Book picks similar to
Beyond Recall by Stephen Kyle


thriller
fiction
mystery-thriller
science-fiction

Serpent


Clive Cussler - 1999
    But few know that within its bowels rests a priceless pre-Columbian antiquity—a treasure that now holds the key to a puzzle that is costing people their lives. For Kurt Austin, the leader of a courageous National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) exploration team, the killing begins when he makes a daring rescue of a beautiful marine archaeologist. The target of a powerful Texas industrialist named Halcon, Nina Kirov was attacked off the coast of Morocco after her discovery of a carved stone head that may prove Christopher Columbus was not the first European to discover America.Soon Kurt and Nina embark on a deadly mission to uncover Halcon's masterful plan—an insidious scheme that would have him carve out a new nation from the southwest United States and Mexico, and ride to power on a wave of death and destruction. With Austin's elite NUMA crew attacking the murderous conspiracy from different sides, an extraordinary truth emerges; that Columbus may have made a fifth, unknown voyage to America in search of a magnificent treasure. And that the silent, steel hull of the Andrea Doria not only holds the answer to what the explorer may have found—but the fate of the United States itself.

Without Mercy


Lisa Jackson - 2010
    When her troubled sister Shaylee is sent to an elite boarding school in Oregon called the Academy, a place where several girls have disappeared, Jules gets a teaching position at the school to keep an eye on Shay and discovers that something evil lurks in the halls of this prestigious institution.

Edge


Jeffery Deaver - 2010
    security organizations-- the FBI and CIA among them--lies a heavily guarded, anonymous government agency dedicated to intelligence surveillance and to a highly specialized brand of citizen protection. Shock waves of alarm ripple through the clandestine agency when Washington, D.C., police detective Ryan Kessler inexplicably becomes the target of Henry Loving, a seasoned, ruthless "lifter" hired to obtain information using whatever means necessary. While Loving is deft at torture, his expertise lies in getting an "edge" on his victim--leverage--usually by kidnapping or threatening family until the "primary" caves under pressure.The job of keeping the Kessler family alive falls to a man named Corte, a senior federal protection officer known as a "shepherd." Uncompromising, relentlessly devoted to protecting those in his care and a passionate board game aficionado, he applies brilliant gaming strategy to his work. For Corte, the reappearance of Loving--the man who, six years earlier, had tortured and killed someone close to him--is also an opportunity to avenge his friend's death. The assignment soon escalates into a fast-paced duel between Corte and Loving, a dangerous volley of wits and calculated risks.As he shepherds the Kesslers to a concealed safe house, Corte must anticipate Loving's every step as the lifter moves in on his prey, and with the help of razor-sharp investigator Claire DuBois and his longtime ally, FBI agent Paul Fredericks, pinpoint which of Kessler's seemingly insignificant cases has triggered Loving's return. As the team digs deeper, each of the Kesslers comes under close scrutiny, and in captivity their family bonds are stretched to the breaking point--as the lifter draws near, Corte must ultimately choose between protecting his charges and exposing them to a killer in the name of long-awaited revenge.

Strong Medicine


Arthur Hailey - 1984
    Miracle drugs save lives and ease suffering, but for profit-motivated companies, the miracle is the money they generate...at any cost.  Billions of dollars in profits will make men and women do many things--lie, cheat, even kill.  now one beautiful woman will be caught in the cross fire between ethics and profits.  As Celia Jordan's fast-track career sweeps her into the highest circles of an international drug company, she begins to discover the sins and secrets hidden in the research lab...and in the marketplace.  Now the company's powerful new drug promises a breakthrough in treating a deadly disease.  But Celia Jordan knows it may deliver a nightmare.

Pandora's Clock


John J. Nance - 1995
    On a snowy road in a German forest, Ernest Helms sees a man trying to break into his car. After a scuffle, Helms escapes with only a cut on his hand. Hours later, he collapses aboard a flight from Frankfurt to New York. The pilot, Capt. James Holland, radios London to plan an emergency landing to save Helms—and then the nightmare begins. Heathrow denies Holland permission to land: Helms has been stricken with an ultracontagious pathogen that threatens the entire planet. When Germany also refuses to let him land, Holland and his passengers are prisoners of the sky, caught between a deadly disease and a world that would rather shoot them down than risk contamination. Written by a former aviator known as the master of mile-high suspense, this is a pulse-pounding thriller about infectious disease in the tradition of Outbreak and The Andromeda Strain. Threatened by hostile governments on the ground and disease in the sky, Captain Holland is in for the flight of his life.

Op-Center


Jeff Rovin - 1995
    It is run by a crack team of operatives both within its own walls and out in the field. When a job is too dirty--or too dangerous--it's the only place our government can turn.But nothing can prepare Director Paul Hood and his Op-Center crisis management team for what they're about to uncover--a very real, very frightening power play that could unleash new players in a new world order...

Zoo


James Patterson - 2012
    This is James Patterson's best book ever.TotalFor 36 years, James Patterson has written unputdownable, pulse-racing novels. Now, he has written a book that surpasses all of them. ZOO is the thriller he was born to write.WorldAll over the world, brutal attacks are crippling entire cities. Jackson Oz, a young biologist, watches the escalating events with an increasing sense of dread. When he witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa, the enormity of the violence to come becomes terrifyingly clear.DestructionWith the help of ecologist Chloe Tousignant, Oz races to warn world leaders before it's too late. The attacks are growing in ferocity, cunning, and planning, and soon there will be no place left for humans to hide.

At Risk


Patricia Cornwell - 2006
    His boss, the district attorney, attractive but hard-charging, is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk; its motto: "Any crime, any time." In particular, she's been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she's found the perfect subject in an unsolved twenty-year-old murder—in Tennessee. If her office solves the case, it ought to make them all look pretty good, right?Her investigator is not so sure—not sure about anything to do with this woman, really—but before he can open his mouth, a shocking piece of violence intervenes, an act that shakes up not only both their lives but also the lives of everyone around them. It's not a random event. Is it personal? Is it professional? Whatever it is, the implications are very, very bad indeed ... and they're about to get much worse.Sparks fly, traps spring, twists abound—this is the master working at the top of her game.

Net Force


Steve Perry - 1998
    Those who control them, control the world. To enforce the Net Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: Net Force.When the director of Net Force is assassinated, Deputy Director Alex Michaels is thrust into one of the most powerful and dangerous positions in the world. At the same time, cyber-terrorists sabotage mainframe computers across the country, causing famine, chaos, and death.Now Michaels and his team must find out who is responsible—and what they have to gain. But there is another problem. If they assassinated one Net Force director, what will stop them from assassinating another?A powerful examination of America's defense and intelligence systems of the future, Tom Clancy's Net Force is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, inspiring this novel as well as the explosive ABC Television miniseries.

Doubt


C.E. Tobisman - 2016
    Right away, her new boss asks her to find out whether a popular GMO causes healthy people to fall ill. Caroline is only supposed to dig in the trenches and report up the ladder, but her tech background and intuition take her further than planned. When she suspects a link between the death of a prominent scientist and the shadowy biotech giant, she cries foul and soon finds herself in the crosshairs. The clock is ticking and thousands of lives are on the line…including her own.Now this rookie lawyer with a troubled past and a penchant for hacking must prove a billion-dollar company is responsible for thousands of deaths…before they come after her.

Hornet Flight


Ken Follett - 2002
    Ken Follett follows his bestsellers Jackdaws and Code to Zero with an extraordinary novel of early days of World War II...It is June 1941 and the war is not going well for England.  Across the North Sea, eighteen-year-old Harald Olufsen takes a shortcut on the German-occupied Danish island of Sande an discovers an astonishing sight that will change the momentum of the war.  He must get word to England-except that he has no way to get there.  He has only an old derelict Hornet Moth biplane rusting away in a ruined church: a plane so decrepit that it is unlikely ever to get off the ground...even if Harald knew how to fly it.

Stigma


Philip Hawley Jr. - 2007
    physician and former secret member of a black ops unit of the Navy SEALS who vows to get to the bottom of an unidentifiable illness that killed a young Guatemalan boy. His investigation, however, only succeeds in putting his life and those of his loved ones in mortal danger. After the boy -- who was flown all the way to Los Angeles from Central America -- inexplicably dies, McKenna orders an autopsy, only to find himself stymied by hospital administrators who are obviously trying to cover something up. McKenna realizes that a conspiracy of international proportions is being pulled off: The boy's body is suddenly transported back to Guatemala and a former lover and employee of pharmaceutical giant Zenavax is found murdered just minutes after she called McKenna, desperately wanting to meet with him. Framed for her murder, the E.R. doctor must use all of his former military training to stay alive long enough to identity the true villain Hawley Jr. joins a growing number of doctors-turned-novelists (Daniel Kalla, Allen Wyler, et al.) who have reinvigorated the medical suspense genre with their terrifyingly insightful speculation. Chillingly realistic and utterly readable, Philip Hawley Jr. could very well be the next Robin Cook. Paul Goat Allen

Archangel


Robert Harris - 1998
    But one night, at a symposium in Moscow concerning the release of secret Soviet archives, he is approached by Papu Rapava, a former Kremlin bodyguard with a story to tell. No one but the desperate Kelso would believe the tale, for what Rapava describes is a sort of Holy Grail among researchers: an actual diary left by Joseph Stalin himself. Such an artifact, if it's genuine -- and if Kelso can survive the fascist Vladimir Mamantov, who wants it for his own agenda -- would be the coup of a lifetime for the discredited researcher.Before Kelso can learn the location of the diary, Rapava disappears, and Kelso's search for the former bodyguard leads him to the man's daughter, a whore selling herself in the new Moscow of drugs, corruption, and the Russian mafia. With an unscrupulous American journalist hot on their heels, a major of the new KGB close behind, and the shadowy Mamantov following them all, the two follow a trail that leads from Moscow's seedy underbelly to the industrial city of Archangel, where Russia once built her fleets of submarines, to a remote camp on the edge of the Siberian nothingness, and finally to a shocking conclusion that bites like the wind blowing off the tundra. What Kelso sees as the coup of his career might turn out to be the catalyst for an actual coup in Russia. There is a legacy behind the diary, a legacy of evil and death, and Fluke Kelso is unwittingly about to unleash it on the world.

Oxygen


Carol Cassella - 2008
    Dr. Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist at the height of her profession. She has worked, lived and breathed her career since medical school, and she now practices at a top Seattle hospital. Marie has carefully constructed and constricted her life according to empirical truths, to the science and art of medicine. But when her tried-and-true formula suddenly deserts her during a routine surgery, she must explain the nightmarish operating room disaster and face the resulting malpractice suit. Marie's best friend, colleague and former lover, Dr. Joe Hillary, becomes her closest confidante as she twists through depositions, accusations and a remorseful preoccupation with the mother of the patient in question. As she struggles to salvage her career and reputation, Marie must face hard truths about the path she's chosen, the bridges she's burned and the colleagues and superiors she's mistaken for friends.A quieter crisis is simultaneously unfolding within Marie's family. Her aging father is losing his sight and approaching an awkward dependency on Marie and her sister, Lori. But Lori has taken a more traditional path than Marie and is busy raising a family. Although Marie has been estranged from her Texas roots for decades, the ultimate responsibility for their father's care is falling on her.As her carefully structured life begins to collapse, Marie confronts questions of love and betrayal, family bonds and the price of her own choices. Set against the natural splendor of Seattle, and inside the closed vaults of hospital operating rooms, Oxygen climaxes in a final twist that is as heartrending as it is redeeming.

Play Dead


Harlan Coben - 1990
     No sooner had supermodel Laura Ayers and Celtics star David Baskin said "I do" than tragedy struck. While honeymooning on Australia's Great Barrier Reed, David went out for a swim-and never returned. Now widowed and grieving, Laura's search for the truth will draw her into a web of lies and deception that stretches back thirty years...