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A Delicate Truth
John le Carré - 2013
Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.Cornwall, UK, 2011.A disgraced Special Forces soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to be - or a human tragedy that was ruthlessly covered up?Summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kit's beautiful daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service.If the only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, how can he keep silent?
Cold in July
Joe R. Lansdale - 1990
It's clearly a case of self-defense, but the dead man’s father, Ben Russel, doesn't see it that way. Russel wants to extract Old Testament-style justice: an eye-for-an-eye, a son-for-a-son. Straightforward menace takes a 90-degree turn, though, when certain unexpected truths come to light, and soon Dane and Russel find themselves working together for a common cause. Their investigation puts them at odds with the cops, the Feds, and the Dixie Mafia, but they’re determined to find the answers that lie at the end of a very dark and twisting path.
The Deserter
Nelson DeMille - 2019
But circumstances were murky: Did Mercer desert before he was captured? Then a second video sent to Mercer’s Army commanders leaves no doubt: the trained assassin and keeper of classified Army intelligence has willfully disappeared. When Mercer is spotted a year later in Caracas, Venezuela by an old army buddy, top military brass task Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor of the Criminal Investigation Division to fly to Venezuela and bring Mercer back to America—dead or alive. Brodie knows this is a difficult mission, made more difficult by his new partner’s inexperience and by his suspicion that Maggie Taylor is reporting to the CIA. With ripped-from-the-headlines appeal, an exotic and dangerous locale, and the hairpin twists and inimitable humor that are signature DeMille, The Deserter is the first in a timely and thrilling new series from an unbeatable team of True Masters: the #1 New York Times bestseller Nelson DeMille and his son, award-winning screenwriter Alex DeMille.
Things in Jars
Jess Kidd - 2019
Luckily, her search is aided by an enchanting cast of characters, including a seven-foot tall housemaid; a melancholic, tattoo-covered ghost; and an avuncular apothecary. But secrets abound in this foggy underworld where spectacle is king and nothing is quite what it seems.Blending darkness and light, history and folklore, Things in Jars is a spellbinding Gothic mystery that collapses the boundary between fact and fairy tale to stunning effect and explores what it means to be human in inhumane times.
The History of Things to Come
Duncan Simpson - 2015
In his possession is a notebook once belonging to Isaac Newton. This is just the latest in a series of shocking crimes connected to objects once belonging to the famous scientist. The police are stumped and the pressure for an arrest is mounting. Enter Vincent Blake, London's leading stolen-art investigator. As Blake sets out to solve the case, a series of devastating events threaten to destroy everything he holds dear. Broken but undeterred, he comes upon a shocking discovery: within the coded pages of a mysterious crimson book, annotated in Newton’s own handwriting, is an explosive revelation. Possessing this secret knowledge turns Blake into a marked man. Caught in the crosshairs of two sadistic hitmen, Blake is propelled into a breathtaking race through London and its dark historical secrets. With time running out, will Blake solve Newton’s deadly puzzle before the world is plunged into a catastrophe of biblical proportions?
The Alchemist's Daughter
Mary Lawrence - 2015
. . .Bianca Goddard employs her knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants to concoct remedies for the disease-riddled poor in London’s squalid Southwark slum. But when her friend Jolyn comes to her complaining of severe stomach pains, Bianca’s prescription seems to kill her on the spot. Recovering from her shock, Bianca suspects Jolyn may have been poisoned before coming to her—but the local constable is not so easily convinced.To clear her name and keep her neck free of the gallows, Bianca must apply her knowledge of the healing arts to deduce exactly how her friend was murdered and by whom—before she herself falls victim to a similar fate.
Stateline
Dave Stanton - 2013
The groom is dead. When a tycoon’s son is murdered the night before his wedding, the grief-stricken father offers private detective Dan Reno a life-changing bounty to find the killer.Reno, nearly broke, thinks he’s finally found himself in the right place at the right time. But when a band of crooked cops get involved, Reno finds himself fighting for his life.Who committed the murder, and why? Which cops can he trust, if any?Haunted by his murdered father and a violent past, Reno wants no more blood on his hands. But a man’s got to make a living, and backing off is not in his DNA.Traversing the snowy alpine winter in the Sierras and the lonely deserts of Nevada, Reno must revert to his old ways to survive. Because the bounty won’t do him much good if he’s dead.
Only Killers and Thieves
Paul Howarth - 2018
When the rain finally comes, it’s a miracle. For a moment, the scrubland flourishes and the remote swimming hole fills. Returning home from an afternoon swim, fourteen-year-old Tommy and sixteen-year-old Billy McBride discover a scene of heartbreaking carnage: their dogs dead in the yard, their hardworking father and mother shot to death, and their precocious younger sister unconscious and severely bleeding from a wound to her gut. The boys believe the killer is their former Aboriginal stockman, and, desperate to save Mary, they rush her to John Sullivan, the wealthiest landowner in the region and their father’s former employer, who promises to take care of them.Eager for retribution, the distraught brothers fall sway to Sullivan, who persuades them to join his posse led by the Queensland Native Police, an infamous arm of British colonial power whose sole purpose is the “dispersal” of indigenous Australians to “protect” settler rights. The group is led by the intimidating inspector Edmund Noone, a dangerous and pragmatic officer whose intellect and ruthlessness both fascinates and unnerves the watchful Tommy. Riding for days across the barren outback, the group is determined to find the perpetrators they insist are guilty, for reasons neither of the brothers truly understands. It is a harsh and horrifying journey that will have a devastating impact on Tommy, tormenting him for the rest of his life—and hold enduring consequences for a young country struggling to come into its own.Set in a period of Australian and British history as raw and relevant as that of the wild frontier of nineteenth-century America, Only Killers and Thieves is an unforgettable story of family, guilt, empire, race, manhood, and faith that combines the insightfulness of Philipp Meyer’s The Son with the atmospheric beauty of Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist and the raw storytelling power of Ian McGuire’s The North Water.
Too Bad to Die
Francine Mathews - 2015
November, 1943. Weary of his deskbound status in the Royal Navy, intelligence officer Ian Fleming spends his spare time spinning stories in his head that are much more exciting than his own life...until the critical Tehran Conference, when Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin meet to finalize the D-Day invasion.With the Big Three in one place, Fleming is tipped off that Hitler's top assassin has infiltrated the conference. Seizing his chance to play a part in a real-life action story, Fleming goes undercover to stop the Nazi killer. Between martinis with beautiful women, he survives brutal attacks and meets a seductive Soviet spy who may know more than Fleming realizes. As he works to uncover the truth and unmask the assassin, Fleming is forced to accept that betrayal sometimes comes from the most unexpected quarters--and that one's literary creations may prove eerily close to one's own life.Brilliantly inventive, utterly gripping and suspenseful, Too Bad to Die is Francine Mathews's best novel yet, and confirms her place as a master of historical fiction.
Tabula Rasa
Kristen Lippert-Martin - 2014
Maybe I’m here because I’m a murderer.Sarah has a rare chance at a new life. That’s what the doctors tell her. She is undergoing a cutting-edge procedure that will render her a tabula rasa—a blank slate. Her troubled past is being removed memory by memory.But when her final surgery is interrupted and a team of elite soldiers invades the isolated hospital under the cover of a blizzard, their mission is clear: wipe Sarah out of existence.Why would they bother with a teen delinquent unless there’s something more to her past? Something someone doesn’t want to ever see the light of day?Familiar halls become a dangerous maze as Sarah teams up with a computer hacker who’s determined to bring down the hospital for his own reasons. The two try to piece together who she is and why someone wants her erased.And this time she won’t be silenced.
Darkness
Karen Robards - 2016
That's the sound that changes everything for Dr. Gina Sullivan, a renowned ornithologist on a group research grant trip on the remote island of Attu, Alaska. When an everyday outing turns sinister at the onset of one of Attu's infamous storms, Gina expects thunder and lightning - but what she doesn't see coming is the small jet plane that drops out of the sky and into the water mere feet from her boat. Even more unprecedented: there's a sole survivor from the crash, and he needs Gina's help. But it turns out that rescuing the stranger and getting them both out of the oncoming storm is just the beginning. Because the more Gina learns about James "Cal" Callahan, he of brooding eyes and muscled frame, the more she fears - for herself, and for him.Cal has made a career of trading on government secrets and emerging unscathed - until a routine pickup goes horribly wrong and lands him in ice-cold water. Literally. He knows the plane crash was no accident and that there could very well be an enemy force currently combing the Alaskan island, ensuring there were no survivors. Now if only the arrestingly beautiful bird-watcher with the clear-blue gaze would stop watching him, well, like a hawk. Cal convinces Gina to return to base camp and help him covertly get off the island. But when Gina makes it safely back to camp and finds her entire team murdered, all bets are off, and as darkness envelops the island, she must decide: trust a man she barely knows, or go it alone and risk running straight into the arms of a killer?New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and "master of romantic suspense" (Booklist) Karen Robards does it again with this atmospheric, tightly wound thriller that will keep you spellbound until the very last page.
The Paragon Hotel
Lyndsay Faye - 2019
Desperate to get as far away as possible from New York City and those who want her dead, she has her sights set on Oregon: a distant frontier that seems the end of the line.She befriends Max, a black Pullman porter who reminds her achingly of Harlem, who leads Alice to the Paragon Hotel upon arrival in Portland. Her unlikely sanctuary turns out to be the only all-black hotel in the city, and its lodgers seem unduly terrified of a white woman on the premises. But as she meets the churlish Dr. Pendleton, the stately Mavereen, and the unforgettable club chanteuse Blossom Fontaine, she begins to understand the reason for their dread. The Ku Klux Klan has arrived in Portland in fearful numbers–burning crosses, inciting violence, electing officials, and brutalizing blacks. And only Alice, along with her new “family” of Paragon residents, are willing to search for a missing mulatto child who has mysteriously vanished into the Oregon woods.Why was “Nobody” Alice James forced to escape Harlem? Why do the Paragon’s denizens live in fear–and what other sins are they hiding? Where did the orphaned child who went missing from the hotel, Davy Lee, come from in the first place? And, perhaps most important, why does Blossom DuBois seem to be at the very center of this tangled web?
The Wicked We Have Done
Sarah Harian - 2014
After committing a terrible crime, Evalyn Ibarra receives a ticket out of her prison sentence by participating in a top-secret experiment. Even with the risk of death, all she cares about is reclaiming the life she had before—her career, her art, and her love.Her cell bed is the last thing she remembers before waking to wilderness.There are others in these woods, criminals like her who volunteered for the experiment. Clues left behind at abandoned camps spell out their task: survive for thirty days.Evalyn’s best bet is to band with the others, but she’s not about to trust any of them, not when illusions of their gruesome crimes start manifesting in the forest like waking dreams.But when the illusions turn violent and begin to kill, she may not have a choice.
American Assassin
Vince Flynn - 2010
He trains six months intensely with other clandestine operatives, under CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield and protégé Irene Kennedy, to stop terrorists before they reach America. The assassin leaves a trail of bodies from Istanbul across Europe to Beirut, where he needs every ounce of skill and cunning to survive the war-ravaged city and its deadly terrorist factions.