Book picks similar to
Strike Back by Chris Ryan


fiction
thriller
chris-ryan
action

Red Storm Rising


Tom Clancy - 1986
    "Allah!"With that shrill cry, three Muslim terrorists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, creating a critical oil shortage that threatens the stability of the USSR.To offer the effects of this disaster, members of the Politburo and the KGB devise a brilliant plan of diplomatic trickery - a sequence of events designed to pit the NATO allies against each other - a distraction calculated to enable the Soviets to seize all the oil in the Persian Gulf.But as this spellbinding story of international intrigue and global politics nears its climax, the Soviets are faced with another prospect, one they hadn't planned on: a full-scale conflict in which nobody can win.

The Fist of God


Frederick Forsyth - 1994
    Peopled with vivid characters, brilliantly displaying Forsyth's incomparable, knowledge of intelligence operations and tradecraft, moving back and forth between Washington and London, Baghdad and Kuwait, desert vastnesses and city bazaars, this breathtaking novel is an utterly convincing story of what may actually have happened behind the headlines.

Op-Center


Jeff Rovin - 1995
    It is run by a crack team of operatives both within its own walls and out in the field. When a job is too dirty--or too dangerous--it's the only place our government can turn.But nothing can prepare Director Paul Hood and his Op-Center crisis management team for what they're about to uncover--a very real, very frightening power play that could unleash new players in a new world order...

The Athena Project


Brad Thor - 2010
    And not a moment too soon . . .From behind the rows of razor wire, a new breed of counterterrorism operator has emerged.Just as skilled, just as fearsome, and just as deadly as their colleagues, Delta Force’s newest members have only one thing setting them apart—their gender. Part of a top-secret, all-female program codenamed The Athena Project, four of Delta’s best and brightest women are about to undertake one of the nation’s deadliest assignments.When a terrorist attack in Rome kills more than twenty Americans, Athena Team members Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper are tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives. But there is more to the story than anyone knows.In the jungles of South America, a young U.S. intelligence officer has made a grisly discovery. Surrounded by monoliths covered with Runic symbols, one of America’s greatest fears appears to have come true. Simultaneously in Colorado, a foreign spy is close to penetrating the mysterious secret the U.S. government has hidden beneath Denver International Airport.As the women close in on their target, they will soon learn that another attack—one of unimaginable proportions—has already been set in motion, and the greatest threat they face may be the secrets kept by their own government.

Hell Island


Matthew Reilly - 2005
    But when all contact is lost with this mystery island, four crack special force units are brought in - can anything prepare them for the horror of what they will find there?

The Man from St. Petersburg


Ken Follett - 1982
    Petersburg...

Black Cross


Greg Iles - 1995
    To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects. Their only objective: destroy all traces of the gas and the men who created it — no matter how many lives may be lost...including their own.Stunning....From the very first page, Greg Iles takes his readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride, juxtaposing tension-filled action scenes, horrifying depictions of savage cruelty, and heart-stopping descriptions of sacrifice and bravery. A remarkable story from a remarkable writer.” — Booklist

State of Fear


Michael Crichton - 2004
    In the jungles of Malaysia, a mysterious buyer purchases deadly cavitation technology, built to his specifications. In Vancouver, a small research submarine is leased for use in the waters off New Guinea. And in Tokyo, an intelligence agent tries to understand what it all means. Thus begins Michael Crichton's exciting and provocative technothriller, State of Fear. Only Michael Crichton's unique ability to blend science fact and pulse-pounding fiction could bring such disparate elements to a heart-stopping conclusion. This is Michael Crichton's most wide-ranging thriller. State of Fear takes the reader from the glaciers of Iceland to the volcanoes of Antarctica, from the Arizona desert to the deadly jungles of the Solomon Islands, from the streets of Paris to the beaches of Los Angeles. The novel races forward, taking the reader on a rollercoaster thrill ride, all the while keeping the brain in high gear. Gripping and thought-provoking, State of Fear is Michael Crichton at his very best.

Remote Control


Andy McNab - 1997
    A member of the crack elite force the Special Air Service for seventeen years, McNab saw duty all over the world--and was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he resigned in 1993.Now, in Remote Control, his explosive fiction debut, McNab has drawn on his personal experience and unique knowledge to create a thriller of gripping authenticity, high-stakes intrigue, and unstoppable action. After his mission is suddenly terminated in Washington, D.C., British Intelligence agent Nick Stone decides to visit an old colleague, Kev Brown. But when Stone arrives at his friend's eerily quiet suburban home, he discovers a chilling scene of carnage. Every member of the Brown family has been brutally slaughtered except one: seven-year-old Kelly Brown. His instincts on red alert and adrenaline in overdrive, Stone grabs the girl and runs--with anonymous assassins in hot pursuit. But whom do they wish to silence: Stone, the innocent child, or both? During a heart-pounding chase that takes the resourceful, sometimes ruthless seasoned pro and his frightened young charge from Washington to Florida, and across the Atlantic to England, Stone begins to piece together a shocking global conspiracy. Thrust into a lethal game of cat-and-mouse, Stone is certain of two things: He and Kelly are on their own. No one can be trusted. And his darkest fears about the shadowy link between politics, money, and terrorism are about to be realized.Combining relentless action, daring escapes, and breathless plotting with chillingly authentic operational detail rarely seen in thrillers, Remote Control is a novel so real and so suspenseful it sets a new standard for the genre.From the Hardcover edition.

Flight of the Old Dog


Dale Brown - 1987
    It is the riveting story of America's race for technology, overtaken by our greatest enemy's mastery of "Star Wars." The U.S. arsenal of nuclear missiles has been neutralized. America's only hope: The Old Dog Zero One, a battle-scarred bomber fully renovated with modern hardware - and equipped with the deadliest state-of-the-art armaments known to man... When the Soviet Union masters "Star Wars" technology, rendering the U.S.'s arsenal of nuclear missiles impotent, America's only hope lies in The Old Dog Zero One--a battle-scarred bomber fully renovated with enough weaponry and stealth hardware to earn it the nickname, "Megafortress."

By the Rivers of Babylon


Nelson DeMille - 1978
    Covered by F-14 fighters, accompanied by security men, the planes carry warriors, pacifists, lovers, enemies, dignatories - and a bomb planted by a terrorist mastermind. Suddenly they're forced to crash-land at an ancient desert site. Here, with only a handful of weapons, the men and women of the peace mission must make a desperate stand against an army of crack Palestinian commandos - while the Israeli authorities desperately attempt a rescue bid. A story of compulsive excitement, rich in personal drama and political tension that must rank as one of the greatest of our times.

Kill Decision


Daniel Suarez - 2012
    Unmanned weaponized drones already exist—they’re widely used by America in our war efforts in the Middle East. In Kill Decision, bestselling author Daniel Suarez takes that fact and the real science behind it one step further, with frightening results. Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned—and thanks to her research, automated—drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into the faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention. Together, McKinney and Odin must slow this advance long enough for the world to recognize its destructive power, because for thousands of years the “kill decision” during battle has remained in the hands of humans—and off-loading that responsibility to machines will bring unintended, possibly irreversible, consequences. But as forces even McKinney and Odin don’t understand begin to gather, and death rains down from above, it may already be too late to save humankind from destruction at the hands of our own technology.

Point of Impact


Stephen Hunter - 1993
    Today, twenty years later, disgruntled hero of an unheroic war, all Bob Lee Swagger wants to be left alone and to leave the killing behind.But with consummate psychological skill, a shadowy military organization seduces Bob into leaving his beloved Arkansas hills for one last mission for his country, unaware until too late that the game is rigged.The assassination plot is executed to perfection—until Bob Lee Swagger, alleged lone gunman, comes out of the operation alive, the target of a nationwide manhunt, his only allies a woman he just met and a discredited FBI agent.Now Bob Lee Swagger is on the run, using his lethal skills once more—but this time to track down the men who set him up and to break a dark conspiracy aimed at the very heart of America.

First Blood


David Morrell - 1972
    Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of First Blood to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with—or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky. Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise—a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.

Breakthrough


Michael C. Grumley - 2013
    Strange facts begin to emerge that lead naval investigator, John Clay, to a small group of marine biologists who are quietly on the verge of making history.With the help of a powerful computer system, Alison Shaw and her team are preparing to translate the first two-way conversation with the planet's second smartest species. But the team discovers much more from their dolphins than they ever expected when a secret object is revealed on the ocean floor. One that was never supposed to be found.Alison was sure she would never trust the military again. However, when an unknown group immediately becomes interested in her work, Alison realizes John Clay may be the only person she can trust. Together they must piece together a dangerous puzzle, and the most frightening piece, is the trembling in Antarctica.To make matters worse, someone from the inside is trying to stop them. Now time is running out...and our understanding of the world is about to change forever.