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The Pakistani Connection by Stuart Craigie
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The Attack
Catherine Jinks - 2021
Her current clients are a group of ex-military men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens.The latest crop looks like the usual mix of bad boys and sad boys. Then Robyn takes a second look at a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him his name was Aaron, and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother.Bruising classroom dynamics, manipulative parents and carers and horrendous small-town politics form the backdrop to a nail-biting thriller in which the tensions of ten years ago start to play themselves out, building to a violent climax in the present day.Robyn escaped the past once. Now it’s back—and this time there’s no way out.
Patriarch Run
Benjamin Dancer - 2014
Bold, beautifully written, and surprising." - Marcus Sakey, bestselling author of THE BRILLIANCE TRILOGYNine years ago, Jack Erikson was deployed to China to protect the United States from a cyberattack. Now, suffering from a drug-induced amnesia, he is unable to recognize his own son. What Jack knows for sure is that an elite group of operators is determined to kill him. What he does not yet remember is that he controls a cyber-weapon powerful enough to return human civilization to the Stone Age. If Jack lives long enough to piece together his mission and his identity, he will be forced to choose between the fate of humankind and that of his own family. Readers of Cormac McCarthy and Peter Heller will appreciate both the suspense and the Western setting. In his thrilling literary debut, Benjamin Dancer also explores the timeless themes of fatherhood and the fraying fabric of global stability."Patriarch Run accomplishes something few thrillers have achieved: it gets the guns right, and it gets the psychology of the gunfight right. Benjamin Dancer writes the gunfight scenes with a realism seldom seen in fiction." —Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author, ON KILLING"Unsparing, violent and cinematic, Patriarch Run starts with a bang and doesn't let up. Benjamin Dancer is an immensely talented writer; his assured, lean prose and stark realism will appeal to fans of Cormac McCarthy and Don Winslow." -A. J. Banner, author, THE GOOD NEIGHBOR"Benjamin Dancer tells a story that moves at breakneck speed and draws you into the mind of a madman. The story is packed with realistic gunfights, and the bad guy presents an apocalyptic vision that haunts us because of how easily his nightmare can become our reality." —Scott Pratt, author, AN INNOCENT CLIENT"A seemingly futuristic story about a new way of warfare, played out against a seemingly futuristic background of disillusioned patriotism, divided personal loyalties, and identity crisis—except Dancer understands that the future is now!” —Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Executive Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, author, BLACKOUT WARS “From the first page, Patriarch Run will hook you, reel you in, pull you out of the pond, and leave you gasping for breath at the bottom of the rowboat!” —Gregory Hill, author, EAST OF DENVER“Benjamin Dancer has illustrated that our greatest villain is overpopulation. Can the global community confront this most daunting adversary--too many people on a limited planet?" —Paul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies Emeritus, President, Center for Conservation Biology“Overpopulation isn't just one more environmental problem: if there weren't so many of us, there wouldn't even be environmental problems. Fortunately, this one is solvable, humanely and surprisingly cheaply. I hope that once the blood from this dark spy saga dries, Dancer's readers are inspired to inquire how. They just might find their hopes rekindled." —Alan Weisman, author, THE WORLD WITHOUT US
Desert Heat (Victor Loshak #4)
L.T. Vargus - 2022
A human body draped over the limbs of a cactus. Sand scouring the naked flesh every time the wind blows.A shocking death launches Special Agent Victor Loshak on a new investigation with an ominous message: They know everything. He heads to Tucson, Arizona, where a recent murder spree seems to be linked to the human trafficking conspiracy he's been working in secret for months.Loshak still has dreams about the Kansas City case. Nightmares about the team of techs peeling up the floorboards in a suburban home. Finding the rotting bodies face down in the muddy earth of the crawlspace. A grisly discovery that ultimately led to more questions than answers.Now he may be closer than ever to solving the puzzle.If you follow the conspiracy rabbit hole all the way down, you eventually reach the bottom.The task force working the desert murders seems oblivious to the conspiracy link, and Loshak must tread lightly. He doesn't know who to trust, what information to share.The tendrils of the human trafficking ring lead in all directions outward from that Kansas City crawlspace. Their influence reaches the highest levels of government and law enforcement. They have eyes and ears everywhere.Even with the complications, the Tucson case slowly unravels the web of connections behind the crimes, both the murders and the conspiracy.Questions get answered. Names and faces are laid bare. Puzzle pieces snapping into place at long last.But the revelations bring about the gravest danger yet.
Perilous Judgment: A Real Justice Thriller
Dennis Ricci - 2016
Nine months into his tenure, he’s received two death threats and is under the protection of US Marshals. But when he receives a plea for help from a woman with whom he had a brief romance twenty-five years earlier, he must face a peril of a different sort, one that involves his long-lost son, Carlos.While working for a bank in his native Mexico, Carlos discovers an international money-laundering scheme. Now he’s on the run from those who want him dead. To get the young man asylum in the United States, Lamport appeals to his highest connections in Washington, only to find puzzling dead ends at every turn. Caught between law and love, he’s forced to take the matter into his own hands. With only his faith in God to guide him, how far is he willing to venture into the dark recesses of political corruption to save his son?
Desert Fire
David Hagberg - 1993
Known as Saddam Hussein's "Jackal," his bloody hit list includes the 1972 Israeli Olympic athletes, the South Yemen cabinet, and the 20,000 slaughtered citizens of Hamma, Syria. Now Assad-Sheriff has been called upon for his most vicious task, acquiring and transporting nuclear technologies for Iraq. When this psychopath takes the life of Sharazad Razmarah, an American citizen working with the German Secret Service, Federal investigator Walter Roemer is set on his trail. Roemer soon discovers that the clandestine operations of the nuclear industry hold many well-guarded secrets, which cannot ever see the light of day. Roemer finds himself battling not only the crazed Assad-Sherif but the German Secret Service, and the clock is ticking: on Assad-Sherif's orders, Iraqi terrorists are heading for Germany's largest nuclear facility . . . with suicidal detonation plans.
The Hunted Assassin
Paul B. Kohler - 2016
His pretense is a disguise. His very existence on Taloo Station is no accident. Martin Wheeler—AKA Jaxon Rasner, is hiding from his past. After nearly a decade of living in obscurity, a team of killers is sent to end his life. Making matters worse, his estranged daughter is brutally abducted. Marked for death, he must return to the life he left behind as he races for survival throughout the Outer Ring, where he has no choice but to embrace the killer within.
False Prophet
Richard Davis - 2016
He will do anything to save himWhen a rogue cult turns deadly, the FBI call on former conman Agent Saul Marshall. FALSE PROPHET introduces a gripping new series from thriller writer Richard DavisMarshall is soon drawn into a cat and mouse chase with the leader of the cult, Ivan Drexler. As the scale of Drexler’s terrorist ambition becomes ever clearer, news arrives that he has taken Marshall’s son hostage. Removed from the line of duty, he must work alone, off-grid.As the attacks intensify, Saul will stop at nothing to defeat Drexler.But the FBI are questioning Saul’s own part in the carnage. He must work fast to save both his country and his life. Can Saul stop the carnage before it’s too late? And can he save his son?As wave after wave of attacks break, the clock is ticking for Saul.Fast-paced, relentless and brutally exciting, FALSE PROPHET marks the entrance of a major new thriller talent. For readers of Lee Child, David Baldacci and Michael Connolly, it will leave your heart pounding.
South of Good (Hardin Steel #1)
Randall Reneau - 2014
Twice divorced, with a bit of a drinking problem, he’s now dating Rory Roughton, a fiery sixth-generation Texan who’s as rich as she is beautiful—and hell-bent on keeping Steel on the straight and narrow. But then his best friend, Wes Stoddard, is nearly shot down flying in a load of pot, Rory is kidnapped by a Russian mercenary working for the most dangerous cartel in Mexico, and the Cuban Mafia decides they’d like the former DEA agent—dead. Steel is forced to take unsanctioned, unconventional—and mostly illegal—action in order to save himself and those closest to him . . .
Secrets of the Kill
Lawrence Kelter - 2014
Mather, who’s spent fighting time in Afghanistan, is a delightful heroine. She gets on well with her live-in love, Liam, a meteorologist, and they both share a cottage in Huntington, with her mother Grace. Chloe’s feisty and smart, and it takes her no time to find out the name of the homicide victim, a young woman whose dismembered torso has been accidentally speared one night by a guy into illegal fishing. It turns out that the woman, Rachel Rabin, was working for Israeli intelligence in an office not far from JFK that fronts as a freight transport business. In reality, the place manages an operation run by The Mob, an exchange program – heroin for guns that are sent to a well-heeled sheik planning to kill thousands of Jews in New York. The most engaging parts of the novel involve put-down exchanges between her and her FBI partner, the fast-mouth, equally funny Dominic Cabrera (he calls her “Gumdrop”) who matches her, insult for insult. No romance, but lots of affection and mutual respect. Meanwhile, another kind of adventure has kicked in: an airplane in distress. The pilot of an incoming Israeli Air Force Gulfstream radios JFK that his co-pilot is ill, but soon he, too, falls unconscious. A lone passenger, a top intelligence agent on his way to find out what happened to Rachel, takes over and lands the plane. These chapters, though exciting, seem removed from the Chloe-centered ones, especially as the narrative becomes more ideological – terrorists vs. Israel. Everything is explained eventually, including some simulation technology. Secrets of the Kill is a fast-moving romp. Kelter, who has a fine comic sense, should roll it out without distraction next time and stay away from international scenarios that in real life often seem stranger – and more “secretive” than fiction. A mutilated body has been discovered; a body not meant to be found, but now that it has, Pandora’s box is open and secrets never to be learned have been revealed. An Israeli woman living in New York has been murdered. She has been raped and butchered; an outrage that ignites a fuse that burns all the way back to Tel Aviv. Enter FBI Agent Chloe Mather, a hard-charging ex-Marine who has no sympathy for the kind of maggot who could commit such a violent atrocity. A veteran of the war in Afghanistan, she was one of the first woman Marines to be deployed into an active combat area. She struggles with PTSD and the consequences of a fatherless childhood, yet this is a woman who accepts no pity and operates according to a moral code that is second to none. She’ll stop at nothing to find the psychopath responsible for this unspeakable crime. In Secrets of the Kill, Mather and this code will face the ultimate test. What begins as a challenging homicide becomes more, much more, and Mather is pulled into an investigation that involves the mob, Israeli intelligence, and a radical terrorist faction. They say that blood is thicker than water but is it thicker than the bonds of patriotism? Mather will ponder this question and many others as she fights to bring an innocent woman’s murderer to justice, and prevent a geopolitical atrocity from taking place on American shores.
Cicada Spring
Christian Galacar - 2015
. .On a warm May evening in the spring of 1979, the people of Heartsridge, Massachusetts, are living the American dream. Families are gathered for barbecues. Kids are playing in front yards. Gardens are being kept. Meanwhile, Kara Price stumbles home through the woods, raped and beaten, her life shattered by a wicked act of violence, perpetrated by one of the town’s most beloved and public figures. Surrounding Kara is a cast of compelling and nefarious characters—a violent-tempered mayor who can do no wrong in the eyes of the town, a sheriff bound by the rules and plagued by a guilty conscience, a father bent on revenge, a serial killer in the midst of an identity crisis. And at the center of it all there's Kara, who just wants to move on with her life and forget everything that happened to her. But how can she do that when everyone thinks she is a liar who is only out for attention? With plot and emotion braided together by a careful hand, this haunted group of people all acting on behalf of their own interests begs the question: How far would you go to protect your own?
The Perfect Couple
Lexi Landsman - 2017
There are secrets in every marriage . . . and some are more dangerous than others.Sarah and Marco Moretti are the perfect couple. Together they have travelled the globe building high-profile careers as archaeologists. Now, at a dig in Florence, they are on the brink of the discovery of a lifetime.However their marriage is not what it seems.On the very evening that Sarah uncovers the San Gennaro necklace – a long-lost antiquity that will bring them worldwide fame - she witnesses Marco kissing another woman. Blinded by tears, she drives home alone in the dead of night . . .When Sarah wakes up in hospital, she has no memory of the car accident that brought her there - or the 48 hours preceding it.Gone is the knowledge of her husband’s infidelity. But gone too is all recollection of finding the precious necklace.And the loss of those two crucial memories will have devastating repercussions…"Memory can be the difference between love and hate, survival and death, forgiveness and revenge."
The Point Man
Steve Englehart - 1981
Now he’s a disc jockey, at one with the music and his faithful audience . . . until the day when he is swept into a battle invisible to all but the participants.For nearly five centuries, Cornelius Agrippa has fought against an evil that has threatened to corrupt and destroy everything good and untainted in the world. Now, Max has joined the battle. It wasn't his idea to fight a demonic entity that can become anything it wants: an undying monster or the most desirable woman in the world. Max has been chosen by fate to fight those who would use magick to destroy freedom and wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world. Along with Agrippa and Valerie Drake, a beautiful, talented singer, Max is the only hope of the free world.
The Darkest Heart
Dan Smith - 2014
But it seems his old life isn't quite done with him yet when he's tasked with making one last kill. It's one that could get him everything he has ever wanted; a house, some land, cash in his pocket, a future for him and his girlfriend, Daniella. But this one isn't like all the others. This one comes at a much higher price.The Darkest Heart is a journey through the shadowy heart of Brazil and the even darker mind of a killer, where fear is a death sentence and the only chance of survival might mean abandoning the only good thing you've ever known.
Waypoint: A Game of Drones
C.F. Waller - 2017
She finds herself clutching a handgun, searching for a sign that tomorrow will be any better than today. At this auspicious moment her cell phone rings, bringing an offer that may postpone her soul searching. The discovery of an airplane graveyard containing a dozen commercial airliners is shocking. When the deep-sea salvage camera’s reveal them to be virtually undamaged under six-thousand feet of water in the Indian Ocean, theories abound. Who put them there? How are they still in one piece? What reason could there be? Stacy is about to learn the answers to those questions, as well things she’d prefer to forget. Along the way, she’ll have to solve this puzzle, and many more to prevent an even larger disaster from happening. This book contains the following: tiny robots, falsified government identification, autonomous drones, ATM malfunctions, mid-air collisions, fear of sharks, Australian bar pranks, pointing guns out the window of a moving plane, video games, Area-51, milk shake do’s and don'ts and everyone’s possible need of at least one good friend. Read at your own risk. C. F. Waller is best known for his award winning science fiction novel Tourists of the Apocalypse. His work has been recognized by Shelf Media Magazine, Indie Excellence, Readers Favorite, McGrath House and recently in the 2017 BGS Pitch Contest. His other Award Winning novels include, South Face (Paranormal), Waypoint (Mystery/Thriller) and Free Dive (Tecno-thriller).
Antioch (The Sword of Agrippa #1)
Gregory Ness - 2014
Join a controversial scientist in exile on a journey through a near future ruled by cyber mobs and a violent ancient past he confronts when he closes in on dark energy discovery. 400 pp. debut multi-genre dystopian sci-fi mixed with historical fiction and elements of alchemy and mysticism that trace back to ancient Egypt.Book Viral, Feb 27, 2017"Antioch is, in every sense of the word, a masterpiece and epic beginning to what will undoubtedly be an epic series and one you must certainly add to your reading shelf. It is recommended without reservation."First Goodreads review of 2nd edition:"Antioch, by Gregory Ness is a masterful piece of writing. I had the opportunity to read an earlier version of this book published in 2014. I considered it a good book at that reading, but now, having just read the 2016 edition, I rate this book as excellent! Without spoiling this beautifully done story, it takes us back and forth between the present, which is some years ahead of contemporary times, and thousands of years into the past, and then rolls us back and forth in an ever-consuming tale between now and then. The detail and imagery laced into the text about ancient Rome and Egypt, as well as Persia and Turkey, and their cultures and people, animates them, as if the reader is walking the stony streets of Alexandria. There is a beautiful love story which transcends time, depiction of brutal wars and great power struggles between Rome, Egypt and others – and the perspective of how Julius Caesar was, as a man, and a leader, makes the history books seem shallow in design. But what really makes this story shine is the way the author draws us into the world of our memories, of past lives we have lived, and the scientific dialogues and intrigue which are unfolding in the now, and how, all of this ties into the grand story which we are reliving thousands of years before when Pharaohs were the most powerful rulers on Earth, when Caesar and his armies marched into Egypt and when the infamous Cleopatra had the two most powerful nations of that time, in the palm of her hands. Antioch makes you think about the nature of who we really are, about the veracity of having lived countless past lives, about the scientific import of a tiny organ in our brain – a portal which not only allows us to interact with the world around us, but quite possibly, is also the very link to our immensely distant past. An entertaining, gripping, beautifully written and highly insightful piece of work."