Red Storm Rising


Tom Clancy - 1986
    "Allah!"With that shrill cry, three Muslim terrorists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, creating a critical oil shortage that threatens the stability of the USSR.To offer the effects of this disaster, members of the Politburo and the KGB devise a brilliant plan of diplomatic trickery - a sequence of events designed to pit the NATO allies against each other - a distraction calculated to enable the Soviets to seize all the oil in the Persian Gulf.But as this spellbinding story of international intrigue and global politics nears its climax, the Soviets are faced with another prospect, one they hadn't planned on: a full-scale conflict in which nobody can win.

Six Seconds


Rick Mofina - 2008
    Believing he can help her avenge her family's deaths, she follows him back home to the United States.An anguished mother desperate to find her child...In California a soccer mom arrives to pick up her son from school, only to discover that her husband has taken their child and vanished without a trace.A detective who needs to redeem himself...In the Rocky Mountains an off-duty cop rescues a little girl from a raging river moments before she utters her final words in his arms. Haunted by failure, he launches an investigation that leads him to a Montana school where time is ticking down on an event that will rewrite history....Three strangers entangled in a plot to change the world in only six seconds...

Second Child


John Saul - 1990
    Ruggedly beautiful and remote, bordered by dark woods and deserted beaches, this postcard-perfect village harbors the mansions of the wealthy—families who have summered in splendid seclusion at Secret Cove for generations. Here, one hundred years ago, on the night of the annual August Moon Ball, a shy and lovely servant girl committed a single, unspeakable act of violence—an act so shocking its legacy lives still.And now, long after the horror of that night has faded to a tale whispered by children around summer camp fires, an unholy terror is about to be reborn.Now, one family is about to feel the icy hand of supernatural fear—as Melissa Holloway, shy and troubled and just thirteen years old, comes to know the blood-drenched secret that waits behind a locked attic door... For in the dead of night a Secret Cove sleeps unaware, a soul-chilling presence slowly begins to enact a terrifying vengeance.Second Child: It is unspeakable evil merely Melissa's nightmares made horrifyingly real? Is it the manifestation of deadly fury risen from the grave? Or is the heart-stopping horror soon to be unleased in Secret Cove something even more insidious--something unimaginably evil...and alive?

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 Abbey


Chris Culver - 2011
    Another year, and he'll be out of the department completely. That's the plan, at least, until his niece's body is found in the guest home of one of his city's most wealthy citizens. The coroner calls it an overdose, but the case doesn't add up. Against orders, Ash begins a danger-filled investigation to find his niece's murderer, but the longer he searches, the more entangled he becomes in a case that hits increasingly close to home. If he doesn't solve it fast, his niece won't be the only family member he has to bury.

Sanctus


Simon Toyne - 2011
    This is no ordinary suicide but a symbolic act. And thanks to the media, it is witnessed by the entire world.But few understand it. For charity worker Kathryn Mann and a handful of others in the know, it is what they have been waiting for. The cowled and secretive fanatics that live in the Citadel suspect it could mean the end of everything they have built – and they will kill, torture and break every law to stop that. For Liv Adamsen, New York crime reporter, it begins the next stage of a journey into the heart of her own identity.And at that journey's end lies a discovery that will change EVERYTHING …SANCTUS is an apocalyptic conspiracy thriller like no other – it re-sets the bar for excitement and fascination, and marks the debut of a major talent in Simon Toyne.

Fault Line


Barry Eisler - 2009
    But then the inventor of a technology Alex is banking on is murdered... and the patent examiner who reviewed it dies... and Alex himself narrowly escapes an attack in his own home. Off balance, out of ideas, and running out of time, he knows the one person who can help him is the last person he'd ever ask: his brother.Ben Treven is a Military Liaison Element, an elite undercover soldier paid to "find, fix, and finish" high-value targets in America's Global War on Terror. Disenchanted with what he sees as America's culture of denial and decadence, Ben lives his detached life in the shadows because the black ops world is all he really knows--and because other than Alex, who he hasn't spoken to since their mother died, his family is long gone.But blood is thicker than water, and when he receives Alex's frantic call, Ben hurries to San Francisco to help him. Only then does Alex reveal that there's another player who knows of the technology: Sarah Hosseini, a young Iranian American lawyer who Alex has long secretly desired... and who Ben immediately distrusts. As these three radically different people struggle to identify the forces attempting to silence them, Ben and Alex are forced to examine the events that drove them apart--even as Sarah's presence, and her own secret wants, deepens the fault line between them.Emotionally charged and politically timely, Fault Line centers on a conspiracy that has spun out of the shadows and into the streets of America, a conspiracy that can be stopped only by three people--three people with different worldviews, different grievances, different motives. To survive the forces arrayed against them, they'll first have to survive each other.

Deep Down


Lee Child - 2012
    The assignment that awaits him: The army is meeting with its Capitol Hill paymasters for classified talks on a new, state-of-the-art sniper rifle for U.S. forces. But vital details about the weapon are leaking—straight from the Capitol and probably into the hands of unidentified foreign arms dealers. The prospect of any and every terrorist, mercenary, or dictator’s militia getting their hands on the latest superior firepower is unthinkable. That’s where Reacher comes in. His task: infiltrate the top-secret proceedings and smoke out the mole. His target: a quartet of high-powered Army political liaison officers—all of them fast-track women on their way to the top. According to his bosses, it’s a zero-danger mission. No need to draw a gun . . . just chat over drinks. But Reacher knows that things are rarely what they seem. And he’s learned the hard way never to underestimate an opponent. Or four. Lessons that will come in handy when he starts digging for the truth—and gets his hands a lot dirtier than he expected.

Black Out


John Lawton - 1995
    Detective-Sergeant Troy starts with the clue of a neatly dismembered corpse leading him into a world of stateless refugees, military intelligence, and corruption all the way to the top of Allied High Command.

Local Girl Missing


Claire Douglas - 2016
    It's also where twenty-one-year-old Sophie Collier vanished eighteen years ago.Francesca has spent the last twenty years haunted by the disappearance of her best friend. But when she receives a phone call from Sophie's brother saying that a body has been found, she knows she can't keep hiding from what happened. With her own secrets to keep, Francesca doesn't relish the idea of digging up the past or returning to Oldcliffe. But it is time to go back to where she grew up, and it looks like she isn't the only one there hiding truths.

Bullseye


David Baldacci - 2014
    But is this just a simple bank job, or are the robbers after something even more valuable--and dangerous--than the cash in the vault?Available only as an ebook and audio .

44


Jools Sinclair - 2010
    She can't see colors, memories have been erased, and her friends all hate her. And then there's Jesse, who she loves, but who refuses to forgive her the one mistake she made long ago.Just when she thinks it can't get any worse, the visions begin. In them, she sees a faceless serial killer roaming the streets. While the police believe that there have been a lot of accidents in town lately, Abby knows differently. And she soon realizes that it's up to her to find him. But to stop him, she'll have to confront more than just the killer. She'll have to face something else that was lost in those dark waters: the truth.

Damaged


Pamela Callow - 2010
    But then the teen is brutally murdered. And it isn't only Kate who wonders if her legal advice led to the girl's death.How far are you willing to go to redeem yourself?Put on notice by Randall Barrett, the firm's charismatic managing partner, Kate must fight for her career, for her reputation - and for redemption.Unwilling to live with the damage she may have caused, Kate pursues the case on her own and unearths some chilling facts.Facts that lead straight to the heart of a legal conspiracy.Facts that lead Kate directly into the surgically skilled hands of the Body Butcher. The first book in the Kate Lange legal thriller series. A Levy "Need to Read" pick with Top Ten Bestseller display. Now under option for television development.

Learning to Swim


Sara J. Henry - 2011
    But I didn't, and I saw something fall from the rear deck of the opposite ferry: a small, wide-eyed human face, in one tiny frozen moment, as it plummeted toward the water."When she witnesses a small child tumbling from a ferry into Lake Champlain, Troy Chance dives in without thinking. Harrowing moments later, she bobs to the surface, pulling a terrified little boy with her. As the ferry disappears into the distance, she begins a bone-chilling swim nearly a mile to shore towing a tiny passenger.Surprisingly, he speaks only French. He'll acknowledge that his name is Paul; otherwise, he's resolutely mute.Troy assumes that Paul's frantic parents will be in touch with the police or the press. But what follows is a shocking and deafening silence. And Troy, a freelance writer, finds herself as fiercely determined to protect Paul as she is to find out what happened to him. She'll need skill and courage to survive and protect her charge and herself. Sara J. Henry's powerful and compelling Learning to Swim will move and disturb readers right up to its shattering conclusion.

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...