJ supervisor coordinating their dramatic efforts that night. "That Others May Live" not only sheds new light on that rescue, it also tells the thrilling story of Jack Brehm's devotion to the PJs, a career choice that transformed him from an aimless kid to an on-call hero. Jack's vivid account reveals not only the dangerous rescues and relentless training he and his fellow PJs endure, but the emotional struggles as well: losing friends, waiting anxiously to be called into action, and trying to keep their families together despite the enormous life-and-death pressures of the job. This book is a compelling and deeply personal story of one man's "ordinary" heroism that is, in reality, extraordinary.

The White Fox Chronicles


Gary Paulsen - 2000
    Endless wars have torn the USA apart and enslaved Americans to the CCR, the Confederation of Consolidated Republics. Growing up in the wasteland of war has made 14-year-old Cody Pierce wise in survival skills, and now he's the White Fox, rebel leader of the children's barracks in a CCR prison camp. Once he escapes, life with the underground teaches him new skills in weaponry and strategy as he plays cat-and-mouse with the CCR. Every day brings him closer to capture, as well as to his goal: to return and liberate the children he left behind.

The Bear and the Dragon: Part 2 of 3


Tom Clancy - 2000
    In THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON, the future is very near at hand indeed.Newly elected in his own right, Jack Ryan has found that being President has gotten no easier. Domestic pitfalls await him at every turn, there's a revolution in Liberia, the Asian economy is going down the tubes, and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to take out the chairman of the SVR - the former KGB - with a rocket - propelled grenade. Things are unstable enough in Russia without high-level assassination, but even more disturbing may be the identities of the potential assassins. Were they political enemies, the Russian Mafia, disaffected former KGB? Or, Ryan wonders, is something far more dangerous at work here?Ryan is right. For even wile he dispatches his most trusted eyes and ears, including black ops specialist John Clark, to find out the truth of the matter, forces in China are moving ahead with a plan of truly audacious proportions. If they succeed, the world as we know it will never look the same. If they fail...the consequences will be unspeakable.Blending the exceptional realism and authenticity that are his hallmarks with intricate plotting, razor-sharp suspense and a remarkable cast of characters, this is Clancy at his best - and ther is none better.

CrossFire


Jeanette Windle - 2000
    Crossfire is an exceptionally well-written novel, filled with intrigue, action, realism and biblical truth. A Guaranteed Fiction Title!

Night Hoops


Carl Deuker - 2000
    It's sophomore year and Nick is trying to deal with his parents' divorce. He also really wants to be a star on the basketball team. Trent, his neighbor, is angry, and aggressive. The two form an uneasy bond as they quietly practice each night on Nick's backyard basketball court. But as the basketball season progresses, their lives become unexpectedly intertwined. In this story of an unlikely bond, Carl Deuker explores the confusing place between loneliness and friendship, between faithfulness and betrayal. Filled with gripping game play, this is a story about choices.While trying to prove that he is good enough to be on his high school's varsity basketball team, Nick must also deal with his parents' divorce and the erractic behavior of a troubled classmate who lives across the street.

Servant of the Law


Dusty Richards - 2000
    From New Mexico to Indian Territory, Budd became one of a rootless army of half-crazed, half-drunk killers for hire--building an ugly legend as the Coyote Kid. Honest men paid the Kid to rid themselves of rustlers. Along the way, the innocent died, too.Now former Apache campaigner Major Gerald Bowen is bringing law to the land, hiring a few good frontier marshals and putting them on the bloody trail of the territory's worst outlaws. John wesley Michaels is one of those lawmen--and the Coyote Kid is his quarry. But when Michaels gets to Arizona, he finds out he won't be working alone. A stubborn woman insists on riding Michaels' side. Because she's met the Coyote Kid face-to-face--and she wants to be the one to gun him down...

Players


Joyce Sweeney - 2000
    Philip's varsity basketball -- a team that's poised to make all-city. There is only one slot to fill on the roster, and the team chooses hot-shot transfer student Noah Travers for its second string. But Noah's ambitions are bigger -- he wants, and expects, to play starting center.When starting-center Luke mysteriously faints before a game, and Theo suddenly quits the team, everyone suspects Noah is at the root of the trouble -- everyone except Corey. Corey can't believe anyone would be malicious enough to drug one player and force another off the team.But as each player is sabotaged and the trust among the teammates disintegrates, Corey can no longer ignore the obvious. The all-city championship is too important, and he must find out the truth before he becomes the next target.

The Prize


Martine Berne - 2000
    At least now she was free of her dissolute brother and his efforts to force her into a wealthy marriage. But when Leith drew close to her on his steed, she began to tremble. The sensations Campbell, the darkly handsome laird, aroused in her went well beyond anything she'd dreamed of during her sheltered years at the convent, and she was afraid she liked them...very much. How could she pretend purity when she yearned to sample the pleasures of sin?As Laird Leith Campbell galloped away with Adrianna, he cursed himself for a fool. Surely this golden-haired Sassenach lass had bewitched him! She was, after all, his enemy's daughter, and yet he could not slay her. Instead he took her to his Highlands castle, where he vowed to add seduction to his revenge—ravishing her innocent flesh until her blue eyes darkened with passion and her sweet lips cried out his name. But he had not reckoned on tender feelings for his beautiful captive, or that he would strive, body and soul, to win the greatest prize of all...a lifetime of loving Adrianna.