Best of
Thriller

2001

Safe Haven


Patricia MacDonald - 2001
    . .Dena returns to her hometown for a high school reunion. She gets together with Brian, her high school crush, and ends up pregnant.She moves back to the small town where she grew up to start a new life with horse breeder Brian.But behind closed doors, Dena’s perfect life becomes the perfect nightmare.Heavily pregnant, Dena flees to her best friend’s place.But someone out there wants to take that away from her too. Days later, Dena’s friend is found battered to death.Did Brian do it?

Lee Child's Jack Reacher Books 1-6: With Prose Translations (Jack Reacher, #1-6)


Lee Child - 2001
    Catch up with his first six adventures in the #1 New York Times bestselling series by Lee Child.Killing FloorDie TryingTripwireRunning BlindEcho BurningWithout Fail

Faceless


Martina Cole - 2001
    And she's paid the price. Now she is being released from prison. It's time to go home. But life has moved on, and Marie has nowhere to go. Her parents have disowned her; her friends have abandoned her; even her kids don't want to know. But some people out there are watching her, following her every move - they know that Marie Carter wants retribution . . .

The Hannibal Lecter Trilogy


Thomas Harris - 2001
    Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal - the three international bestsellers that provided literature with one of its most memorable characters - now available in one volume.

Ruthless Game


Danielle Girard - 2001
    There were eleven, in all. She was last in line, but he was getting closer. He’d be to her soon... As though stumbling out of a nightmare, rookie cop Alex Kincaid awakens in her car, dazed and confused. Parked on an unfamiliar street, she's outside an unfamiliar home with no recollection of how she got there, and no memory of the night before. Then her nightmare becomes reality. Alex's first call of the day takes her to the same street, to the same house, where a man has been brutally killed. Alex thinks the man is a perfect stranger--until she finds herself the main suspect in his murder. And now, as she races to clear her name, she’s haunted by memories of a horrific thirty-year-old crime--a crime that links her to the dead man...and marks her as the killer’s next target. OTHER SUSPENSE NOVELS by Danielle Girard: Chasing Darkness Savage Art Cold Silence The Rookie Club

Envy


Sandra Brown - 2001
    Maris is intrigued enough to search for him.Her trip to Georgia to meet the mysterious author takes her to an eerie, ruined cotton plantation, where Maris finds Parker Evans, a man confined to a wheelchair who carefully hides his past. Coaxing his novel from him chaper by chapter, Maris becomes caught up in his tale of two friends who rent a boat with a young woman for a night of sex and drinking. Only one person will return from that trip.Disturbed about her sexual attraction to Parker and worried about her marriage to author and her co-publisher Noah Reed, Maris returns to New York, where the delivery of Parker's newest chapters convince her they are more than fiction. She wonders how well she knows her husband and begins a harrowing search for a truth that ties back to a terrifying crime and a man who will use her, or anyone, to get his revenge.©2001 Sandra Brown Management, Ltd; (P)2001 Simon & Schuster Inc.; AUDIOWORKS Is an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.

Mystic River


Dennis Lehane - 2001
    But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened -- something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay -- demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood.A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.

Gangster


Lorenzo Carcaterra - 2001
    Violence. Destiny. These powerful themes ricochet through Lorenzo Carcaterra's new novel like bullets from a machine gun. In Gangster, he surpasses even his bestselling Sleepers to create a brutal and brilliant American saga of murder, forgiveness, and redemption.Born in the midst of tragedy and violence and raised in the shadow of a shocking secret, young Angelo Vestieri chooses to flee both his past and his father to seek a second family--the criminals who preside over early 20th century New York. In his bloody rise from soldier to mob boss, he encounters ever more barbaric betrayals--in friendship, in his brutal business, in love-- yet simultaneously comes to understand the meaning of loyalty, the virtue of relationships, and gains a perspective on the lonely, if powerful, life he has chosen.As the years pass, as enemies are made and defeated, as wars are fought and won, the old don meets an abandoned boy who needs a parent as much as protection. By taking Gabe under his wing and teaching him everything he knows, Angelo Vestieri will learn, in the winter of his life, which is greater: his love for the boy he cherishes, or his need to be a gangster and to live by the savage rules he helped create.A sweeping panoramic with riveting characters, a unique understanding of the underworld philosophy, and a relentless pace, Gangster travels through the time of godfathers and goodfellas to our own world of suburban Sopranos. But this is more than just an authentic chronicle of crime. Setting a new standard for this acclaimed author, Gangster is a compassionate portrait of one man's fight against his fate--and an unforgettable epic of a family, a city, a century.From the Hardcover edition.

Deep Fathom


James Rollins - 2001
    Solar flares have triggered a series of gargantuan natural disasters. Earth-quakes and hellfire rock the globe. Air Force One has vanished from the skies with America's president on board.Now, with the United States on the narrow brink of a nuclear apocalypse, Kirkland must pilot his oceangoing exploration ship, Deep Fathom, on a desperate mission miles below the ocean's surface. There, devastating secrets await him--and a power an ancient civilization could not contain that has been cast out into modern day, where it will forever alter a world that's already racing toward its own destruction.

1st to Die


James Patterson - 2001
    So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered--before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong.Full of the breathtaking drama and unforgettable emotions for which James Patterson is famous, 1st to Die is the start of the #1 New York Times bestselling series of crime thrillers.

Tell No One


Harlan Coben - 2001
    David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive.Everyone tells him it's time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible- that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn't. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope.But already Beck is being hunted down. He's headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret- and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.

Blindsighted


Karin Slaughter - 2001
    But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear. Sara's ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation -- a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later. But he's got more than a sadistic serial killer on his hands, for the county's sole female detective, Lena Adams -- the first victim's sister -- wants to serve her own justice. But it is Sara who holds the key to finding the killer. A secret from her past could unmask the brilliantly malevolent psychopath .. or mean her death.

The Surgeon


Tess Gerritsen - 2001
    His surgical skills lead police to suspect he is a physician - a physician who, instead of saving lives, takes them.But as homicide detective Thomas Moore and his partner Jane Rizzoli begin their investigation, they make a startling discovery. Closely linked to these killings is Catherine Cordell, a beautiful doctor with a mysterious past. Two years ago she was subjected to a horrifying rape and shot her attacker dead.Now the man she believes she killed seems to be stalking her once again, and this time he knows exactly where to find her...

Bone Cold


Erica Spindler - 2001
    A madman kidnapped her, cut off her pinkie, then vanished. Today Anna lives in New Orleans, writing dark thrillers under another name. She finally feels safe.Suddenly Anna's quiet life takes a frightening turn. Letters start to arrive from a disturbed fan. Anna is followed, her apartment broken into. Then a close friend disappears.Anna turns to homicide detective Quentin Malone, but Malone's more concerned with the recent murders of two women in the French Quarter. But after a third victim is found a redhead like Anna, her pinkie severed Malone is forced to acknowledge that Anna is his link to the killer and could be the next target.Now Anna must face the horrifying truth her past has caught up with her.

Secret Sanction


Brian Haig - 2001
    When the legal maverick is assigned by the top brass to investigate a Bosnian massacre in which a Green Beret A-team and the Kosovo Liberation Army detachment they were "advising" got trapped behind Serbian lines, he gets the subtext that's part of his orders. What the Army doesn't need are headlines about the cold-blooded execution of 35 Serbian soldiers, and they're counting on Drummond to clean things up fast, before a public scandal blows dirt all over their medals. Drummond is provided with two associates to help with the investigation: an attractive young woman captain who's a Harvard Law School graduate, and an equally illustrious Judge Army General's Corps lawyer whose reputation precedes him.Once Drummond and his team get to Bosnia, it's clear that the accused Green Berets have their own cover-up going, and they're not going to make it easy for the lawyers to figure out what happened. Drummond has a few tricks up his own sleeve, and when he finds out that his CO has put a spy on his team, he's even more determined to get to the bottom of what really went on, even if he has to bully his way out of a murder frame-up to do it. The moral dilemma Drummond faces when he learns the real story (and understands why the Army is so desperate to keep the cover-up going) reveals the man behind the maverick, and lifts Brian Haig's novel a cut above the genre. Haig might have spent more time making his secondary characters as interesting as his protagonist and tightened up his narrative. Still, fans of military thrillers will find this a good enough read.

Last Man Standing


David Baldacci - 2001
    As the FBI investigates, suspicion surrounding Web deepens. Now, he needs help from an unlikely ally in his desperate search for the killer of his friends, and finds himself up against a force intent on finishing the job that began in the alley.

Earthcore


Scott Sigler - 2001
    A billion-dollar find, it waits for any company that can drill a world's record, three-mile-deep mine shaft. EarthCore is the company with the technology, the resources and the guts to go after the mother lode. Young executive Connell Kirkland is the company's driving force, pushing himself and those around him to uncover the massive treasure.But at three miles below the surface, where the rocks are so hot they burn bare skin, something has been waiting for centuries. Waiting ...and guarding. Kirkland and EarthCore are about to find out first-hand why this treasure has never been unearthed.

A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away


Christopher Brookmyre - 2001
    In both their cases, it was to be rock stars. Fifteen years later, their mid-thirties are bearing down fast, and just like everybody else, they're having to accept the less glamorous hands reality has dealt them. Nervous new father Ray takes refuge from his responsibilities by living a virtual existence in online games. People say he needs to grow up, but everybody has to find their own way of coping. For some it's affairs, for others it's the bottle, and for Simon it's serial murder, mass slaughter and professional assassination.

Tahoe Deathfall


Todd Borg - 2001
    Now, at the ripe old age of 14, Jennifer has come to believe that her sister's death was not the accident that everyone says. When McKenna investigates, he uncovers a long-buried secret that is still driving a murderer to kill. McKenna is desperate to catch the killer before he strikes again because McKenna believes that Jennifer is next to die...

The Girls He Adored


Jonathan Nasaw - 2001
    Pender has been investigating the apparently random disappearances of a dozen women across the country. The only detail the cases have in common is the strawberry blond color of the victims' hair, and the presence of a mystery man with whom they were last seen.Then, in Monterey, California, a routine traffic stop erupts into a scene of horrific violence. The local police are stunned by a disemboweled strawberry blond victim and an ingenious killer with multiple alternating personalities. Pender is convinced he has found his man, but before he can prove it, the suspect stages a cunning jailbreak and abducts his court-appointed psychiatrist, Irene Cogan.In a house on a secluded ridge in Oregon, Irene must navigate through the minefield of her captor's various egos -- male and female, brilliant and naive, murderous and passive -- all of whom are dominated by Max, a seductive killer who views her as both his prisoner and his salvation. Irene knows that to survive she must play along with Max's game of sexual perversion. Only then will she be able to strip back the layers to discover a chilling story of a shattered young boy -- and all the girls he adored.A sexually charged thriller of extraordinary originality and page-turning suspense, The Girls He Adored moves furiously from the inner recesses of the psyche to its final, startling climax. Jonathan Nasaw brilliantly portrays two equally intense characters -- a deviant killer and the expert who can unlock his darkest secrets -- and introduces one of the most likable sleuths in recent fiction.

Hostage


Robert Crais - 2001
    Hotly pursued by the police, they crash into the suburban home of an accountant and take the family hostage. Soon the mafia are on the scene.

Folly


Laurie R. King - 2001
    She has moved to an island at the far reaches of the continent to restore the house of an equally haunted figure, her mysterious great-uncle; but as her life begins to rebuild itself along with the house, his story starts to wrap around hers. Powerful forces are stirring, but Rae cannot see where her reality leaves off and his fate begins.Fifty-two years old, Rae must battle the feelings that have long tormented her--panic, melancholy, and a skin-crawling sense of watchers behind the trees. Before she came here, she believed that most of the things she feared existed only in her mind. And who can say, as disturbing incidents multiply, if any of the watchers on Folly Island might be real? Is Rae paranoid, as her family and the police believe, or is the threat real? Is the island alive with promise--or with dangers?With Folly, award-winning author Laurie R. King once again powerfully redefines psychological suspense on a sophisticated and harrowing new level, and proves why legions of readers and reviewers have named her a master of the genre.

The Watchman


Chris Ryan - 2001
    Someone has been murdering MI5 officers and it looks as if the killer is an insider, one of the Regiment's own. Alex's task is to track down and eliminate the killer, and to assist him he is assigned an MI5 liason officer - the attractive but abrasive Dawn Harding.The body-count is mounting and a deadly and relentless manhunt begins. Soon Alex will learn the bitter truth: in the shadowy battlegrounds of the Intelligence wars there is no good and no evil - only winners and losers.This relentless unputdownable thriller helps establish Chris Ryan as the master of no-holds-barred action storytelling.

Jackdaws


Ken Follett - 2001
    They don’t know where or when, but the Germans know it'll be soon, and for Felicity “Flick” Clairet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain’s most effective operatives in Northern France. She knows that the Germans’ ability to thwart the Allied attack depends upon their lines of communications, and in the days before the invasion no target is of greater strategic importance than the largest telephone exchange in Europe.But when Flick and her Resistance-leader husband try a direct, head-on assault that goes horribly wrong, her world turns upside down. Her group destroyed, her husband missing, her superiors unsure of her, her own confidence badly shaken, she has one last chance at the target, but the challenge, once daunting, is now near impossible. The new plan requires an all-woman team, none of them professionals, to be assembled and trained within days. Code-named the Jackdaws, they will attempt to infiltrate the exchange under the noses of the Germans—but the Germans are waiting for them now and have plans of their own. There are secrets Flick does not know—secrets within the German ranks, secrets among her hastily recruited team, secrets among those she trusts the most. And as the hours tick down to the point of no return, most daunting of all, there are secrets within herself. . . .

Hot Blooded


Lisa Jackson - 2001
    Miles away, in a rambling plantation house on Lake Ponchartrain, late-night radio host Dr. Samantha Leeds receives a threatening crank call. But who would think to link the two?As more dead bodies turn up, Samantha's ominous caller persists, along with someone claiming to be a woman from her past—who's been dead for years. With Detective Rick Bentz convinced that the serial killer prowling the streets is somebody close to Samantha, she doesn't dare trust anyone. Especially not Ty Wheeler, her seductive new neighbor who seems to know more about her than a stranger should.Somebody has discovered Samantha's darkest secret. Somebody is convinced that lives must be sacrificed to pay for her sins. So far, the victims have been strangers. But as a cold-blooded killer grows bolder, Samantha wonders if she will be the next to die.

Honor Bound / Behind The Lines / The Murderers


W.E.B. Griffin - 2001
    At a secret rendezvous point off the coast of neutral Argentina, a small merchant ship delivers supplies to Nazi submarines and raiders. The OSS is determined to sabotage the operation by any means necessary. But one of the key saboteurs must fight his own private battle between duty and honor. Because he was chosen for a reason - to gain the trust and support of his own flesh and blood. A powerful Argentinian called "el Coronel." The father he never knew... Behind the Lines: World War II. On the island of Mindanao, the Philippines, a man calling himself "General" Fertig has set himself up as a guerrilla leader to harass the Japanese. Army records show that the only officer named Fertig in the Philippines is a reserve lieutenant colonel of the Corps of Engineers, reported MIA on Luzon. It's Marine lieutenant Ken McCoy's mission to sneak behind the lines and find out if he's for real. The Murderers: A cop is found shot dead in his home - is it connected to corruption in the narcotics division? A bar owner and his partner's wife are in the wrong place at the wrong time and are gunned down together - was it a mob hit? A beautiful, well-connected young woman dies an ugly death in her parents' mansion - was it accidental? It's up to Special Operations Division detectives Washington, Payne, and their crew to piece it together.

Memento Mori


Jonathan Nolan - 2001
    Because of his inability to remember things for more than a few minutes, he uses notes and tattoos to keep track of new information.

Hypershot


Trevor Scott - 2001
    military is shrinking, our leaders are turning to high technology as a force equalizer. America has not had a new hand-held rifle since the M16 was introduced in the 1960s. Now there's a new gun ready to take its position as the NATO standard. A gun so sophisticated, so fast, so unbelievably accurate, it will turn the average shooter into an expert marksman almost instantly. The problem is, it was developed by a German company with no U.S. production contract.That's where Warfield Arms, a Denver gun company, enters the action. Warfield hires Chad Hunter, a private weapons designer who had worked for the German company, to go to Germany to convince the company that Warfield is the perfect partner. To sweeten the deal, Hunter must first convince Frank Baldwin, a struggling optics engineer from Wyoming, who has developed the most advanced rifle scope ever conceived, that his scope would be the perfect match for this new German rifle. With the scope as bait, the Germans would surely deal.What Hunter and Baldwin find in Germany during the middle of the Oktoberfest celebration, could just get them both killed. Other countries and private factions would like this new weapon, and some in Germany want it only for that country. There's murder, kidnapping, extortion, and shoot-outs.... Who said the end of the Cold War wouldn't be any fun?

Pursuit


Thomas Perry - 2001
    . . . Pursuit is relentless, filled with twists and turns, that rare page-turner that keeps one reading late into the night to finish.”–The Boston GlobeThirteen bodies are found in a Louisville restaurant. When the police can find no suspect or motive, a victim’s family seeks the services of the enigmatic and solitary specialist Roy Prescott, known for his ability to find people who don’t want to be found. Working outside the law and willing to do what the police can’t, Prescott hunts the killer, an elusive adversary who is as smart, as methodical, as deadly as he is. The only way to conduct this pursuit is to goad the killer into believing that he must kill Roy Prescott. It is a contest fought from one end of the country to the other, and both men understand that when it’s over, only one of them will be alive.From the Paperback edition.

Death Benefits


Thomas Perry - 2001
    All signs point to a long successful career--until Max Stillman, a gruff security consultant, appears without warning at the office. It seems a colleague with whom Walker once had an affair has disappeared after paying a very large death benefit to an impostor. Stillman wants to find and convict her; Walker is convinced the woman is innocent. Now Walker teams up with Stillman on an urgent north-by-northeast race--relentlessly leading to a pay-off that just might shock the life out of him. . . .

Past the Headlands


Garry Disher - 2001
    The fall of Malaya and Singapore and the bombing of Darwin—what looked like the invasion of Australia—ebb and crash over a man’s long search to find a home and a woman’s determination to keep hers, connected by old memories and new betrayals. It is a thriller and a romance, a story of earth and water, air and metal—an unforgettable ride through the most precarious time in our region's recent history. Garry Disher writes: ‘Past the Headlands came from the same World War 2 research as The Stencil Man. I was struck by the power of two documents. The first was a letter written by a woman alone on a cattle station near Broome in 1942, at the time the Japanese were overrunning Malaya and Singapore and bombing areas of northern Australia. One day she found herself giving shelter to Dutch colonial officers and their families, who were fleeing Sumatra and Java ahead of the Japanese advance (many people like them lost their lives when Japanese planes shot up their waiting seaplanes in Broome Harbour in March, 1942). This woman stuck in my head (the isolation, the danger, the efforts to communicate, her bravery, etc). The second document was a war diary written by an Australian army surgeon who escaped Singapore ahead of the Japanese and was stuck in Sumatra, trying to get out. Here he treated many of the civilians (and Australian Army deserters) fleeing from Singapore. He was captured by the Japanese, but survived the war. But his last few diary entries detail how he and a mate were waiting for a plane or a ship to take them out, then one day he wrote, “Davis [his mate] left last night without telling me”. So much for mateship. I spent years trying to find my way into their stories. At one stage I spent a year writing 40,000 words before realising it wouldn’t work. I put it aside, then realised one subplot didn’t belong, so extracted it and turned it into a separate novel The Divine Wind, which has sold 100,000 copies around the world, won a major award and been published as both a young adult and a general market novel. But cutting it out like that freed me up to write about the woman and the man betrayed by his mate, in Past the Headlands.’

Every Move She Makes


Beverly Barton - 2001
    She wants to believe that Reed is innocent, but his attempts to prove it put both their lives in jeopardy.

The Manhattan Hunt Club


John Saul - 2001
    It's a world Jeff Converse, a young college student convicted of a crime he didn't commit, never knew existed until he is plunged into it after an "accident" that occurs while he is being transported to prison. He soon realizes that it's no accident, but the opening move in a deadly game being played by some of the city's most powerful men and women, a game in which he is the prey and they are the hunters. Jeff's only chance to make it to the surface and survive lies in allying himself with a homicidal maniac who's appointed himself the young man's protector, but whose designs on Jeff are almost as lethal as those of his enemies in the Manhattan Hunt Club. Saul made his reputation in the horror genre, but he now focuses on psychological terrors rather than things that go bump in the night. His narrative gifts are displayed to great advantage in this heart-stopping thriller; the pacing is flawless and the central characters are very well developed. What keeps this from living up to its fullest potential is the inadequate motivation of the villains, who are largely one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. But that won't keep this otherwise topnotch thriller off the bestseller lists, where Saul (Nightshade, The Right Hand of Evil), like Stephen King, is a perennial contender for the number one spot. --Jane Adams

Water Touching Stone 1 (Inspector Shan, #2)


Eliot Pattison - 2001
    Two old Tibetans are rushing to restore the spiritual balance lost by the violent death. A sullen Tibetan resistance fighter is racing to battle a new foe. Shan Tao Yun, just release from four years in the gulag, sets out to find justice, an elusive goal among the forgotten people of western China. As he follows the grim path left by the killer, Shan soon finds himself in the dangerous world of the borderlands. Guided by a young woman, Shan begins to peel away the secrets that hide the killer's true motives.

The Blue Nowhere


Jeffery Deaver - 2001
    To stop him, the authorities free imprisoned former hacker Wyatt Gillette to aid the investigation. Teamed with old-school homicide detective Frank Bishop, Gillette must combine their disparate talents to catch a brilliant and merciless killer.

Puppet Master, vol.1


Miyuki Miyabe - 2001
    As the police investigation gets underway, surprising turns of events suggest they may be up against a band of serial killers who ruthlessly manipulate their victims and their families, the police, and the media for the entertainment of the viewing public. With penetrating psychological insights into the minds of her characters and vivid portrayals of modern-day Tokyo, Miyabe maintains the tension in this fast-paced, five-volume blockbuster.Available in e-book format in five separate volumes, to be released from December 2014 through February 2016.

Hunting Season


P.T. Deutermann - 2001
    Finding no immediate leads and no indications of a criminal act, the authorities at the Bureau put the case on the back burner. But the father of one of the missing - Edwin Kriess - isn't willing to just let it drop. Kriess is a retired FBI agent, who was also a former member of an elite CIA task force expertly trained in the art of hunting down and retrieving rogue agents. His career burned down after a mission to uncover a Chinese espionage plot resulted in a blood-bath involving civilians. Kriess was quietly sacrificed to extinguish the scandal, and has since lived in semi-exile down in southwestern Virginia. Now he's back in action - if very unofficially - and will do anything in his power to find his daughter. Relying on the specialized tactics and lethal maneuvers from his man-hunting past as an Agency "sweeper," he mounts his own search and investigation. Crossing paths with the Bureau and other government agencies, Kriess becomes targeted for retrieval by one of his own kind. As he tracks through a deadly maze of political scandal, personal revenge, and high-level corruption, Kriess discovers that it's hunting season-on himself, his family, and, ultimately, the United States government.Hunting Season is P T. Deutermann in top form. It is a brilliantly plotted novel that moves from rolling hills to the marble corridors of Washington, D.C., as it tracks the progress of a man on a mission-and the secret he alone knows.

Whistler's Angel


John R. Maxim - 2001
    But so is Adam Whistler, who learned the killing craft well under the tutelage of his father. Now, with a ticking time bomb in his hands, Whistler has been cast into a maelstrom of death and chaos. His continued existence may well depend upon a group of retired assassins once linked to the legendary Paul Bannerman, as well as a special guardian angel. For his gentle and beautiful lover, Claudia -- who barely survived an assassination attempt by Aubrey's hired guns -- has returned to consciousness changed in extraordinary ways. And now she's much more than Whistler's soulmate -- she's a fellow soldier.

Darkness falls


Margaret Murphy - 2001
    A high-flying barrister and devoted mother, she was envied and admired by her peers. Now, robbed of everything that gives her life meaning, she lies chained to the stone wall of a dark cellar - without food, without warmth, without sleep, without even the most basic communication, for her kidnapper will not even tell her what he wants from her. As Clara passes from fear to anger to despair in her dark prison, Detective Inspector Steve Lawson leads the Cheshire police team working to find her. Is her abduction the work of a random maniac? A released criminal taking his revenge on the lawyer who sent him to jail? An obsessed stalker? Is it a last, spectacular bid for freedom by Casavettes, the ruthless drugs baron she was prosecuting? Even her husband is not above suspicion.

The Hunted


Alan Jacobson - 2001
    Lauren Chambers was sure she could rely on, it was her beloved husband, Michael. Recovering from an agoraphobic depression and prone to episodes of blinding anxiety, Lauren is a gifted psychologist for whom her husband's love and support mean everything. So when Michael suddenly and mysteriously vanishes, Lauren once again finds herself balancing on a knife's edge, haunted more than ever by an all-too-familiar paranoia. Is there more to it than paranoia, though? Private investigator Nick Bradley believes so. As the pair takes off on a cross-country journey in search of answers -- a search that yields a series of unsettling truths about the husband Lauren believed she knew so well -- bestselling author Alan Jacobson sets into motion a page-turning tale of concealed identities, an assassin's vendetta, and murderous revenge. Once again proving his mastery of the shocking twist and the ingenious turn, Jacobson leads readers on an exhilarating road thriller built for hairpin turns and unexpected detours as Lauren heads for a face-off with the most dangerous secret of all: the truth.From Alan Jacobson, "one of the brightest stars of the publishing world" (CNN), comes a chilling follow-up to his breakthrough national bestseller "False Accusations": a high-velocity thriller of deadly revenge and psychological mayhem.

The Last To Know


Wendy Corsi Staub - 2001
    The sort of peaceful, suburban existence Tasha Banks dreamed of living when she left her fast-paced career for full-time motherhood. But now, Tasha's perfect dream is turning into a terrifying nightmare. Someone is targeting women in Townsend Heights -- and not just any women. A serial killer is looking for a particular kind of prey...young, stay-at-home mothers...exactly like Tasha. One by one, Tasha's friends are disappearing, only to die in horrific ways. Suddenly, terror is transforming Townsend Heights into a sinister place of fear and foreboding -- a place where evil lurks behind every corner, hiding behind the mask of a familiar face -- a face that may be the last one Tasha ever sees.

Altitude Rush


Matthew Reilly - 2001
    What do two master thieves do to get across Manhattan in broad daylight when they can’t touch the ground?

Soul Traders


B.D. Benedikt - 2001
    Two directors take drastic measures to make their movie-making dreams come true: one sells his soul to the devil, the other to God.

The Twilight Zone Scripts, Volume 1


Richard Matheson - 2001
    

Hello, Darkness


Sandra Brown - 2001
    To her loyal listeners, she is a wise and trusted friend who not only takes their music requests but listens to their problems and occasionally dispenses advice. Paris's world of isolation is brutally threatened, however, when one listener -- a man who identifies himself only as "Valentino" -- tells her that her on-air advice to the girl he loves has caused her to leave him and that now he intends to exact his revenge. First he plans to kill the girl, whom he has abducted -- which he says he will do in 72 hours -- then he will come after Paris. Joined by the Austin police department, Paris plunges into a race against time in an effort to find Valentino before he can carry out his threat to kill -- and to kill again. To her dismay, she finds that one of the people she must work with is crime psychologist Dean Malloy, a man with whom she shares a history that had a catastrophic effect on both their lives. His presence arouses old passions, forcing Paris to confront painful memories that she had come to Austin to forget.As the clock ticks down, and Valentino's threats come closer and closer to becoming a reality, Paris suddenly finds herself forced to deal with a killer who may not be a stranger at all.

No Other Option


Marcus Wynne - 2001
    A trail of bodies left in his wake. He was once America's best. A member of Project Dominance Rain, an elite cauldron of the cream of America's military and intelligence community, his betrayal has brought dishonor to his team, and now they must send in the one man who knew Maxwell best, Master Sergeant Dale Miller. They fought side by side. They watched each other's back in the world's hot spots. Maxwell and Miller know each other's tactics, they know each other's mind, and they both understand their mission: kill or be killed.

Three Great Novels: Night Sins / Guilty as Sin / A Thin Dark Line


Tami Hoag - 2001
    Crime is just not something that happens in their neighbourhood. Worse still is the frightening possibility that Josh's disappearance was planned by a desperately warped mind, for all that is found at the crime scene is Josh's duffel bag and a note saying: 'Ignorance is not innocence but SIN'. Guilty as SinEven after the arrest of a suspect for Josh Kirkwood's kidnapping, fear maintains its grip on Deer Lake and unanswered questions linger. What happened to Josh at the hands of his kidnapper? Why has he not spoken a word since his return? Is the nightmare over, or is it just beginning? Then a second child is taken, while the prime suspect is in jail...A Thin Dark LinePamela Bichon's killer walked free, yet for Deputy Annie Broussard, still haunted by the sight of the mutilated body, the case is far from over. But pursuing the investigation means teaming up with Nick Fourcade, a man she doesn't trust. It means suffering vicious harassment from her colleagues, and getting close to a killer...and the closer she gets, the deadlier it becomes...

Animal Rites


Michael Panno - 2001
    in search of a little peace. Life is good for Frank. He has his dog, Bones, and a family of bears living close by that has accepted Frank into their lives; they even enjoy the classical music he plays on his portable stereo.But Frank’s peace is short lived as one day he discovers the mutilated bodies of two of the bears. With the help of a fellow recluse–a dwarf by the name of Marcell–Frank sets out after the poachers, only to discover a trail that leads way beyond the killers into the seamy underworld of animal parts, drugs and child prostitution.

Mindgame


Anthony Horowitz - 2001
    A thriller that actually manages to thrill, and a very dark comedy that twists and spirals towards a completely unexpected ending. This is one play where seeing isn't quite believing and reading the text is the only way to uncover all the clues.

Access To Power


Robert Ellis - 2001
    office. Police are quick to call it a case of robbery gone bad, but Frank Miles suspects something far more sinister behind the murder of his business partner.Washington's most feared image maker, Frank's ruthless media manipulation has earned him countless admirers...and just as many enemies. Now, for the first time in his life, Frank's met his match in a shadowy schemer as clever as himself--but far more lethal.As the body count rises, Frank becomes the U.S. Attorney's chief suspect--and a cunning killer's next target. From the underground tunnels networking Capitol Hill to the dome high above, his race for the truth--and his life--will bring him face-to-face with power at its deadliest extremes--where winning isn't everything...it's the only thing.

End of Enemies


Grant Blackwood - 2001
    His search will lead him from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, through the bullet-riddled back alleys of Beirut, to a deadly secret buried since World War II-and only Tanner can keep it from falling into the wrong hands...

The General's Envoy (Caspasian)


Anthony Conway - 2001
    Seconded to China by a vengeful Indian Army high command, Gurkha Captain John Caspasian finds Shanghai a cesspit of despair and corruption as refugees pour into the violent, disease-ridden city. He escapes on a solo mission to contact a general whom the British see as a bulwark against the revolutionary leader Chiang Kai-shek.Once he has left the relative safety of the International Settlement for a gunboat on the Yangtze though, Caspasian smells danger. The supposedly friendly General Mok turns out to be a bloodthirsty sadist whose armoured train has struck terror into the Chinese countryside.And Caspasian has made two implacable enemies. One is a Chinese criminal who first clashed with him over a rescued bar girl. The other is a former British officer who once saved Caspasian's life...

Running On Instinct


N.M. Luiken - 2001
    . . and no flesh. Merely a phantom from her nightmares. But her dreams seem so real.April has a major-league crush on Gavin. Unfortunately, he loves her cousin, Bethany . . . until he's framed for Bethany's murder. Peter may be only twelve, but he's got a dangerous temper, the kind that seethes and burns beneath an icy exterior, waiting to be unleashed. Penny is eight months pregnant, barely able to get around. But she can't shake the feeling that she must run, she must get away. Her husband thinks she's crazy until their next-door neighbor pulls into the driveway and takes out his rifle. Four seemingly disparate lives, each torn apart by violence and danger, inexorably drawn together by fate and circumstance. Unless they can unravel the mystery of a barely remembered nursery rhyme, they'll have little chance to survive.

The Rat Machine


Kent Harrington - 2001
    The two are sent into the Los Angeles underworld to pose as heroin dealers for reasons that are, at first, unclear to them. What they discover is a highly organized criminal enterprise spanning the globe with long-standing connections to Western Intelligence agencies-and some very nasty characters. The two friends must fight, not only to stay alive, but to keep from being corrupted themselves.The Rat Machine, based on historical facts, weaves a complex story of the International Heroin Trade, the Sicilian Mafia, and the use of ex-Nazi spy rings by Western Intelligence services during the Cold War-this story cuts deep.