Book picks similar to
A Damned Serious Business by Gerald Seymour
fiction
thriller
gerald-seymour
espionage
Out of the Shadows
Tim Jopling - 2015
Akira is a dangerous man, a man who has lost everything and has nothing to lose. Fuelled by the death of his beloved wife Madeline and desperate to seek revenge on those who took her from him, Akira is on a mission, a mission to rid the world of the corrupt West and everything it stands for and he has one man set in his sights. Thomas Deane, a fiercely loyal MI6 agent and one half of an elite partnership he is everything Akira despises - a patriotic man devoted to the service of his country, no matter what the cost. Assisted by the brave S.U.C.O. agents (Special Undercover Covert Operations) the elite MI6 team, are completely unaware of what lies ahead. Will they succeed in bringing Akira out of the shadows?
The Girl With No Past
Kathryn Croft - 2015
It is a lonely life, without a social life or friends until – longing for a connection – she meets Julian. For the first time she dares to believe she can live a normal life.Then, on the fourteenth anniversary of that day, she receives a card. Someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won’t stop until they’ve destroyed the life Leah has created.But is Leah all she seems? Or does she deserve everything she gets?Everyone has secrets. But some are deadly.
Dark Paradise
Tami Hoag - 1994
Now it’s up to ex-court reporter Marilee Jennings to decipher the puzzle of her best friend’s death. But someone has a stake in silencing her suspicion. Someone with secrets worth killing for—and the power to turn this beautiful haven into a . . . And as Mari digs deeper beneath New Eden’s picture-perfect exterior, finding the truth is suddenly no longer a matter of justice. It’s her only hope of staying alive.From the Paperback edition.
The Escape Artist
Brad Meltzer - 2018
government's most top-secret and high profile cases. America's most important funeral home. To work there, mortician Jim "Zig" Zigarowski has one rule: never let a case get personal. But when a new body arrives--of young female sergeant Nola Brown, who was a childhood friend of Zig's daughter--Zig can't help himself. Looking closely at Nola's body, he realizes immediately: this isn't Nola. Indeed, his daughter's friend is still alive. And on the run. Zig's discovery reveals a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power--and traces back through history to a man named Harry Houdini. "Nola, you were right. Keep running."
The Memory Watcher
Minka Kent - 2016
But what starts as an innocent fascination spirals into an addictive obsession met with a screeching halt the day the McMullen family closes their Instaface account without so much as a warning. Frantic and desperate to reconnect with her daughter, Autumn applies for a nanny position with the McMullens, manipulating herself into Grace's life under false pretenses. And it's only then that Autumn discovers pictures lie, the perfect family doesn't exist, and beautiful people? They have the ugliest secrets.
All the Old Knives
Olen Steinhauer - 2015
The CIA's Vienna station was witness to this tragedy, gathering intel from its sources during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how?Two of the CIA's case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis Celia decided she'd had enough. She left the agency, married and had children, and is now living an ordinary life in the idyllic town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all.But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight's dinner companion might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.All the Old Knives is New York Times bestseller Olen Steinhauer's most intimate, most cerebral, and most shocking novel to date.
The Temporary Agent
Daniel Judson - 2016
Salvation appears in Stella—a woman as damaged, and resourceful, as he. But when a coded distress call from his former CO leads him to a shadowy NSA operative, Tom is recruited for a “black op” to bring back the now-rogue man who saved his life.As he searches for Cahill, Tom quickly uncovers a much larger web of treason and betrayal that calls his entire world into question—and forces him into the ultimate no-win scenario.
The Last Testament
Sam Bourne - 2007
Now in Jerusalem, she mediates peace talks between Israel and Palestine, which have broken down after two high-profile deaths. Right-wing Zionist Shimon Guttman was gunned down during a supposed attempt to assassinate the Israeli prime minister. "This will change everything," Guttman had cryptically warned the prime minister before he was killed. Palestinian Ahmed Nour, a respected archaeologist, has also been killed on suspicions of being a collaborator. When Maggie discovers that the two men were colleagues, she is plunged into a mystery rooted in an unsolved riddle of the Bible. It all leads back to an ancient clay tablet looted from Baghdad's Museum of Antiquities and a secret that could end a war-or spark a new one.
The Bricklayer
Noah Boyd - 2010
and there is no other option. No one who can help.No one but the Bricklayer. The Bricklayer is the pulse-pounding novel introducing Steve Vail, one of the most charismatic new heroes to come along in thriller fiction in many years. He's an ex–FBI agent who's been fired for insubordination but is lured back to the Bureau to work a case that has become more unsolvable — and more deadly — by the hour.A woman steps out of the shower in her Los Angeles home and is startled by an intruder sitting calmly in her bedroom holding a gun. But she is frozen with fear by what he has to say about the FBI — and what he says he must do...A young agent slips into the night water off a rocky beach. He's been instructed to swim to a nearby island to deposit a million dollars demanded by a blackmailer. But his mission is riddled with hazardous tests, as if someone wanted to destroy him rather than collect the money...Vail has resigned himself to his dismissal and is content with his life as a bricklayer. But the FBI, especially Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon, needs help with a shadowy group that has initiated a brilliant extortion plot. The group will keep killing their targets until the agency pays them off, the amount and number of bodies escalating each time the FBI fails. One thing is clear: someone who knows a little too much about the inner workings of the Bureau is very clever — and very angry — and will kill and kill again if it means he can disgrace the FBI. Steve Vail's options — and his time to find answers — are swiftly running out. Noah Boyd's The Bricklayer is written with the bracing authenticity only someone who has been a crack FBI investigator can provide. And in this masterful debut Noah Boyd has created a mind-bending maze of clues and traps inside a nonstop thrill ride that is sure to leave readers exhilarated and enthralled.
Bone Baby
Diane M. Dickson - 2017
For many years, Lily and her partner had kept a terrible secret. When her partner dies, this secret becomes her burden alone. Soon it becomes an obsession. Having worked alongside her more flamboyant partner in the publishing industry in London, the more sensitive Lily was used to playing second fiddle in their enigmatic social set. But their nice life hid a dark secret, one that she does not want to carry to her grave. Many years ago, Lily and her partner covered up a crime. They took something precious that didn’t belong to them and lost it. Lily has had to live with the consequences of her actions until she is given the chance to repair the damage she has done. This leads Lily down a dangerous path into the past. Disorientated, paranoid and scared, she uncovers a far graver crime. What she contemplates next is unthinkable. BONE BABY is set in the present-day cities of Bath and Portsmouth in southern England. BONE BABY is the eleventh novel by Diane Dickson to be published by THE BOOK FOLKS. Diane has a distinctive style and her thrillers and mysteries explore the lives of ordinary people facing difficult situations. Look out for her bestselling LEAVING GEORGE and the recently-published TANGLED TRUTH.
99 Red Balloons
Elisabeth Carpenter - 2017
What would you do if one was your daughter?
When eight-year-old Grace goes missing from a sweetshop on the way home from school, her mother Emma is plunged into a nightmare. Her family rallies around, but as the police hunt begins, cracks begin to emerge.What are the secret emails sent between Emma’s husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is Emma really as innocent as she seems?Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Taylor sees Grace’s picture in the newspaper. It’s a photograph that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with another girl – the first girl who disappeared…
Daughter
Jane Shemilt - 2014
The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised.
American Assassin
Vince Flynn - 2010
He trains six months intensely with other clandestine operatives, under CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield and protégé Irene Kennedy, to stop terrorists before they reach America. The assassin leaves a trail of bodies from Istanbul across Europe to Beirut, where he needs every ounce of skill and cunning to survive the war-ravaged city and its deadly terrorist factions.
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.