In this now-classic political thriller, he and fellow author J. Frederick George tell a savagely witty, chillingly topical tale set in the tense moments of the Gulf War. When a foreign exchange student is found murdered at an Iowa University, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks finds that his investigation extends far beyond the small college town--all the way to the Middle East. Shady events at the school reveal that a powerful department is using federal grant money for highly dubious research. And what it's producing is a very nasty bug.Navigating a plot that leads from his own backyard to Washington, D.C., to the Gulf, where his Army Reservist wife has been called to duty, Banks realizes he may be the only person who can stop the wholesale slaughtering of thousands of Americans. It's a lesson in foreign policy he'll never forget.

    Simple orders for Inspector O, until he realizes they have led him far, far off his department's turf and into a maelstrom of betrayal and death. North Korea's leaders are desperate to hunt down and eliminate anyone who knows too much about a series of decades-old kidnappings and murders--and Inspector O discovers too late he has been sent into the chaos. This is a world where nothing works as it should, where the crimes of the past haunt the present, and where even the shadows are real. A corpse in Pyongyang's main hotel---the Koryo---pulls Inspector O into a confrontation of bad choices between the devils he knows and those he doesn't want to meet. A blue button on the floor of a hotel closet, an ice blue Finnish lake, and desperate efforts by the North Korean leadership set Inspector O on a journey to the edge of a reality he almost can't survive. Like Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy and the Inspector Arkady Renko novels, A Corpse in the Koryo introduces another unfamiliar world, a perplexing universe seemingly so alien that the rules are an enigma to the reader and even, sometimes, to Inspector O. Author James Church weaves a story with beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart after decades as an intelligence officer. This is a chilling portrayal that, in the end, leaves us wondering if what at first seemed unknowable may simply be too familiar for comfort.   Critical Acclaim for The Corpse in the Koryo "This is a fine, intelligent, and exciting story that takes us into the netherworld of contemporary North Korean communism. It evokes the gray milieu without ever overstepping its mark, allowing us to see it from the inside rather than the outside, wherein the humanity of all the characters, both good and evil, is apparent. Inspector O is a particularly wonderful creation, a true mensch attempting to hold on to his humanity in a world where humanism is under constant attack. Subtlety is the method, and the result is fantastic work that should mark the beginning of a brilliant career for James Church." ---Olen Steinhauer, author of Liberation Movements "For over fifty years Americans have tried to understand the world of North Korea. James Church does a better job of describing the isolated, impoverished, corrupt, and out- of-touch life in the North than anything I have seen. This novel is a must-read for anyone who would understand how precarious the dictatorship is."---Newt Gingrich, author of Winning Back the Future and Never Call Retreat "A gripping story of mystery and intrigue. The laconic Inspector O follows in the traditions of Inspector Arkady Renko, operating in a world of complexity and danger we're meeting here for the first time." ---Don Oberdorfer, author of Tet! "Church's debut thriller breaks new ground. O is an original. This is an expert take on a complex, brutal, and mystifying society. Immerse yourself in it." ---Marshall Browne, author of Eye of the Abyss and the Inspector Anders series  "The Corpse in the Koryo is a spellbinder. Bloody and chilling, yet subtle in its psychological detail, with an amazing understanding of North Korea." ---Ezra F. Vogel, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University Asia Center "The (pseudonymous) author, a veteran intelligence officer, has intimate knowledge of Asian life and politics, and it shows: He gives the North Korea setting a feeling of palpable reality, depicting the nature of daily life under a totalitarian government not just with broad sociopolitical descriptions but also with specific everyday details. . . . There is also a little of Martin Cruz Smith's early Arkady Renko novels here. The writing is superb, too, well above the level usually associated with a first novel, richly layered and visually evocative." ---Booklist (starred review)

    Hemlock is sent to Switzerland on a mission to climb the notorious Eiger peak of the Alps, whose north face has meant death to many climbers. Hemlock's target: one of his three fellow climbers. The only problem is, CII can't tell him which one...

    Now, in the Caribbean on a secret assignment for the American government, Hawke must disarm a ticking time bomb --- a highly experimental stealth submarine carrying forty nuclear warheads that has fallen into the hands of an unstable government just ninety miles from the U.S. mainland. But Hawke's mission is twofold, for he has returned to the waters where modern-day pirates brutally murdered his parents when he was a boy --- after a lifetime of nightmares, will vengeance be his last?

    But no one anticipates the terrifying turn of events that forces him to quarantine everyone in the Capitol building. A terrorist group calling itself “Genesis” has unleashed WRX3883, a deadly, highly contagious virus, into the building. No one fully knows the deadly effect of the germ except for the team responsible for its development—a team headed by Allaire, himself. The only one who might be able to help is virologist Griffin Rhodes, currently in solitary confinement in a maximum security federal prison for alleged terrorist acts, including the attempted theft of WRX3883 from the lab where he worked. Rhodes has no idea why he has been arrested, but when Allaire offers to free him in exchange for his help combating the virus, he reluctantly agrees to do what he can to support the government that has imprisoned him without apparent cause.Meanwhile, every single person in line for presidential succession is trapped inside the Capitol—every person except one: the Director of Homeland Security, who is safely at home in Minnesota, having been selected as the “Designated Survivor” for this event. With enemies both named and unnamed closing in, and the security of the nation at stake, Griff must unravel the mysteries of WRX3883 without violating his pledge as a scientist to use no animal testing in his experiments…and time is running out.

    He has his hands on every secret in politics - and is willing to betray them all to become Prime Minister. Mattie Storin is a tenacious young political correspondent. She faces the biggest challenge of her life when she stumbles upon a scandalous web of intrigue and financial corruption at the very highest levels. She is determined to reveal the truth, but she must risk everything to do so . . .

    When long-hidden secrets about the atrocities he committed in Vietnam come to light, a candidate for the U.S. Senate retreats with his wife to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota. Within days of their arrival, his wife mysteriously vanishes into the watery wilderness.

    She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.Out of these elements, Cain created a novel (later made into a film noir classic) of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence—and a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.

    In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante. A dark reworking of Henry James's The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley—is up to his tricks in a 90s film and also Rene Clement's 60s film, "Purple Noon."

    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.