Under its charismatic Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, it is an empire on the rise. It has defeated Christian fleets. It has conquered Christian cities.Then the Sultan sends out an invitation to every king in Europe: send forth your champion to compete in a tournament unlike any other.We follow the English delegation, selected by King Henry VIII himself, to the glittering city of Constantinople, where the most amazing tournament ever staged will take place.But when the stakes are this high, not everyone plays fair, and for our team of plucky English heroes, winning may not be the primary goal. As a series of barbaric murders take place, a more immediate goal might simply be staying alive…

    And she has just seen something she shouldn’t: something people will kill to keep hidden. On the other side of the world, an old spy hides from his past. Once, he was a man of action: so dedicated to the cause that he abandoned his baby daughter to keep his cover. Now the only thing he lives for is swimming in the local pool. Then, on Christmas eve, Klara is thrown into a terrifying chase through Europe. Only the Swimmer can save her. But time is running out...

    But when corporate security catches up with Adam Cassidy, a low ambition junior staffer at the high-tech behemoth, they call it something else: embezzlement, to the tune of nearly $80 grand.Ruthless CEO Nick Wyatt is impressed by Adam's scheming, and offers him one way out-take on the role of a rising corporate hotshot and infiltrate Wyatt's rival, Trion Systems. His mission is to get close to Trion's legendary founder Jock Goddard, and his ultra-secret "Project Aurora," and report back to Wyatt.With Wyatt pulling the strings and a dramatically improved identity, Adam is set up as Trion's new boy genius. Suddenly, he's got a sweet new Porsche, a closet full of $1,500 suits, and even a lovely lady who thinks he's a dream. But it's all just a mirage, because Adam is about to learn that nothing is what it seems and that it isn't paranoia...everyone is out to get him...

    Then, suddenly, she receives an invitation from First Lady Vanessa Merritt for an off-the-record conversation. Barrie's reporter's instincts are instantly aroused. During a furtive, emotionally charged meeting, Barrie sees that the President's beautiful wife is stunned by grief after the crib death of her infant son. Vanessa's motive for meeting Barrie seems to be to share her heartache with another woman. What Barrie overlooks in her excitement at hearing the confidences of the First Lady are the questions she should be asking: Why would Vanessa Merritt call her? And why would the President's wife hint to an unknown reporter that her child may have been murdered? Blind to everything but getting her exclusive, Barrie is determined to investigate the death of the President's child. But she soon realizes that getting her story will test her ethics and her patriotism. Would she expose information that could topple the presidency? She confronts this problem when she tracks down Gray Bondurant, a former presidential aide and war hero who shunned the politics of Washington in favor of life on a remote Wyoming ranch. And when they both begin to follow a trail of lies and intrigue right to the White House door, Barrie's exclusive puts at least three people on the firing line: the First Lady, Gray, and herself - as crimes and ambitions combine to endanger their lives and the future of the nation.

    A catlike psychopath whose love for the creature comforts of her luxurious lifestyle is second only to her love of the game, she specializes in murdering the world's richest and most powerful. But when she murders an influential Russian politician, she draws a relentless foe to her tail. Eve Polastri (not a codename) is a former MI6 operative hired by the national security services for a singular task: to find and capture or kill the assassin responsible, and those who have aided her. Eve, whose quiet and otherwise unextraordinary life belies her quick wit and keen intellect, accepts the mission. The ensuing chase will lead them on a trail around the world, intersecting with corrupt governments and powerful criminal organizations, all leading towards a final confrontation from which neither will emerge unscathed. Codename Villanelle is a sleek, fast-paced international thriller from an exciting new voice in fiction.

    One choice. Someone must die.From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz comes this pulse-pounding thriller that starts with a terrifying decision we all might face one day: Help—or run. Timothy Carrier is an ordinary guy. He enjoys a beer after work at his friend’s tavern, the eccentric customers and amusing conversations. But tonight is no ordinary night. The jittery man sitting beside him has mistaken Tim for someone else—and passes him an envelope stuffed with cash and the photo of a pretty woman. “Ten thousand now. You get the rest when she’s gone.”Tim Carrier always thought he knew the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. But tonight everything he thought he knew—even about himself—will be challenged. For Tim Carrier is at the center of a mystery of extraordinary proportions, the one man who can save an innocent life and stop a killer as relentless as evil incarnate. But first he must discover resources within himself of which he never dreamed, capacities that will transform his idea of who he is and what it takes to be . . .

    ONE POLITICIAN AT A TIME In one bloody night, three of Washington's most powerful politicians are executed with surgical precision. Their assassins then deliver a shocking ultimatum to the American government: set aside partisan politics and restore power to the people. No one, they warn, is out of their reach—not even the president.A joint FBI-CIA task force reveals the killers are elite military commandos, but no one knows exactly who they are or when they will strike next. Only Michael O'Rourke, a former U.S. Marine and freshman congressman, holds a clue to the violence: a haunting incident in his own past with explosive implications for his country's future ...

    Now, just as Melanie is ready to pull out and settle down, Jared Barnett re-enters their lives with a ballsy plan for the ultimate heist. Recently released from a life sentence on a murder charge, Jared is frighteningly high on the feeling of invincibility that comes from getting away with murder. Melanie and Charlie agree to Jared's plot to rob a local Nebraska bank, but during the hold up, everything goes terribly wrong and innocent people end up dead. Suddenly Melanie, Charlie and Jared are on the run, and more lives are at stake--now that the three have nothing left to lose.

    When the legal maverick is assigned by the top brass to investigate a Bosnian massacre in which a Green Beret A-team and the Kosovo Liberation Army detachment they were "advising" got trapped behind Serbian lines, he gets the subtext that's part of his orders. What the Army doesn't need are headlines about the cold-blooded execution of 35 Serbian soldiers, and they're counting on Drummond to clean things up fast, before a public scandal blows dirt all over their medals. Drummond is provided with two associates to help with the investigation: an attractive young woman captain who's a Harvard Law School graduate, and an equally illustrious Judge Army General's Corps lawyer whose reputation precedes him.Once Drummond and his team get to Bosnia, it's clear that the accused Green Berets have their own cover-up going, and they're not going to make it easy for the lawyers to figure out what happened. Drummond has a few tricks up his own sleeve, and when he finds out that his CO has put a spy on his team, he's even more determined to get to the bottom of what really went on, even if he has to bully his way out of a murder frame-up to do it. The moral dilemma Drummond faces when he learns the real story (and understands why the Army is so desperate to keep the cover-up going) reveals the man behind the maverick, and lifts Brian Haig's novel a cut above the genre. Haig might have spent more time making his secondary characters as interesting as his protagonist and tightened up his narrative. Still, fans of military thrillers will find this a good enough read.

    Anyone who tries to get up, or even moves, will be shot. There will be no further warning. If you move you will be killed…” Four men, armed with submachine guns, have seized a New York City subway train, holding all seventeen passengers—and the entire city—hostage. The identities of the hijackers are unknown. Their demands seem impossible. Their threats are real. Their escape seems inconceivable.Only one thing is certain: they aren’t stopping for anything.

    Written by Childers—who served in the Royal Navy during World War I—as a wake-up call to the British government to attend to its North Sea defenses, The Riddle of the Sands accomplished that task and has been considered a classic of espionage literature ever since, praised as much for its nautical action as for its suspenseful spycraft.

    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.

    She's a small, crumbling Baroque church in the heart of Seville, Spain. And at least one person -- a computer hacker nicknamed Vespers -- believes that she kills to defend herself. In Arturo Perez-Reverte's stylish and entertaining The Seville Communion, Rome sends handsome Father Lorenzo Quart to investigate. He meets a feisty parish priest, a beautiful aristocrat, an ambitious banker, and three of the most touching, wonderfully ineffectual crooks to ever dabble in a life of crime. There are mysteries as well, from another death at the church to the secrets of the human heart. -- Nancy Pate