Vicarious


Paula Stokes - 2016
    Whether it’s bungee jumping, shark diving, or grinding up against celebrities at the city’s hottest dance clubs, Gideon can make it happen for you—for a price. When Rose disappears and a ViSE recording of her murder is delivered to Gideon, Winter is devastated. She won’t rest until she finds her sister’s killer. But when the clues she uncovers conflict with the digital recordings her sister made, Winter isn’t sure what to believe. To find out what happened to Rose, she’ll have to untangle what’s real from what only seems real, risking her life in the process.

And Justice for One: A novel of revenge


John Clarkson - 1992
    After the burial – on a whiskey-soaked night on the town – Jack’s brother disappears. When his brother is found comatose on the edge of death, Devlin resolves to avenge the wrong – no matter what it takes, no matter where the trail leads, even if he has to descend into the lawless underworld of New York City after-hours clubs where violence reigns, sex and drugs rule the night, and corruption kills. AND JUSTICE FOR ONE tells a dark, violent story set in 1980’s New York during a time when lawlessness and corruption pulsed intently under the city’s civilized veneer. Those times and places are gone now, but today’s readers can experience them in this intense, thoroughly-researched novel. This is the second edition of the acclaimed debut novel in the Jack Devlin “One” series, re-edited by the author, John Clarkson. The New York Times said AND JUSTICE FOR ONE "Packs a savage punch". Kirkus Reviews called it, "Dark, sexy, tough, and fast." Amazon reviewers called it: “The best action novel I have ever read!”, “Well-written, hot, furious, fun.”, “A helluva a good read, loaded with action.”If you missed AND JUSTICE FOR ONE the first time around, don’t miss it this time!Author's Note This novel was first published in 1992. I don't remember exactly when I began writing it. I do remember the two events that inspired the story. The first event occurred in 1976 when I visited an after-hours club in downtown Manhattan. The second event came in 1979. A six-year-old boy named Etan Patz disappeared on a spring morning in New York's SoHo district, igniting the worst fears of parents around the country. It happened during a two-block walk to his school bus stop. Somewhere in the back of my mind those two events brewed for years. What if someone you loved vanished? What would you do to find them? And what if it turned out that the mysterious, hidden world of after-hours clubs had something to do with the disappearance? At some point in the late eighties, those two events became the inspiration for my first novel. I hardly remember writing it. My sense is that it came out in a sudden rush. And selling it to a publisher happened quite fast. I landed an agent, George Wieser, very quickly. And it seems like George sold it to Crown with in a few weeks. Thank you, George! I do remember spending a very long time editing the book under the guidance of Peter St. John Ginna. He was patient with me. He made it a much better book. I still appreciate his efforts. In the original author's note, I also thanked my wife Ellen for her patience. A good deal of the research for And Justice for One started at four in the morning. All these years later Ellen is still patient with me, but more importantly,she still loves me, and I her. The others I thanked in the first edition were "the people who made it possible for me to enter the world of after-hours clubs, particularly a friend named Tommy Burns. When I asked how I should acknowledge him in the first edition, he said use T.B., 'Bartender to the Stars.'" Tommy rarely took anything very seriously. Obviously, all the after-hours clubs described in this book no longer exist. But all of them except for one which is a composite of three clubs, existed very much as described. It was a wild time in NYC. A time before cell phones and the internet and Uber. A time long gone. So, what prompted me to re-publish And Justice for One? Since its publication in 1992, I have persisted in writing crime thrillers, despite about a ten-year break after the first five. All five of those novels are out of print, but readers often ask me how they can get them. This is an attempt to make that easier. It has also provided me with the opportunity to polish the book. Nothing substantive, but lots of nips and tucks. This new edition is still what I consider a raw, rather impetuous novel from an unformed writer just starting out. Maybe that's the best kind. Hope you enjoy it.

Prince of Thieves


Chuck Hogan - 2004
    Their guns are drawn on the bank manager. She nervously recites the alarm code, and the tumblers within the huge vault fall. The timing and execution are brilliant. It could be the perfect heist. But as the huge sum of cash is stolen, so too is one man's heart -- and that man is the Prince of Thieves...Charlestown, a blue-collar Boston neighborhood, produces more bank robbers and armored car thieves than any square mile in the world. In this gripping, intricately plotted thriller, Claire Keesey, the branch manager for a Boston bank and one of an influx of young professionals chipping away at the neighborhood's insularity, is taken hostage during a robbery. She is released, but Doug MacRay, the brains behind the tough, tight-knit crew of thieves, can't get her out of his mind. Tracking her down without his mask and gun, Doug introduces himself, and as soon as he and Claire meet, their mutual attraction is undeniable -- as are the risks of a relationship. Meanwhile, Doug's crew pulls off another audacious, meticulously planned job. Frustrated by their ingenuity and brazen ambition, FBI Agent Adam Frawley begins to zero in on Doug and his pals -- and against his own better judgment, he, too, develops more than a professional interest in Claire.Under pressure from Frawley's ever-closer investigation, Doug imagines a life for himself away from bank robberies and Charlestown. But before that can happen, the crew learns that there may be a way to rob Boston's venerable baseball stadium, Fenway Park. It's a magnificently dangerous and utterly irresistible opportunity -- yet for Doug, pursuing his former hostage may be the most dangerous act of all... Chuck Hogan's brash tale of four men -- thieves, rivals, friends -- being hunted through the streets of Boston by a tenacious FBI agent, and the woman who may destroy them all, is a spectacular, stylish, heart-pounding thriller.

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.

Odds On


Michael Crichton - 1966
     To rob the finest resort in fascist Spain, three Americans need to blend in among the Mediterranean elite. And to do so, they will each need a gorgeous girl as cover. They find a depraved millionaire, a drug-addled nymphomaniac, and an assistant hotel manager who enjoys mingling with her handsome guests after hours.   The would-be thieves have used an IBM supercomputer to plan the perfect heist. Their crime has been calculated to the last detail, with every possible contingency planned for, save one: the women. The Hotel Reina is crawling with femmes fatales, and these crooks will be lucky to escape with the shirts on their backs.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Michael Crichton including rare images from the author’s estate.

Ice Fortress (A Jack Coulson Thriller Book 1)


Robert B. Williams - 2017
    Williams ** A high-octane, fast-paced, action-packed Jack Coulson thriller with edge-of-your-seat suspense and an ending that will blow you away. For over 70 years Hitler’s most fearsome weapon, Die Glocke (The Bell) has been entombed inside an icy fortress in the most inhospitable and unforgiving place on earth — the Antarctic.When oceanographer Leah Anderson discovers a hidden WWII Nazi submarine base buried deep under the Antarctic ice shelf, she sparks a fierce battle to acquire The Bell.While Russian and American submarines clash deep below the ice pack, on the surface, a sinister force launches a ruthless assault to secure the infamous weapon they have been searching for since its mysterious disappearance in 1945. If they succeed, they will use it to change the course of history forever and ensure a Nazi victory at the end of the Second World War.Enigmatic covert ops soldier Jack Coulson has already been to hell and back for his country, but if he is to stop the resurgence of the Thousand Year Reich, he must enter the gates of hell one more time.What Jack and his team don’t know is that the Allies already used The Bell to change the course of the war and history as we know it — a secret that must remain, like The Bell itself, buried at any cost. For fans of James Rollins, Matthew Reilly, Michael C. Grumley, A.G. Riddle, Rob Jones, Jay J. Falconer, James D. Prescott, Brad Thor, Douglas E. Richards, Clive Cussler and David Baldacci.

The Faithful Spy


Alex Berenson - 2006
    Alex Berenson’s debut novel of suspense, The Faithful Spy, is a sharp, explosive story that takes readers inside the war on terror as fiction has never done before.John Wells is the only American CIA agent ever to penetrate al Qaeda. Since before the attacks in 2001, Wells has been hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, biding his time, building his cover.Now, on the orders of Omar Khadri–the malicious mastermind plotting more al Qaeda strikes on America–Wells is coming home. Neither Khadri nor Jennifer Exley, Wells’s superior at Langley, knows quite what to expect.For Wells has changed during his years in the mountains. He has become a Muslim. He finds the United States decadent and shallow. Yet he hates al Qaeda and the way it uses Islam to justify its murderous assaults on innocents. He is a man alone, and the CIA–still reeling from its failure to predict 9/11 or find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq–does not know whether to trust him. Among his handlers at Langley, only Exley believes in him, and even she sometimes wonders. And so the agency freezes Wells out, preferring to rely on high-tech means for gathering intelligence.But as that strategy fails and Khadri moves closer to unleashing the most devastating terrorist attack in history, Wells and Exley must somehow find a way to stop him, with or without the government’s consent.From secret American military bases where suspects are held and “interrogated” to basement laboratories where al Qaeda’s scientists grow the deadliest of biological weapons, The Faithful Spy is a riveting and cautionary tale, as affecting in its personal stories as it is sophisticated in its political details. The first spy thriller to grapple squarely with the complexities and terrors of today’s world, this is a uniquely exciting and unnerving novel by an author who truly knows his territory.

Deadly Straits


R.E. McDermott - 2011
    Griffin, R.E. McDermott delivers a thriller to rival the masters.When marine engineer and very part-time spook Tom Dugan becomes collateral damage in the War on Terror, he's not about to take it lying down.Falsely implicated in a hijacking, he's offered a chance to clear himself by helping the CIA snare their real prey, Dugan's best friend, London ship owner Alex Kairouz. Reluctantly, Dugan agrees to go undercover in Alex's company, despite doubts about his friend's guilt. Once undercover, Dugan's steadfast refusal to accept Alex's guilt puts him at odds not only with his CIA superiors, but also with a beautiful British agent with whom he's romantically involved.When a tanker is found adrift near Singapore with a dead crew, and another explodes in Panama as Alex lies near death after a suspicious suicide attempt, Dugan is framed for the attacks. Out of options, and convinced the attacks are prelude to an even more devastating assault, Dugan eludes capture to follow his last lead to Russia, only to be shanghaied as an 'advisor' to a Russian Spetsnaz unit on a suicide mission.Deadly Straits is a non-stop thrill ride, from London streets, to the dry docks of Singapore, to the decks of the tankers that slake the world's thirst for oil, with stops along the way in Panama, Langley, Virginia, and Teheran. Richly spiced with detail from the author's 30 years sailing, building, and repairing ships worldwide, it is, in the words of one reviewer, "fast-paced, multilayered and gripping."

The Liquidator


John Gardner - 1964
    As the city is liberated, Sergeant Boysie Oaks kills two Germans attempting to assassinate an Intelligence Corps officer named Mostyn. Two decades later, the suave, sadistic Mostyn has become the Second-in-Command of British Special Security. He recruits the man he believes is a master assassin -- Boysie Oakes -- to quietly murder potential security risks. He is 'The Liquidator'. But is Boysie the right man for the job? He is preparing to take Mostyn's secretary to the Cote D'Azur for a weekend of romance. Yet what starts as a few days of seduction in the Mediterranean sun turns into a nightmare for Boysie as he becomes more and more embroiled in Operation Coronet. Captured, the tables are turned, and the assassin becomes the target. Boysie Oakes will need all his wits to stay alive. 'The Liquidator' is the first in the series of highly acclaimed comic novels featuring cowardly secret agent, Boysie Oakes. It was made into a film in 1965 staring Rod Taylor and Trevor Howard. It is perfect for fans of classic British spy fiction, including Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, and Desmond Bagley. Before coming an author of fiction in the early 1960’s John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including Maestro, which was the New York Times book of the year. He was also invited by Ian Fleming’s literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles, including Licence Renewed and Icebreaker. Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy, Conan Doyle’s eponymous villain of the Sherlock Holmes series. 'Cool polished story-telling with all the sexy sidelines in the best James Bond tradition' Evening Standard Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

The Romanov Prophecy


Steve Berry - 2004
    Ten months have passed since Nicholas II’s reign was cut short by revolutionaries. Tonight, the White Army advances on the town where the Tsar and his family are being held captive by the Bolsheviks. Nicholas dares to hope for salvation. Instead, the Romanovs are coldly and methodically executed.Moscow: Present Day. Atlanta lawyer Miles Lord, fluent in Russian and well versed in the country’s history, is thrilled to be in Moscow on the eve of such a momentous event. After the fall of Communism and a succession of weak governments, the Russian people have voted to bring back the monarchy. The new tsar will be chosen from the distant relatives of Nicholas II by a specially appointed commission, and Miles’ job is to perform a background check on the Tsarist candidate favored by a powerful group of Western businessmen. But research quickly becomes the least of Miles’ concerns when he is nearly killed by gunmen on a city plaza.Suddenly Miles is racing across continents, shadowed by nefarious henchmen. At first, his only question is why people are pursuing him. But after a strange conversation with a mysterious Russian, who steers Miles toward the writings of Rasputin, he becomes desperate to know more–most important, what really happened to the family of Russia’s last tsar?His only companion is Akilina Petrov, a Russian circus performer sympathetic to his struggle, and his only guide is a cryptic message from Rasputin that implies that the bloody night of so long ago is not the last chapter in the Romanovs’ story . . . and that someone might even have survived the massacre. The prophecy’s implications are earth-shattering–not only for the future of the tsar and mother Russia, but also for Miles himself.

Weapons


Matt Rogers - 2019
     Jason King and Will Slater, the two most lethal operatives in government history, are out on their own. They’ve been through their personal journeys into hell, but they unite in New York City as brothers in arms. So begins a vigilante crusade against the city’s morally bankrupt inhabitants. But their private war doesn’t last long... Sometimes you can’t escape the past, no matter how hard you try. They’re revisited by old government contacts with an agenda, and soon enough they’re fighting tooth and nail to prevent the destabilisation of the entire country. Outnumbered, overwhelmed, beat down, battered, broken — it's just another day at the office. Witness the unification of the two baddest men on the planet... What readers are saying about King & Slater: ★★★★★ - “Slater and King working together is a whole new adventure. Twice as much death and destruction. Twice as much adventure and excitement.” ★★★★★ - “One hell of a ride from the very beginning to a fantastic finish.” ★★★★★ - "Two of the best warriors I've met in a long while. Can't wait to see who they tackle next time." ★★★★★ - "Both characters retain their richness of personality, yet share their intellectual disdain for the evil in the world." ★★★★★ - “This book was a treat from start to finish. I continue to be amazed by Matt's ability to come up with truly creative situations for our beloved King and Slater to be thrown into." ★★★★★ - "This was one of those late night page turners that you would give up sleep for with no problem.” ★★★★★ - "Matt has taken the best of Jason King and the best of Will Slater and combined it into a new format, yet kept his hard-hitting action and surprising twists."

First Blood


David Morrell - 1972
    Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of First Blood to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with—or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky. Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise—a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.

The Driver


Hart Hanson - 2017
    He’s spent the past twenty-eight hours ferrying around Bismarck Avila, a celebrity skateboard mogul who isn’t going home any time soon. Suddenly the wind begins to speak to Skellig in the guttural accent of the Chechen torturer he shot through the eye in Yemen a decade ago: Troubletroubletrouble. Skellig has heard these warnings before—he’s an Army Special Forces sergeant whose limo company is staffed by a ragtag band of wounded veterans, including his Afghan interpreter—and he knows to listen carefully.Skellig runs inside just in time to save Avila from two gunmen but too late for one of Avila’s bodyguards—and wakes up hours later in the hospital, the only person of interest in custody for the murder. Complicating matters further is the appearance of Detective Delilah Groopman of the LAPD, gorgeous and brash, for whom Skellig has always held a candle. As for Avila? He’s willing to help clear Skellig’s name under one peculiar condition: that Skellig become Avila’s personal chauffeur. A cushy gig for any driver, except for the fact that someone is clearly trying to kill Avila, and Skellig is literally the only person sitting between Avila and a bullet to the head.

No Safe Place


Richard North Patterson - 1998
    Kilcannon believes he can make the system work. And he just may die trying. Driven by the violent nightmare of his childhood, fueled by forces that few could understand, and burdened by secrets no one must know, Kilcannon is running for President--and entering the crucial battleground of California with seven days to go. But for Kilcannon, there are hurdles that his courage, charisma, and compassion may not overcome: the network correspondent he still loves; the reporter bent on their exposure; the rival who'll do anything to win; and the fanatic who believes that he must murder Kilcannon to protect the right to life.

The Domino Principle


Adam Kennedy - 1975
    Abandoned as child by his father, Roy has been a criminal for as long as he can remember. For a brief while, his stint in the army looked like he might’ve turned over a new leaf… But now he’s in prison on a murder charge. Twenty years in maximum security, at the very least. For five years, he’s been a model prisoner – even becoming the prison’s carpenter. All he has for company is his cellmate, Oscar Spiventa. Roy stopped writing his wife long ago and his sister, Enid, wants nothing to do with him. For Roy, being alone is a punishment. One day, he’s summoned to the Warden’s office: a job of putting up shelves in the prison’s conference room. But when Roy is taken to the conference room, he meets Mr Tagge, a man representing people ‘interested in his situation’. If Roy helps them, they will help him. But what Roy has to help them with, Tagge won’t tell – or even, know. The other man who comes to see him, a young, smug-looking man named Pine, isn’t any better. Roy’s not all-together stupid. He knows that what he learnt in the army is of great value to this mysterious group of people. He’s not going to be used by some shadowy group – particularly when there’s no guarantee that they’ll leave him alive after… But when Tagge says they have his wife waiting for him, Roy knows they’ve got him. Even after all these years, the idea of seeing Thelma again is too alluring to pass up. The only catch for them is Roy’s demands to take Oscar with him. So just like that he and Oscar walk out of prison. And just like that, they shoot down Oscar in cold blood. Realising that he’s swapped one prison for another, Roy can only try to outsmart both his rescuers and his captors. But as the dominoes keep on falling around Roy, he is forced into something much larger than he could’ve ever imagined… A nail-biting thriller, The Domino Principle is a suspenseful and chilling story of a man trying to outwit his own fate. Praise for Adam Kennedy ‘An effective cat-and-mousetrap’ – Kirkus Review ‘Very bright indeed’ - Kirkus Review Adam Kennedy was an actor and author. His novel, The Domino Principle, was adapted into a film starring Gene Hackman in 1977.