Book picks similar to
In the Shadow of Babylon by John Schwartz
historical-fiction
fiction
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The Templar Concordat
Terrence O'Brien - 2010
And that's the proof the Hashashin get when they steal what the Vatican doesn't even know it has. Now the infallible decrees of two Twelfth Century popes and three kings, stolen by the Hashashin, threaten to catapult the bigotry, bias, and religious blood baths of the Third Crusade straight into the Twenty-First Century. When Templars Sean Callahan and Marie Curtis are drawn into the mess, they face an ancient enemy that has already nearly won the battle, a newly elected Mexican pope being undermined by entrenched Vatican powers, world class scholars who will sell their prestige to the highest bidder, and terrorists lingering over lattes in sidewalk cafes. Moving from Rome to London, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia, Callahan and Curtis are desperate to find some way to stem the success the Hashashin are having enlisting the majority of moderate Muslims in their Jihad. Out maneuvered at each step by the Hashashin, only a last ditch roll of the dice has any chance of success. But it's the only chance they have."If you loved the idea of Dan Brown's bestsellers, but weren't socrazy about all the arty esoterica, Terrence O'Brien's The TemplarConcordat could hit your sweet spot...." Kindle Nation Daily
The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader
Jim Stevens - 2010
He must prove murder and stop payment of the twelve-million-dollar Richmond Insurance policy. Nothing makes sense. Crime scene is a mess. There is no money trail. There are too many motives from too many suspects who have too many alibis. Worst of all Sherlock's bad back is acting up, his ex-wife wants more money and the murder investigation is putting a serious dent in his parenting schedule of his two daughters. Richard Sherlock hates his job, and may be a reluctant dick, but he is better at finding the WHO in WHODUNIT than anyone else.
The Sword of the Templars
Paul Christopher - 2009
Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday had resigned himself to ending his career teaching at West Point. When his uncle passes away, Holliday discovers a medieval sword-wrapped in Adolf Hitler's personal battle standard. But when someone burns down his uncle's house in an attempt to retrieve the sword, Holliday realizes that he's being drawn into a war that has been fought for centuries-a war in which he may be the next casualty.
The Last Airship
Christopher Cartwright - 2015
Its cargo: a complement of rich Jewish families carrying their most valuable possessions. One such item amongst them was as dangerous as it was priceless. The airship never reached its destination. In 2015 Sam Reilly, a marine biologist and wealthy son of shipping mogul James Reilly discovers a missing clue about the lost airship and what follows is a violent treasure hunt, kept secret by the most powerful men in the world today, driven by their greed and need for that which all are motivated: the opportunity for unlimited power.
Hollywood Assassin
M.Z. Kelly - 2014
Okay, so her ex-husband cheated on her and the DVD of his indiscretions made the rounds of the entire department, she’s broke and living above an appliance store with her canine partner Bernie who is a sexual predator, her British friend Natalie has a vocabulary that would make Howard Stern blush, and her mother is hallucinating about having sex with a dead president. But things could be worse . . . like Kate could be stalked by a sadistic serial killer while she tries to solve a thirty year-old murder and save the life and reputation of a cop wanted for the crime. Come to think of it, maybe things couldn’t get any worse because this is Kate’s life. Can Kate Sexton elude the killer, solve the cold case, keep Bernie's sexual wanderlust in check, keep her best friend under control, save a cop from death row, and find love again? Only time, loads of trouble, and tons of laughs will tell. Hollywood Assassin has more twists and turns than a car chase on Sunset Strip with a Hollywood starlet at the wheel. WARNING: The Hollywood Alphabet Series contains adult language and laugh out loud situations not for the faint of heart! If you think you can handle Kate Sexton’s crazy life . . . order Hollywood Assassin today. Hollywood Assassin is the first book in the Hollywood Alphabet Series. Other books include Hollywood Blood and Hollywood Crazy.
Never Say Spy
Diane Henders - 2011
She’s leaving the city to fulfill her dream of rural tranquillity when she gets carjacked by a man who shouldn’t exist.When RCMP officer John Kane kills her would-be abductor, Aydan thinks her troubles are over. But Kane’s investigation implicates her in an international espionage plot, and criminal charges become the least of her worries when she’s targeted by the very spies Kane suspects her of aiding.Pity her enemies. Because nobody’s tougher than a middle-aged woman who wants her dream back.Contains coarse language, moderate violence, and sexuality. The story can stand alone but will be more enjoyable if read in order.
Fossil River
Jock Miller - 2012
To create oil, dinosaurs died. Now the tables are turning!The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab oil countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, the intensity of hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries has intensified due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty.As the energy storm intensifies, the nation’s access to Arab oil, once supplying over sixty percent of our fossil fuel, is being threatened causing people to panic for lack of gas at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.The U.S. Military is forced to cut back air, land, and sea operations sucking up 58% of every barrel of oil to protect the nation; U.S. commercial airlines are forced to limit flights for lack of jet fuel; and businesses are challenged to power up their factories, and offices as the U.S. Department of Energy desperately tries to provide a balance of electric power from the network of aged power plants and transmission lines that power up the nation.The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that will plunge the nation into a deep depression worse than 1929.The energy storm is very real and happening this very moment. But, at the last moment of desperation, the United States discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit found in a remote inaccessible mountain range within Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve surrounding six and a half million acres.Preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.Nobody gets out alive; nobody can identify the predator--until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. All hell breaks loose when Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park.Will the nation’s military be paralyzed for lack of mobility fuel, and will people across America run out of gas and be stranded, or will the U.S. Military succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy driven catastrophe in recorded history?
Rushed
Brian Harmon - 2013
With no idea how to cure himself of this odd new compulsion, he decides to let it take its course and go for a drive, hoping that once he proves to himself that there is nowhere to go, he can return to his normal life. Instead, he finds himself hurled headlong into a nightmare adventure across a fractured Wisconsin as the dream reveals itself one heart-pounding detail at a time. <br><br>Horror, science fiction, dark fantasy. From the author of The Temple of the Blind. 84,000 words.
Soundkeeper
Michael Hervey - 2011
Beaten and left for dead, one of the polluters kidnaps her and she cannot bear to think about her captor’s intentions.Hall McCormick, a reluctant Refuge Enforcement Officer, is learning the ropes in his new job, which he hopes is only temporary while he waits for the marine biologist job he really wants. He is sad that the beautiful young environmentalist he dated briefly has mysteriously disappeared. While pursuing poachers and keeping the shoreline safe for all animals, he finds kills of marine life, due to someone dumping toxic chemicals into Port Royal Sound.After Gale’s boat is found deserted and drifting to sea, will anyone keep searching for her? Will the criminal polluters be caught in time to save Gale’s life? Will Hall learn to appreciate his job as much as being a scientist? As he races against time, Hall needs to find Gale’s would-be killer before it’s too late.Soundkeeper is a taut new thriller in the vein of C.J. Box and Nevada Barr. Filled with accurate details of the fascinating world of the South Carolina coast, this is a perfect mystery for a day at the beach.
The Rule of Four
Ian Caldwell - 2004
Seniors are scrambling to finish their theses. And two students, Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, are a hair's breadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili--a renowned text attributed to an Italian nobleman, a work that has baffled scholars since its publication in 1499. For Tom, their research has been a link to his family's past -- and an obstacle to the woman he loves. For Paul, it has become an obsession, the very reason for living. But as their deadline looms, research has stalled -- until a long-lost diary surfaces with a vital clue. And when a fellow researcher is murdered just hours later, Tom and Paul realize that they are not the first to glimpse the Hypnerotomachia 's secrets.Suddenly the stakes are raised, and as the two friends sift through the codes and riddles at the heart of the text, they are beginnning to see the manuscript in a new light--not simply as a story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but as a bizarre, coded mathematical maze. And as they come closer and closer to deciphering the final puzzle of a book that has shattered careers, friendships and families, they know that their own lives are in mortal danger. Because at least one person has been killed for knowing too much. And they know even more.From the streets of fifteenth-century Rome to the rarified realm of Princeton, from a shocking 500 year-old murder scene to the drama of a young man's coming of age, The Rule of Four takes us on an entertaining, illuminating tour of history--as it builds to a pinnacle of nearly unbearable suspense.
Gone
Stacy Claflin - 2014
Eager to prove herself grown up, she goes to a dark, secluded park. She’s supposed to meet the boy of her dreams who she met online. But the cute fifteen year old was a fantasy, his pictures fake. She finds herself face to face with Chester Woodran, a man capable of murder.Distraught over his own missing daughter, Chester insists that Macy replace his lost girl. He withholds food, locks Macy up, and roughs her up, demanding that she call him dad. Under duress from his constant threats and mind games, her hold on reality starts to slip. Clinging to her memories is the only way of holding onto her true identity, not believing that she is Chester’s daughter. Otherwise she may never see her family again.
The Watcher
Jo Robertson - 2011
Working with a single-minded tenacity, she sets out to prove it.Deputy Sheriff Ben Slater hides his personal pain behind the job, but Kate's arrival in his county knocks his world on its axis. He wants to believe her wild theory, but the idea of a serial killer with the kind of pathology she proposes is too bizarre.Together they work to find a killer whose roots began in a small town in Bigler County, but whose violence spread across the nation. A Janus-like killer, more monster than man, he fixates on Kate. The killer wants nothing more than to kill the "purple-eyed girl again."
The Woman
David Bishop - 2011
This is a story of just one woman. As the story unfolds Linda gradually learns that some people do deserve to die, but that she is not one of those people. Linda Darby is a seven-year divorcee, living quietly in a small let-the-world-go-by beach town on the coast of Oregon, who day trades for a living. Her only close friend is a widowed elderly woman who manages a small consulting company, which, as is later discovered, never has visitors, sends and receives its business correspondence only by courier, and is not listed in any phone directory. No one in town knows what kind of consulting the company does, but the rumor is that whatever they do is done for the government. Linda doesn’t date local men. When her celibacy grows intolerable, she visits nearby towns to frequent the watering holes of successful men. Her motto: No relationships. No second dates. No use of her real name during one-night stands. Then one evening, Linda goes for a walk and nothing for her is ever the same. She is dragged into an alley by two men, but saved by a third, a stranger who disappears as suddenly as he appeared. The next day she finds out the two men in the alley had been killed, the town’s first murders ever. The following day she learns that hours before she had been dragged into the alley, her close friend was tortured and killed.
The Obituary Society
Jessica L. Randall - 2014
Lila is charmed by the people of Auburn, from the blue-eyed lawyer with the southern drawl to the little old lady who unceasingly tries to set Lila up with her grandson. But when strange things begin to happen, Lila realizes some of her new friends are guarding a secret like it's a precious family heirloom. It's a dangerous secret, and it has come back to haunt them. Lila is caught in the middle, and her life may depend on uncovering it. But even if she can, can she stay in Auburn when not everyone is what they seem, and even the house wants her gone?
Before You Leap
Keith Houghton - 2016
But when Scarlett’s killer is released early from prison with a cast-iron alibi, Greg realizes that his past is about to explode into his present, with terrifying consequences.To expose the truth he must open up old wounds. As a talk therapist, Greg knows all about dark secrets, but when a childhood friendship comes to the fore and the police turn their spotlight on him, the thought of analyzing his own psyche is a disturbing prospect. How far can he trust his own memories?With his life coming apart at the seams, and his grip on reality beginning to unravel, Greg must face the ghosts of his past if he hopes to prove his innocence and live to see another day.