Book picks similar to
Deep Background by Rick Treon


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The Kingmaker


Daniel Martin Elliott - 2018
    there's intrigue... and a whole lot of action." –Readers' Favorite When top political consultant Miles Davis takes on the campaign of Enrique Arenas in his run for President of Colombia, it appears to be just another lucrative job, another campaign to win. But is it?Ghosts from distant pasts lurk in the shadows. Forbidden loves create new scars and traumatic memories force old ones to ache. And an international conspiracy, stronger and more sinister than any of them can imagine, might finish off more than just Enrique’s campaign.

A Perfect Eye


Stephanie Kane - 2019
    Lily Sparks was born with a perfect eye. As Conservator of Paintings at the Denver Art Museum, she uses her keen visual powers to restore masterpieces and detect what's authentic and what is not. When the museum's billionaire benefactor is brutally murdered and Lily is dragged into the case, the grisly tableau stuns her: it's the human embodiment of the museum's prized landscape by famed Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. Lily comes to believe the Caillebotte was forged and the killer is a painter the art world spurned. But this knowledge comes at a terrible cost. As she confronts where art ends and fraud begins, she must face the deceptions in her own past.

Smoke and Mirrors


Angus McLean - 2015
    But other operators are playing the same game, and it’s winner-takes-all in a high-octane, high-stakes chase across the globe.From Auckland to London to Samoa, Archer will not give up. But someone is always one step ahead of him. In the black ops world of intelligence, Archer must learn the first rule if he is to survive his first mission - believe nothing, trust no one.

Time to Run


Susan C. Muller - 2019
    She decides to hide out until the case is solved and her name cleared.In each new city she tries to make a life for herself, but no place feels safe. She can still hear the violent confrontation, smell the blood . . . she still watches over her shoulder everywhere she goes, terrified of being discovered . . . eliminated.Now her worst fears have come true. The hit man has found her. And so has Special Agent Montgomery, the one person with the power to either lock her up or clear her name--if only he'll believe her.Unwilling to take that chance, she must run again. Only this time she has an added burden . . . a wounded FBI agent who depends on her to keep him alive until he's well enough to arrest her.

Beginnings


Greyson Bryan - 2016
     Duncan Luke is no stranger to impossible situations. A high-priced lawyer and expert in business intelligence, he knows how to extricate his clients from sticky situations while saving--or making--them millions. To be the best, he's sacrificed everything, including his family, but now he wants out. He's quitting his lucrative practice for academia and time with his autistic son, Sam. But his wife isn't on board and files for divorce, forcing him to fight for custody. With mounting legal bills, the only way to keep his son is to take on one last client. He plans to do the job, get out and get home to Sam, but his client, Ghislaine Bingham, has other ideas. Ghislaine has a crisis of her own. Her cheating husband died and left her in a turf war with her stepson over the family business, Bingham Investment Group. She stands to lose more than money. Her reputation and life's work are tied up in the company. Her self-worth is on the line and only Duncan has the expertise to see her to victory. When Duncan and Ghislaine meet, sparks fly, but neither can walk away. Ghislaine sends Duncan to Tokyo to convince his old friend, Taro Takayama, that Ghislaine is the best person to run Bingham. But Taka first needs Duncan to fix his Panama problems. Duncan races to Panama where he is kidnapped and beaten, stumbles into a sex-trafficking ring and rescues a beautiful woman. Unaware of the danger in Panama City and frustrated by Duncan's unorthodox ideas, Ghislaine threatens to pull him off the job. From L.A.'s towering palms and Tokyo's steamy noodle bars to London high-finance and Panamanian corruption, BIG:BEGINNINGS is a thrilling, non-stop ride around the globe. As Duncan flies across time zones doing battle for Ghislaine, risking his life and reputation, Sam slips further away. Duncan must finish the job to get Sam back, but time is running out.

The Subway


Dustin Stevens - 2017
    Placed there by the Witness Protection Program, he has assimilated into the existence set up for him, trying to gain some level of enjoyment from the life he never asked for and even less wanted. An existence that is completely destroyed by a single phone call, nothing more than a message telling him that his last remaining tether to his old life has been severed in a most tragic and unexpected way. Having no choice but to abandon his adopted life and return to his roots, Scarberry finds himself dropped into a situation far more harrowing than he ever could have imagined. Allied with a single sheriff’s deputy – a young woman he knew only briefly in his youth that is fighting battles of her own – the two face a network of illegal gun runners, apathetic bureaucracy, and federal agency, ultimately squaring off with the very thing Scarberry’s been trying to avoid for so long…

The Chair Man


Alex Pearl - 2019
    But on 7 July 2005, his life is transformed when he steps on a London underground train targeted by Islamist suicide bombers. While most passengers in his carriage are killed, Michael survives the explosion but is confined to a wheelchair as a result. Coming to terms with his predicament and controlling his own feelings of guilt as a survivor conspire to push him in a direction that is out of character and a tad reckless. In a quest to seek retribution, he resorts to embracing the internet and posing as a radical Islamist in order to snare potential perpetrators. Much to his surprise, his shambolic scheme yields results and is brought to the attention of both GCHQ and a terrorist cell. But before long, dark forces begin to gather and close in on him. There is seemingly no way out for Michael Hollinghurst. He has become, quite literally, a sitting target. "'The Chair Man' would make an excellent book club choice, stimulating discussion and lively argument. It contains masses of detailed information, selection from which can justify a wide range of interpretations. Many readers will admire Hollinghurst. He is a good father, particularly to his daughter Natasha, who considers him "the best frigging dad in the world", and he possesses "in spades" the "primal need to feel and protect your own flesh and blood." His son Ben thinks he "could always see the good in others." But that is exactly how many terrorists are remembered by almost all who knew and loved them."The nearest I ever got to a "terrorist incident" was in East London, when I heard the IRA bomb go off in Docklands in 1996. I cannot predict my reaction were I to be caught up personally in such events, but I hope I would not go the same way as Michael Hollinghurst, the central figure in this entertaining and elaborately-plotted novel. It is a gripping thriller that repays careful and close reading (and I will certainly read it again)." Graham Smith, 2020

Jet Sweep (Burnside Series # 12)


David Chill - 2021
    Burnside is lured into a scheme involving a star football player he had once recruited out of high school, he tries to turn the tables on the perpetrator. But when shots are fired on a darkened L.A. street, he is plunged into a mystifying case where nothing is as it seems – where even murder could be an illusion. The story leads Burnside into the world of startup companies, and the money-hungry people who run them. By pushing his way through a riveting set of clues, he finds a twisted trail of age-old grievances and shocking betrayals. And it wouldn’t be a Burnside mystery if he didn’t manage to also upstage the police, as his investigation is always a step ahead of theirs, creating yet another thorny path for him to navigate.As Burnside races to tie the details together before any more carnage is done, he also gains further insight into his own sketchy history and begins to grasp how his checkered past has led him to where he is now – for better and for worse. His remarkable journey parallels the story and creates depth and texture to one of modern crime fiction’s most irreverent heroes.Jet Sweep is the latest installment of this classic Southern California noir mystery series. With razor-sharp dialogue and sardonic humor, this well-honed thriller is set against a backdrop of an increasingly hot Los Angeles summer. It is a story that comes loaded with high drama, as well as some unexpected surprises!

The Fighting Detective Series Books 1-3: Crime thriller and suspense box sets


Blair Denholm - 2021
    

Heat To Obsession


Nolon King - 2020
    

The Gilded Sanctum


Keith Veverka - 2019
    Disgraced by his final operation as an agent and haunted by the demons of his past, he is now lost in the world of missing persons.Walker seeks atonement for his sins when a client calls upon him to find his missing daughter who vanished from her prestigious private school in suburban Washington, D.C. without a trace. But as he delves deeper into the mystery surrounding the girl's disappearance, he unexpectedly enters a hidden world of secrets, lies, and deception.Realizing the elite academy is not what it appears beneath its resplendent surface and driven by a desperate quest for redemption, Walker will risk everything — whatever the cost — to uncover the truth of what really happened at the shadowy school they call...the gilded sanctum.

Kiss My Assassin


Dave Sinclair - 2019
    He’s on the hunt for a mysterious and powerful arms-dealing organisation named Kali—and they have him squarely in their sights.Along the way he falls for a mysterious woman who may just be the death of him.Fast-paced with whip-smart dialogue and twists at every turn, Kiss My Assassin is the very definition of unputdownable.Note to the reader: Although the Bishop novels can be read in any order, the events described take place before those in the Eva Destruction novels.

Cold Betrayal


A.J. McCarthy - 2018
    She drove the length of the east coast in a quest to find Danny Wilcox, intending to convince him to return to Florida with her. The drug lord, the most wanted criminal in the Province of Quebec, has other plans.Tori is nothing if not loyal. She unflaggingly defends Danny and refuses to believe he’d harm her, despite several attempts on her life. Others befriend her, even as they covertly advance their own agendas. Tori’s devotion is tested at every turn, not knowing who she can trust, or the consequences of her ultimate decision.

Stress Fracture


D.P. Lyle - 2010
    Vacillating between wildly divergent personalities fueled by post traumatic stress disorder—at times calm, cold, and calculating; at others maniacal and out of control—the psychopath taunts, threatens, and outmaneuvers Dub at every turn. The stakes are suddenly elevated as Dub uncovers a deadly conspiracy tainted with unrestrained greed, corruption, and ties to the military establishment and the medical community.

Sons of the Pope


Daniel O'Connor - 2012
    Bravo!" ~Romeo Tirone, Director of True Blood, Dexter, and Red Widow “Daniel O'Connor's Sons of the Pope reveals an interesting new talent with a snappy style. This is someone's career to watch.” ~Andrew Neiderman, Author of The Devil's Advocate and several V.C. Andrews novels"A rich, epic chronicle of murder, the mob, and miracles...” ~ Kevin O'Brien, NY Times Bestselling Author***In Brooklyn, before the murders, before the miracle, before the 1940s were gone forever, there was a tree. If only they let that tree alone. If that sycamore tree had been allowed to stand, then maybe Biaggio Falcone never would have been the head of the Campigotto crime family. Perhaps little Joey Salerno would not have been born like that.Joey’s father, Sal - just home from World War II - probably would never have gotten involved with the New York underworld, and his wife Mary wouldn't have spent her entire life caring for an eternal child. There may have been no reason, four decades later, for that desperate pilgrimage to Lourdes, France. And no need for anyone to call upon the one known only as The Diabolist. Experience the richness of a story that spans half a century. Love and hatred. Devotion and betrayal. Murder and miracles. If only they let that tree alone.