Book picks similar to
Vanished by Fletcher Knebel
fiction
mystery
dnf
best-seller
The Chemist
Stephenie Meyer - 2016
She used to work for the U.S. government, but very few people ever knew that. An expert in her field, she was one of the darkest secrets of an agency so clandestine it doesn't even have a name. And when they decided she was a liability, they came for her without warning. Now she rarely stays in the same place or uses the same name for long. They've killed the only other person she trusted, but something she knows still poses a threat. They want her dead, and soon. When her former handler offers her a way out, she realizes it's her only chance to erase the giant target on her back. But it means taking one last job for her ex-employers. To her horror, the information she acquires only makes her situation more dangerous. Resolving to meet the threat head-on, she prepares for the toughest fight of her life but finds herself falling for a man who can only complicate her likelihood of survival. As she sees her choices being rapidly whittled down, she must apply her unique talents in ways she never dreamed of. In this tautly plotted novel, Meyer creates a fierce and fascinating new heroine with a very specialized skill set. And she shows once again why she's one of the world's bestselling authors.
One Rough Man
Brad Taylor - 2011
Their existence is as essential as it is illegal. Commissioned at the highest level of the U.S. government. Protected from the prying eyes of Congress and the media. Built around the top operators from across the clandestine, intelligence, and special forces landscape. Designed to operate outside the bounds of U.S. law. Trained to exist on the ragged edge of human capability.Pike Logan was the most successful operator on the Taskforce, his instincts and talents unrivaled-until personal tragedy permanently altered his outlook on the world. Pike knows what the rest of the country might not want to admit: The real threat isn't from any nation, any government, any terrorist group. The real threat is one or two men, controlled by ideology, operating independently, in possession of a powerful weapon. Buried in a stack of intercepted chatter is evidence of two such men. The transcripts are scheduled for analysis in three months. The attack is mere days away. It is their bad luck that they're about to cross paths with Pike Logan. And Pike Logan has nothing left to lose.
A Foreign Country
Charles Cumming - 2012
Days later, a meticulously-planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain's top intelligence agents turn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell. Tossed out of the Service only months before, Kell is given one final chance to redeem himself - find Amelia Levene at any cost. The trail leads Kell to France and Tunisia, where he uncovers a shocking secret and a conspiracy that could have unimaginable repercussions for Britain and its allies. Only Kell stands in the way of personal and political catastrophe.
The Eiger Sanction
Trevanian - 1972
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...
True Evil
Greg Iles - 2006
Chris Shepard, a busy young doctor in Natchez, Mississippi, has never seen his new patient Alex Morse before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face has come to Dr. Shepards office on a mission to catch a killer. This New York Times bestseller is available in a tall Premium Edition.
Relentless
Dean R. Koontz - 2009
He makes a handsome living doing what he enjoys. His wife, Penny, a children's book author and illustrator, is the love of his life. Together they have a brilliant six-year-old, Milo, affectionately dubbed "Spooky," and a non-collie named Lassie, who's all but part of the family.So Cubby knows he shouldn't let one bad review of his otherwise triumphant new book get to him — even if it does appear in the nation's premier newspaper and is penned by the much-feared, seldom-seen critic Shearman Waxx. Cubby knows that the best thing to do is ignore the gratuitously vicious, insulting, and inaccurate comments. Penny knows it; even little Milo knows it. If Lassie could talk, she'd tell Cubby to ignore them, too.Ignore Shearman Waxx and his poison pen is just what Cubby intends to do. Until he happens to learn where the great man is taking his lunch. Cubby just wants to get a good look at the mysterious recluse whose mere opinion can make or break a career — or a life.But Shearman Waxx isn't what Cubby expects, and neither is the escalating terror that follows what seemed to be an innocent encounter. For Waxx gives criticism; he doesn't take it. He has ways of dealing with those who cross him that Cubby is only beginning to fathom. Soon Cubby finds himself in a desperate struggle with a relentless sociopath, facing an inexorable assault on far more than his life.
The Intercept
Dick Wolf - 2012
So when a passenger from the same plane disappears into the crowds of Manhattan, it’s up to Fisk and his partner Krina Gersten to find him before the celebrations begin... And time is running out.
Siege of Silence
A.J. Quinnell - 1986
The American ambassador is held prisoner. And the US President faces the choice: get him out ... or kill him. In as rat-infested room ambassador Peabody faces a brilliant, ruthless young protege of Fidel Castro, Jorge Calderon, who is determined to extract the truth behind a secret CIA operation against Cuba. Meanwhile, back in Washington, the President is caught between CIA strategists who want to eliminate Peabody before he can reveal the CIA's plans, and Colonel Silas Slocum, the one man who believes he can rescue the ambassador in an awesome and daring rescue...
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 Odessa File
Frederick Forsyth - 1972
The suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution."
The Fifth Vial
Michael Palmer - 2000
. . .In Boston, a disgraced medical student is sent to deliver a research paper that could save her career. . . . Four thousand miles away, in a jungle hospital in Cameroon, a brilliant, reclusive scientist, dying from an incurable disease that threatens to make each tortured breath his last, is on the verge of perfecting a serum that could save millions of lives, and bring others inestimable wealth. . . . In Chicago, a disillusioned private detective, on the way to his third career, is hired to determine the identify of a John Doe, killed on a Florida highway, with mysterious marks on his body.Three seemingly disconnected lives, surging unrelentingly toward one another. Three lives becoming irrevocably intertwined. Three lives in mounting peril, moving ever closer to the ultimate confrontation against a deadly secret society with godlike aspirations and roots in antiquity.Medical student. Scientist. Private eye. Three people who will learn the deeper meanings of brilliance and madness, truth and deception, trust and betrayal.Three lives linked forever by a single vial of blood--the fifth vial.
When You're Gone
Marguerite O'Callaghan - 2017
Eighteen-year-old Lydia Stone wakes up one morning in the north London gothic mansion she shares with her family, to find that her twin sister Kate has disappeared off the face of the earth. CCTV footage shows Kate entering a night club in south London on the night she went missing, but there is no evidence that she ever came out of the club, and police are considering the idea that she was sex-trafficked. In the days and weeks that follow, Lydia takes a closer look at her twin sister's life; her modelling career, penchant for fetish clubs, and interesting array of older friends. It seems like Kate was definitely hiding something. But she isn't the only one...
Code Name Camelot
David Archer - 2018
With the help of childhood friends, he learns to watch others around him and mimic their behaviors, in order to conceal the fact that his mind operates more like a computer that he has spent years programming. That program is what allows Noah to pass himself off as normal, by establishing parameters of right and wrong that are completely inviolable to him.As a young adult, Noah finds structure in the U.S. Army, and becomes an excellent and exemplary soldier, but when his self-imposed programming is put to the test by the murderous acts of the superior officer, Noah finds himself quickly made expendable, charged with crimes he did not commit and facing the possibility of execution. Without any reasonable hope for a reprieve, Noah's logic-based mind accepts his fate.Sometimes, though, things are not all as they seem to be, and Noah is offered one chance to save himself. It was his disability, his lack of emotion, that made him the soldier he had become. Now, an ultrasecret organization known as E & E wants Noah's talents, offering him a chance to survive…As the most deadly assassin the world has ever known.