Book picks similar to
Manifest Destiny by Rick Robinson


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A Heartbeat Away


Michael Palmer - 2011
    But no one anticipates the terrifying turn of events that forces him to quarantine everyone in the Capitol building. A terrorist group calling itself “Genesis” has unleashed WRX3883, a deadly, highly contagious virus, into the building. No one fully knows the deadly effect of the germ except for the team responsible for its development—a team headed by Allaire, himself. The only one who might be able to help is virologist Griffin Rhodes, currently in solitary confinement in a maximum security federal prison for alleged terrorist acts, including the attempted theft of WRX3883 from the lab where he worked. Rhodes has no idea why he has been arrested, but when Allaire offers to free him in exchange for his help combating the virus, he reluctantly agrees to do what he can to support the government that has imprisoned him without apparent cause.Meanwhile, every single person in line for presidential succession is trapped inside the Capitol—every person except one: the Director of Homeland Security, who is safely at home in Minnesota, having been selected as the “Designated Survivor” for this event. With enemies both named and unnamed closing in, and the security of the nation at stake, Griff must unravel the mysteries of WRX3883 without violating his pledge as a scientist to use no animal testing in his experiments…and time is running out.

Pennsylvania's Finest


Michael Banas - 2013
    His surgical internship takes him to the prestigious Philadelphia General Hospital where he begins training under the famous Dr. Richard Knight. Dr. Knight is an old school cardiac surgeon whose interests include fast cars and beautiful women. Phil and his fellow classmates soon begin to experience the raw brutality of a one-year surgical internship. They quickly discover that the elder Dr. Knight is obsessed with a surgical mortality ranking that is published in the Philadelphia Chronicle every other year. This ranking compares Dr. Knight to all of the other cardiac surgeons in the region, and fuels his larger than life persona. Unfortunately for all, Dr. Knight’s patients begin to die at an alarming rate, causing his local aura to suffer. To complicate the matter Phil becomes intimately involved with the current mistress of Dr. Knight. A mistress who lives in an opulent world funded by the wealthy and distinguished Doctor Knight. Phil Drummer soon finds himself fighting for survival in the midst of his powerful mentor’s suddenly confused life. A mentor, who once swore to a Hippocratic oath, yet is inexplicably trying to cope with a series of deaths amid a crumbling reputation. For everyone involved at the Philadelphia General Hospital the situation rapidly becomes a matter of life and death - amid rising suspicions as to the exact cause of each fatal event.

Repent


Lisa Fink - 2013
    But when his life begins to unravel—he loses his dog, his girlfriend, his job, and his house in quick succession—he suspects that it’s more than a joke: someone is attempting to systematically destroy him.Desperate and alienated, he turns to Annelie, his old flame. In the midst of his despair, he realizes that with her, he could rebuild his life again. But just as he sees the light at the end of the tunnel, he discovers that his tormenter isn’t done with him yet. Will he discover who is behind the plot before the psychopath’s suggestion of suicide turns to murder?

The Last Door


M.M. Boulder - 2020
    Because Amy Harrison's perfect life is a LIE. She has the perfect adoptive parents, perfect job, perfect friends, and she's about to marry the perfect man. There's only one problem. She can't remember the first twelve years of her life, and she's terrified something horrible happened, something she should have never forgotten. Amy starts taking an experimental drug in an effort to recover her lost past before her wedding, and all she can see is blood.Can her chaotic flashes of memory be real? Bloody halos. Doors and a car and chocolates. Whiskey. Pink. A voice. Someone who loved her. Someone she loved. And death. So much death. Determined to protect her fiancée and her unborn children from her past, she keeps pushing forward; but the memories take over more and more of her, pushing Amy away and replacing her with someone else.Will Amy be able to recover her past, learn the terrible secret that made her forget it all, and save her own life before she loses everything?

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare


G.K. Chesterton - 1908
    K. Chesterton's surreal masterpiece is a psychological thriller that centers on seven anarchists in turn-of-the-century London who call themselves by the names of the days of the week. Chesterton explores the meanings of their disguised identities in what is a fascinating mystery and, ultimately, a spellbinding allegory.As Jonathan Lethem remarks in his Introduction, The real characters are the ideas. Chesterton's nutty agenda is really quite simple: to expose moral relativism and parlor nihilism for the devils he believes them to be. This wouldn't be interesting at all, though, if he didn't also show such passion for giving the devil his due. He animates the forces of chaos and anarchy with every ounce of imaginative verve and rhetorical force in his body.

Invisible


Lorena McCourtney - 2004
    So when vandals romp through the local cemetery, she takes advantage of her newfound anonymity and its unforeseen advantages as she launches her own unofficial investigation.Despite her oddball humor and unconventional snooping, Ivy soon becomes discouraged by her failure to turn up any solid clues. And after Ivy witnesses something ominous and unexplained, she can't resist putting her investigative powers to work again. Even the authorities' attempts to keep Ivy out of danger and her nosy neighbor's match-making schemes can't slow her down. But will the determination that fuels this persistent, quirky sleuth threaten her very safety?

The Mark of the Assassin


Daniel Silva - 1998
    A body is discovered near the crash site with three bullets to the face: the calling card of a shadowy international assassin. Only agent Michael Osbourne has seen the markings before—on a woman he once loved.Now, it's personal for Osbourne. Consumed by his dark obsession with the assassin, he's willing to risk his family, his career, and his life—to settle a score....

The Body Man


Eric P. Bishop - 2021
    And he's vanished without a trace.In a town that's obsessed with dark secrets, where the currency of power is information, The White House has kept a huge one for decades. Charged with the task of protecting and defending the Office of the Presidency from threats both outside and in, the keeper of secrets-the Body Man-has been in the shadows since the 1960s.The Body Man has been a unique protector of American presidents ever since a previous well-known president used the first Body Man to usher women, diplomats, and other heads of state into the White House via a secret tunnel. The Body Man is drawn from the Secret Service, but he isn't on the classic protective detail, and he reports to no one. Once his term is over, he's given a huge payout and a one-way ticket to anywhere on Earth.With a CIA conspiracy buff named Zed and The Body Man's aged neighbor Rose, former US Army Ranger and FBI Special Agent Eli Payne and his new probationary agent Kat Stone must find the Body Man before it's too late-and the trail may lead directly to the Oval Office itself.

The Lions of Lucerne


Brad Thor - 2002
    But Scot Harvath, surviving agent and ex-Navy SEAL, doesn't believe the Fatah is responsible. A shadowy coalition comprises some of the highest-ranking officials in government and business – men who operate above the law, realize the threat Scot poses to their hidden agenda, and will do anything to stop him. Framed for murder and on the run, Scot takes to the towering mountains of Switzerland with beautiful Claudia Mueller of the Swiss Federal Attorney's Office. They brave subzero temperatures and sheer heights of treacherous Mount Pilatus, and the den of notorious professional killers.

The Partnership Track


Michael Ridpath - 2016
    Six ambitious vice presidents of Labouchere Associates are gathered together at an isolated mountain lodge in New Hampshire’s White Mountains for a weekend of corporate mind games. By Monday, one of them will become a Partner and earn at least a million a year. And one of them will be dead. The Partnership Track is a novella of about 20,000 words or 70 pages, with a fiendish twist. It will take less than two hours to read.

The Harder They Fall


Adam Croft - 2017
    So much that she's prepared to kill for them. A succession of rich husbands has ensured she's never wanted for anything, but there are some itches that just can't be scratched.When she comes to realise that her current husband has reached the end of his usefulness there's only one thing for it…But plotting your husband's murder isn't quite as straightforward as you think...

Wall of Brass


Robert Daley - 1994
    Since no one went near it, Chief of Detectives Bert Farber knew it had to be someone important. But he didn’t know it was the man who had stolen his girl and risen to power on a wave of self promotion. Or what dark forbidden secrets the dead man kept. The mayor has given Farber ten days to solve the crime, and already the top brass have begun blocking the investigation.

Broken Angels


Russell Heath - 2015
    Nine years. Nine years since she stepped over her mother’s drunken body and into a cold Alaska night running south, lost to her mother forever. How did she find me? She hesitates, not wanting to open the envelope, knowing the letter inside will drag her home; back into the bleakness of a life with no exit. Kris Gabriel, twenty-four, Alaska Native, and fierce like a wolverine, returns to Alaska—to find her mother murdered; shot in the face by the double-barreled blast of a shotgun. Angry her mother is pushed around even in death, guilty she abandoned her in life, Kris only knows to fight. Relentlessly, she tracks a trail of pain, of lost love, of lives ripped apart by the frozen north’s unyielding law of survival, never suspecting it’s not what her mother would have wanted. Never suspecting that she has far more at stake than finding her mother’s killer. Broken Angels is fast-paced Alaskan noir filled with richly drawn characters struggling to survive in a hostile country where there are no second chances.

The Ghost


Robert Harris - 2007
    1 bestselling author of Fatherland; Enigma; Archangel; Pompeii and Imperium. “The moment I heard how McAra died I should have walked away. I can see that now. I should have said, ‘Rick, I’m sorry, this isn’t for me, I don’t like the sound of it,’ finished my drink and left. But he was such a good storyteller, Rick — I often thought he should have been the writer and I the agent — that once he’d started talking there was never any question I wouldn’t listen, and by the time he had finished, I was done for.”After five books set firmly in the past, Robert Harris returns with a contemporary novel that brings the reader face to face with some of the biggest issues of our time — the result is a gripping and genuinely thrilling read.

Only The Good Die Young : And I'm Not A Saint


Akash Verma - 2021
    She thinks that chapter of her life hasended, and starts afresh in Mumbai. But strangely, it seems her past is trying to catch up. Dhruv suddenlycomes back into her life. Even as they try to figure out their relationship, horrible things start happening to people they know. Together, Anuradha and Dhruv need to find out who it is that cannot bear to see them together. Who is carrying out these shocking crimes? Are they really soulmates cursed to stay apart, or is there some karmic debt they have to repay? Taut and thrilling, Only the Good Die Young is unputdownable.