Book picks similar to
The Damocles Sword by Elleston Trevor
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Dig Two Graves
Kim Powers - 2015
After a hushed-up scandal over his Olympics win and the death of his wife in a car accident five years ago, Ethan wants nothing more than to forget his past. Skip is not only the light of Ethan's life--she is his life. Then, Skip is kidnapped. A series of bizarre ransom demands start coming in that stretch Ethan's athletic prowess to its limits, and he realizes with growing horror that they are modern versions of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, demanded in tricky, rhyming clues by someone who seems to have followed every step of Ethan's career.
The Frank Peretti Collection: The Oath, The Visitation, and Monster
Frank E. Peretti - 2015
A long forgotten oath. A town with a deadly secret.
Something evil is at work in Hyde River, an isolated mining town in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.Under the cover of darkness, a predator strikes without warning—taking life in the most chilling and savage fashion.The community of Hyde River watches in terror as residents suddenly vanish. Yet, the more locals are pressed for information, the more they close ranks, sworn to secrecy by their forefathers’ hidden sins.Only when Hyde River’s secrets are exposed is the true extent of the danger fully revealed. What the town discovers is something far more deadly than anything they’d imagined. Something that doesn’t just stalk its victims, but has the power to turn hearts black with decay as it slowly fills their souls with darkness.
The Visitation
The sleepy, eastern Washington wheat town of Antioch has become a gateway for the supernatural—from sightings of angels and a weeping crucifix to a self-proclaimed prophet with an astounding message.
The national media and the curious all flock to the little town—a great boon for local business but not for Travis Jordan. The burned-out former pastor has been trying to hide his past in Antioch. Now the whole world is headed to his backyard to find the Messiah, and in the process, every spiritual assumption he has ever held will be challenged. The startling secret behind this visitation ultimately pushes one man into a supernatural confrontation that has eternal consequences.
Monster
Some monsters are real.
Miles away from the hectic city, Reed and Rebecca hike into the beautiful Northwester woods. They are surrounded by gorgeous mountains, waterfalls, and hundreds of acres of unspoiled wilderness.During their first night camping, an unearthly wail pierces the calm of the forest. Then something emerges from the dense woods. Everything that follows is a blur to Reed—except the unforgettable image of a huge creature carrying his wife into the darkness.Enter into deep wilderness where the rules of civilization no longer apply. A world where strange shadows lurk. Where creatures long attributed to overactive imaginations and nightmares are the hunters . . .and people are the hunted.
Hell's Kitchen
Chris Niles - 2001
Vicious, funny stuff."—Andrew Klavan, author of Hunting Down AmandaCyrus is a millionaire recluse. Oh, and a serial killer who preys upon apartment hunters in New York City. Armstead Maupin meets Carl Hiaasen in a brilliant black comedy that traces the paths of disparate characters floating through New York, about to collide in a treacherous story that will make you think twice about ever answering a classified ad.Chris Niles was born in New Zealand, and currently resides in New York. She is the author of a series of mysteries featuring radio reporter Sam Ridley: Spike It, Run Time and Crossing Live.
Mossad Exodus: The Daring Undercover Rescue Of The Lost Jewish Tribe
Gad Shimron - 2007
It was ordered by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin to rescue thousands of Ethiopian Jewish refugees in Sudan and "deliver them to me" in the Jewish state. No stranger to action in enemy countries, the agency established a covert forward base in a deserted holiday village in Sudan, and deployed a handful of operatives to launch and oversee the exodus of the refugees to the Promised Land, by sea and by air, in the early 1980s. Gad Shimron, the author of this book, was one of their number. First published in Hebrew in 1998, this updated English version of the book offers a thrilling firsthand account of how the operation was put in place, and how the Mossad team in Sudan brought it off, despite great personal risk, running a partying vacation spot for wealthy tourists by day as they stole through the Sudanese desert to rescue desperate refugees by night. The book sheds light on American involvement in the latter stages of the operation, when the White House facilitated an airlift of Ethiopian Jews and the CIA station in Khartoum sheltered the last Mossad operatives, on the run from Libyan secret service agents, and spirited them out of Sudan in special boxes labeled Diplomatic Mail. Enhanced by Gad Shimron's wide-ranging historical observations and his crisp, incisive prose, this is at once an entertaining read and a powerful tale of idealistic heroism.
V2: A Novel of World War II
Robert Harris - 2020
Kay Connolly, once an actress, now a young English Intelligence officer, ships out for Belgium to locate the launch sites and neutralize the threat. But when rumors of a defector circulate through the German ranks, Graf becomes a suspect. Unknown to each other, Graf and Connolly find themselves on opposite sides of the hunt for the saboteur. Their twin stories play out against the background of the German missile campaign, one of the most epic and modern but least explored episodes of the Second World War. Their destinies are on a collision course.
The Red Collusion: A Military Thriller
David Yaron - 2019
The leader of the Soviet Union, General Secretary Yermolov, instructs Defense Minister Marshal Budarenko to go on a limited military operation that will put an end to the civilian uprising in some of the Warsaw Pact states. But Marshal Budarenko has other plans.The Marshal, a WWII hero and red-army legend, is a tough, militant man. He begins conspiring behind the USSR leader’s back, forming an intricate scheme that will allow him to move mass armed forces towards West Germany, and beyond.In the face of this emerging threat, the US and NATO allies declare the highest alert level and are left with no choice but to start deploying their nuclear warheads. WWIII seems inevitable.Set against a complex historical background, David Yaron weaves a thrilling, sophisticated story, which seems completely realistic. Yaron's writing is minimalistic yet full of details that only a military expert can recount, keeping the reader in constant suspense.
The Empty Trap
John D. MacDonald - 1957
When he’s hired to build and run the Green Oasis resort, he doesn’t know too much about the pedigree of its owner—and he doesn’t want to. He won’t ask any questions. Just as long as the place is legit and he can run it clean as a whistle. But when trouble checks in, skimming from the casino’s tills is the least of Lloyd’s concerns. The quiet elegance of the hotel lobby turns out to be crawling with contract guns. And after one look from a beautiful woman, Lloyd realizes that he’s about to get some hard answers to the questions he never asked.
Alistair MacLean's Death Train
Alastair MacNeill - 1988
But that wasn't the end of the case. It turned out that only five kegs contained plutonium. The sixth held something even worse. Just as John Gardner has continued the work of Ian Fleming, Alastair MacNeill now maintains the excitement of Alistair Maclean.
Lord of the Atlas
Colin Falconer - 2021
Purely an advisory role, they are told.Harry Delhaze is on a lonely path to self-destruction; George Marriott has promises to keep. It seems to them like the easiest money they’ll ever make.They couldn’t be more wrong.They are forced to battle frostbite in the Atlas Mountains and endure the baking deserts of the sub-Sahara; they are traded, kidnapped, and used as pawns in high-stakes political rivalries; they encounter women who worship cannons for fertility and magician-warlords who talk to the dead and play bloody games of chess with living slaves; and the three muzzle-loading cannon the Sultan has hired them to command are antiques that could explode in their faces at any moment.Then there is the Lord of the Atlas himself, Amastan el-Karim, who harbors a shocking secret that could cost them both their lives – or give one of them a reason to live again.An epic historical adventure that evokes the beautiful and the barbaric of nineteenth century Morocco that transports the reader to a now-lost world of ancient medinas, crumbling palaces, and wild mountain passes.
Waiting for Sunrise
William Boyd - 2012
1913. It is a fine day in August when Lysander Rief, a young English actor, walks through the city to his first appointment with the eminent psychiatrist, Dr. Bensimon. Sitting in the waiting room he is anxiously pondering the nature of his problem when an extraordinary woman enters. She is clearly in distress, but Lysander is immediately drawn to her strange, hazel eyes and her unusual, intense beauty.Later the same day they meet again, and a more composed Hettie Bull introduces herself as an artist and sculptor, and invites Lysander to a party hosted by her lover, the famous painter Udo Hoff. Compelled to attend and unable to resist her electric charm, they begin a passionate love affair. Life in Vienna becomes tinged with the frisson of excitement for Lysander. He meets Sigmund Freud in a café, begins to write a journal, enjoys secret trysts with Hettie and appears to have been cured.London, 1914. War is stirring, and events in Vienna have caught up with Lysander. Unable to live an ordinary life, he is plunged into the dangerous theatre of wartime intelligence – a world of sex, scandal and spies, where lines of truth and deception blur with every waking day. Lysander must now discover the key to a secret code which is threatening Britain’s safety, and use all his skills to keep the murky world of suspicion and betrayal from invading every corner of his life.Moving from Vienna to London’s west end, the battlefields of France and hotel rooms in Geneva, Waiting for Sunrise is a feverish and mesmerising journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller and a literary tour de force from the bestselling author of Any Human Heart, Restless and Ordinary Thunderstorms.
Satori
Don Winslow - 2011
Twenty-six-year-old Nicholai Hel has spent the last three years in solitary confinement at the hands of the Americans. Hel is a master of hoda korosu, or "naked kill," is fluent in seven languages, and has honed extraordinary "proximity sense"-an extra-awareness of the presence of danger. He has the skills to be the world's most fearsome assassin and now the CIA needs him.The Americans offer Hel freedom, money, and a neutral passport in exchange for one small service: to go to Beijing and kill the Soviet Union's commissioner to China. It's almost certainly a suicide mission, but Hel accepts. Now he must survive chaos, violence, suspicion, and betrayal while trying to achieve his ultimate goal of satori-the possibility of true understanding and harmony with the world.
The Masada Complex
Avraham Azrieli - 2010
– President Barack Obama calls America’s alliance with Israel “unshakeable.” The Masada Complex questions this assertion with a realistic political thriller taking place in Arizona, Washington and Jerusalem.The Masada Complex unveils a chilling scenario. Its hero is Masada El-Tal, a beautiful Israeli expatriate, currently an investigative reporter in Arizona. Her exposure of a bribe payment causes a disgraced U.S. senator to commit suicide. Angered by Israel’s supposed culpability, an angry Congress moves to terminate all military aid to the Jewish state. At the same time, someone repeatedly attempts to assassinate Masada, whose relentless investigation becomes a race against time, leading to a shocking discovery and a spectacular climax.
Manuscript 512
Rick Chesler - 2018
Thought to be buried somewhere within the Mato Grosso region of the Amazon rainforest, the lure of the vanished riches has long proven deadly to treasure-seekers who brave the forbidding wilderness and mysterious creatures in search of it. Disgraced historian Dr. Hunter Winslow, fired from a lucrative professorship for stealing rare documents in order to gain a competitive edge over his colleagues, thinks the key to Manuscript 512 lies not in its words, but in its paper itself. The only problem is that to confirm his hypothesis means to destroy the document, something the Brazil National Library in Rio de Janeiro will never allow. But old habits die hard, and Hunter knows his way around a Special Collections room. After a brazen theft that triggers an international manhunt, the rogue historian is able to reveal the document’s secrets in a way no one else can, or ever will be able to again—by using its physical properties to reveal missing sections that had supposedly been irreversibly damaged. Armed with this new information, Hunter embarks on an expedition to the deepest Amazon to put to rest the mystery of the lost city once and for all. But while Hunter is looking for the fabled treasure, the long arm of the law is looking for him. Will they catch up to him before he can locate the treasure of a thousand lifetimes, or will he become as lost as the city he seeks?
Provisionally Yours
Antanas Šileika - 2019
His parents are dead, he hasn’t seen his sister since she was a teenager, and Kaunas has become the political center of the emerging state of Lithuania. He’s barely off the train when he’s recruited back into service, this time for the nascent government eager to secure his loyalty and vast experience. Though the administration may be new, its problems are familiar, and Adamonis quickly finds himself ensnared in a dangerous web of political corruption and personal betrayal.
Spider Shepherd: SAS: Volume 2
Stephen Leather - 2014
The short stories are Personal Protection, The Rope, Planning Pack, Friendly Fire, Dead Drop and Kill Zone and feature Dan "Spider" Shepherd whose adventures have been Sunday Times bestsellers. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He has sold more than a million eBooks and was named by Bookseller magazine as one of the most influential figures in British publishing. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. Two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were made into movies.