Conspiracy in Kiev


Noel Hynd - 2008
    Or can she? While on loan from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Alex is tapped to accompany a Secret Service team during an American Presidential visit to Ukraine. Her assignment: to keep personal watch over Yuri Federov, the most charming and most notorious gangster in the region. Against her better judgment—and fighting a feeling that she’s being manipulated—she leaves for Ukraine. But there are more parts to this dangerous mission than anyone suspects, and connecting the dots takes Alex across three continents and through some life-altering discoveries about herself, her work, her faith, and her future. Conspiracy in Kiev—from the first double-cross to the stunning final pages—is the kind of solid, fast-paced espionage thriller only Noel Hynd can write. For those who have never read Noel Hynd, this first book in The Russian Trilogy is the perfect place to start.

While You Sleep


Stephanie Merritt - 2018
    A century ago, a young widow and her son died mysteriously there; just last year a local boy, visiting for a dare, disappeared without a trace.For Zoe Adams, newly arrived from America, the house offers a refuge from her failing marriage. But her peaceful retreat is disrupted by strange and disturbing events: night-time intrusions; unknown voices; a constant sense of being watched.The locals want her to believe that these incidents are echoes of the McBrides' dark past. Zoe is convinced the danger is closer at hand, and all-too-real – but can she uncover the truth before she is silenced?

Ice


Kevin Tinto - 2015
    While twisting through one of the narrow underground passageways, Leah’s flashlight illuminates the remains of a violent massacre. Ancient human remains—all slaughtered in a long-ago massacre—cover the cavern floor, along with a number of brilliantly colored, granite crystals. The rare crystals are native to only one place on earth: a frozen mountain range in central Antarctica. Could Native Americans have traveled to the frozen continent of Antarctica 800 years prior to the first known human exploration? If so how? And why? There’s only one person who can get Leah to those mountains in Antarctica: her estranged husband and climbing guide Jack Hobson. At their destination they make a stunning discovery that will change history and science forever. But Leah’s team is far from the only interested party. As her secret makes its way to the highest levels of government, a race to seize the Russian-claimed Antarctic territory brings the world to the brink of nuclear conflict.

The 500


Matthew Quirk - 2012
    Their specialty: pulling strings and peddling influence for the five hundred most powerful people inside the Beltway, the men and women who really run Washington -- and by extension the country, and the world. The namesake of the firm, Henry Davies, knows everyone who matters; more importantly, he knows their secrets. Davies' experience goes back 40 years -- he worked for Lyndon Johnson, jumped shipped to Nixon, then put out his own shingle as the Hill's most cut-throat and expensive fixer. Now he's looking for a protégé to tackle his most high-stakes deal yet, and Mike fits the bill. Quickly pulled into a seductive, dangerous web of power and corruption, Mike struggles to find his way out. But how do you save your soul when you've made a deal with the devil?

Koko


Peter Straub - 1988
    Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They are Vietnam vets a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take them from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York, hunting someone from the past who has risen from the darkness to kill and kill and kill.

A Memory Of Demons


David Ambrose - 2003
    But Tom's demons return with a vengeance as he discovers the baby is possessed by the spirit of another girl, who went missing 10 years ago - the night Tom had his last drug-fuelled blackout.

One More Day


Kelly Simmons - 2016
    It's unthinkable, the stuff of nightmares. But when she turns her back to pay a parking meter, Carrie Morgan becomes that mother. Ben is gone, and more than a year later, it's clear that he is never coming back.Until he does...for just twenty-four hours, before once again vanishing from his crib without a trace. Rumors start to circulate through Carrie's small town. Whispers that she's seeing things. That her alibi doesn't quite add up.Her husband and friends start to think she's crazy. The police start to think she's guilty. As the investigation heats up, Carrie must decide what to share, and why. Because the crime is about to be solved... and her secret revealed.

The Warehouse


Rob Hart - 2019
    It’s a place to live. And when you’re here, you’ll never want to leave.Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities. But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices, and vast warehouses…well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering. Zinnia never thought she’d be infiltrating Cloud. But now she’s undercover, inside the walls, risking it all to ferret out the company’s darkest secrets. And Paxton, with his ordinary little hopes and fears? He just might make the perfect pawn. If she can bear to sacrifice him. As the truth about Cloud unfolds, Zinnia must gamble everything on a desperate scheme—one that risks both their lives, even as it forces Paxton to question everything about the world he’s so carefully assembled here. Together, they’ll learn just how far the company will go…to make the world a better place. Set in the confines of a corporate panopticon that’s at once brilliantly imagined and terrifyingly real, The Warehouse is a near-future thriller about what happens when Big Brother meets Big Business--and who will pay the ultimate price.

Private Screening


Richard North Patterson - 1985
    When fiercely independent attorney Tony Lord defends the assassin of a presidential candidate, he becomes the target of a mysterious madman plotting the ultimate act of high-tech terror on America's airwaves.

Abduction


Robin Cook - 2000
    A mysterious transmission from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean leads a crew of divers and oceanographers to investigate a phenomenon beyond scientific understanding....And to the discovery that will permanently change everything we have previously come to know about life on this Earth.

Love You More


Lisa Gardner - 2011
    His wife, state police trooper Tessa Leoni, claims to have shot him in self-defense, and bears the bruises to back up her tale. For veteran detective D. D. Warren it should be an open-and-shut case. But where is their six-year-old daughter?As the homicide investigation ratchets into a frantic statewide search for a missing child, D. D. Warren must partner with former lover Bobby Dodge to break through the blue wall of police brotherhood, seeking to understand the inner workings of a trooper’s mind while also unearthing family secrets. Would a trained police officer truly shoot her own husband? And would a mother harm her own child? For Tessa Leoni, the worst has not yet happened. She is walking a tightrope, with nowhere to turn, no one to trust, as the clock ticks down to a terrifying deadline. She has one goal in sight, and she will use every ounce of her training, every trick at her disposal, to do what must be done. No sacrifice is too great, no action unthinkable. A mother knows who she loves. And all others will be made to pay.

Ashes


Scott Nicholson - 2010
    The afterword explains where the ideas for the stories came from.

Madness in the Ruins


John A. Connell - 2015
    The only clue, a message, “Those who I have made suffer will become saints and they shall lift me up from hell.” Winter, 1945. Munich is in ruins. Though the war is over, murder still flourishes.U.S. Army investigator Mason Collins enforces the law in the American Zone of Occupation. This post is his last chance to do what he loves most—being a homicide detective.But he gets more than he’s bargained for when the bodies start piling up, the city devolves into panic, and the army brass start breathing down his neck.Then the murderer makes him a target. Now it's a high-stakes duel, and to win it Mason must bring into deadly play all that he values: his partner, his career—even his life.

Zodiac


Neal Stephenson - 1988
    He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil -- all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long Taylor's house is bombed, his every move followed, he's adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI's most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate. Closing the case with the aid of his burnout roomate, his tofu-eating comrades, three major networks, and a range of unconventional weaponry, Sangamon Taylor pulls off the most startling caper in Boston Harbor since the Tea Party. As he navigates this ecological thriller with hardboiled wit and the biggest outboard motor he can get his hands on, Taylor reveals himself as one of the last of the white-hatted good guys in a very toxic world.

Angelmaker


Nick Harkaway - 2012
    The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun...