Book picks similar to
The Second Assassin by Christopher Hyde
fiction
thriller
christopher-hyde
historical-fiction
Vanished
Danielle Steel - 1993
Though the couple's lives are filled with secrets, Marielle is a devoted wife and mother, and Malcolm is a man everyone admires.On the eve of Teddy's disappearance, Marielle runs into her first love, American expatriate Charles Delauney. And when Teddy is kidnapped, Charles is first blamed, then arrested. But as the search for Teddy widens, even Marielle is scrutinized by the FBI and special agent John Taylor. Suspicions and accusations mingle with terror and heartbreak as every threat, every failure, every fear, is remembered, examined, explored.During Charles Delauney's trial, a series of revalations begins to unravel the about Marielle, Charles, and Malcolm, uncovering the motives and passions controlling their lives.Vanished is a tale of guilt, desire, suspense, and of people drawn inexorably together, seeking the child who... vanished.
Flower Net
Lisa See - 1997
ambassador's son is discovered entombed in a frozen lake in Beijing. Then the son of a powerful Chinese politician is found dead in the hold of a smuggler's freighter bound for California. The Chinese and American authorities suspect the deaths are linked and, in a rare move, join forces to solve the crime, and soon U.S. District Attorney David Stark is sent across the Pacific to team up with brilliant yet rebellious police detective Liu Hulan. Their investigation takes them into every corner of today's China -- from glitzy karaoke bars, where government leaders and mafia kingpins make their most unsavory deals, to Beijing's labyrinthine hutongs, where working-class Chinese have eked out their livings for centuries.Revealing a China that most Westerners have never seen -- a strange nation at once admirable and frightening -- Flower Net is an utterly original story and one of the most timely, thrilling, and thought-provoking reads from an astonishing new writer."Flower Net is a treat. In this, her debut mystery, Lisa See begins to do for contemporary Beijing what, say, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did for turn-of-the-century London or Dashiell Hammett did for 1920s San Francisco". -- Washington Post
The Girl From Paradise Hill
Susan Lund - 2018
With no crime scenes, no leads and no suspects, the cases have gone cold.Until today.The remains of one missing girl are discovered in a burned-out cabin at a remote campsite, reopening the case and suggesting the worst may be true – a ruthless child killer is operating in Washington State.TESS MCCLINTOCKCrime reporter and amateur cyber-sleuth Tess is obsessed with the cold cases of missing girls in Washington State. As she works to settle her father's estate, she's shaken to her core when she uncovers evidence pointing to his involvement. FBI SPECIAL AGENT MICHAEL CARTEROn leave after solving a particularly heartbreaking case of child abduction and murder for the FBI's Violent Crimes Against Children Task Force, Michael is back in Paradise Hill to recover and visit with family. Despite doctor's orders to stay clear of police work, Michael's drawn back in when Tess asks for his help understanding the secrets found in her father's attic.A RUTHLESS CHILD KILLER Having escaped justice for decades, he's bored and deliberately stirs the pot, revealing one of the dead girl's bodies. Despite hiding in plain sight, no one suspects that he's really a wolf and not the sheep he pretends to be. He sees Tess and Michael's involvement in the case as a challenge and views Tess as a temptation he can't resist.AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR OLD COLD CASEFor Tess and Michael, the cases are personal: Tess's best friend in public school, Lisa Tate, was one of the missing girls from Paradise Hill. Michael was babysitting the night little Lisa vanished. The guilt they harbor over their role in her disappearance drives them both. Desperate for answers, Tess and Michael join forces to track a killer and uncover the secrets Tess finds in her father's attic. Will the answers bring Tess peace or shatter her?THE GIRL FROM PARADISE HILL is the first book in the McClintock-Carter Crime Thriller Series.
The Boys from Brazil
Ira Levin - 1976
Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project—the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed. Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious "Angel of Death"? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings—Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality. At the heart of The Boys from Brazil lies a frightening contemporary nightmare, chilling and all too possible.
Relative Fortunes
Marlowe Benn - 2019
For sophisticated booklover Julia Kydd, life’s too short for politics. With her cropped hair and penchant for independent living, Julia wants only to launch her own new private press. But as a woman, Julia must fight for what’s hers—including the inheritance her estranged half brother, Philip, has challenged, putting her aspirations in jeopardy.When her friend’s sister, Naomi Rankin, dies suddenly of an apparent suicide, Julia is shocked at the wealthy family’s indifference toward the ardent suffragist’s death. Naomi chose poverty and hardship over a submissive marriage and a husband’s control of her money. Now, her death suggests the struggle was more than she could bear.Julia, however, is skeptical. Doubtful of her suspicions, Philip proposes a glib wager: if Julia can prove Naomi was in fact murdered, he’ll drop his claims to her wealth. Julia soon discovers Naomi’s life was as turbulent and enigmatic as her death. And as she gets closer to the truth, Julia sees there’s much more at stake than her inheritance…
The Saboteur
Andrew Gross - 2017
Both the Allies and the Nazis are closing in on attempts to construct the decisive weapon of the war.
Kurt Nordstrum, an engineer in Oslo, puts his life aside to take up arms against the Germans as part of the Norwegian resistance. After the loss of his fiancée, his outfit whittled to shreds, he commandeers a coastal steamer and escapes to England to transmit secret evidence of the Nazis’s progress towards an atomic bomb at an isolated factory in Norway. There, he joins a team of dedicated Norwegians in training in the Scottish Highlands for a mission to disrupt the Nazis’ plans before they advance any further.Parachuted onto the most unforgiving terrain in Europe, braving the fiercest of mountain storms, Nordstrum and his team attempt the most daring raid of the war, targeting the heavily-guarded factory built on a shelf of rock thought to be impregnable, a mission even they know they likely will not survive. Months later, Nordstrum is called upon again to do the impossible, opposed by both elite Nazi soldiers and a long-standing enemy who is now a local collaborator—one man against overwhelming odds, with the fate of the war in the balance, but the choice to act means putting the one person he has a chance to love in peril.Based on the stirring true story, The Saboteur is Andrew Gross’s follow-up to the riveting historical thriller, The One Man. A richly-woven story probing the limits of heroism, sacrifice and determination, The Saboteur portrays a hero who must weigh duty against his heart in order to singlehandedly end the one threat that could alter the course of the war.
The Trinity Six
Charles Cumming - 2011
And people are killing for it… London, 1992. Late one night, Edward Crane, 76, is declared dead at a London hospital. An obituary describes him only as a 'resourceful career diplomat'. But Crane was much more than that – and the circumstances surrounding his death are far from what they seem. Fifteen years later, academic Sam Gaddis needs money. When a journalist friend asks for his help researching a possible sixth member of the notorious Trinity spy ring, Gaddis knows that she's onto a story that could turn his fortunes around. But within hours the journalist is dead, apparently from a heart attack. Taking over her investigation, Gaddis trails a man who claims to know the truth about Edward Crane. Europe still echoes with decades of deadly disinformation on both sides of the Iron Curtain. And as Gaddis follows a series of leads across the continent, he approaches a shocking revelation – one which will rock the foundations of politics from London to Moscow…
The Psalter
Galen Watson - 2012
This time, it leads to a medieval manuscript and murder. Was it an ordinary theft gone wrong or something more? The Carabinieri in Rome would like to know.Michael Romano is an American priest working in the Vatican's Secret Archives with a penchant for stepping over the line. Church Inquisitors have noticed -- and they aren’t happy. Nevertheless, Romano is also the Church’s senior paleographer, an expert in ancient manuscripts, and his expertise is needed to examine a ninth-century codex known as a Psalter.Father Romano’s examination leads him into the past as he uncovers an historical narrative of medieval forgeries, Saracen invasions and a legendary fight for the richest kingdom on earth. Yet he has unwittingly become a target for those who will stop at nothing to possess the secret of the Psalter.*Untraditional Christianity Warning
Two Spies in Caracas
Moisés Naím - 2019
Unknown colonel Hugo Chávez stages an ill-fated coup against a corrupt government, igniting the passions of Venezuela’s poor and catapulting the oil-rich country to international attention. For two rival spies hurriedly dispatched to Caracas—one from Washington, DC, and the other from Fidel Castro’s Cuba—this is a career-defining mission.Smooth-talking Iván Rincón of Cuba’s Intelligence Directorate needs a rebel ally to secure the future of his own country. His job: support Chávez and the revolution by rallying the militants and neutralizing any opposing agents.Meanwhile, the CIA’s Cristina Garza will do everything in her power to cut Chávez’s influence short. Her priority: stabilize the greatest oil reserves on the planet by ferreting out and eliminating Cuba’s principal operative.As Chávez surges to power, Iván’s and Cristina’s paths cross. Soon they’re caught in the fallout of a toxic political time bomb: an intrepid female reporter and unwitting informant, a drug lord and key architect in Chávez’s rise, and Iván and Cristina themselves. With everything at stake, the adversaries find themselves at the center of a game of espionage, seduction, murder, and shifting alliances playing out against the precarious backdrop of a nation in free fall. A thrilling fictional story based on unimaginable real-life events.
Frozen Past
Richard C. Hale - 2012
Eliana is his whole world and for someone his age, the burden is immense. You see, Eliana is being stalked. Stalked by a madman who wants nothing more than to see her dead. The madman knows things that no one should know and sees things that no one should see. He tells them if they say a word to anyone, they will both die. And Luke can’t let that happen. Eliana’s past is catching up with her and Luke must do anything to save her. Anything.
The Kennedy Rifle
J.K. Brandon - 2012
His claim triggers years of research by his son. As a court-certified expert on firearms and ballistics, Michael Cole writes a book about a second Dallas assassin and the weapon likely used. Cole is ridiculed, his reputation nearly destroyed. Finally, with the death of his father and the passing of five decades, Cole abandons his search for the truth. Meanwhile, his book attracts some unwanted attention from those originally involved.One day a woman comes to his office with killer looks and an unbelievable story. Kate Marlowe says she has proof of a JFK assassination conspiracy, that her uncle was bodyguard and driver for the assassin on the Grassy Knoll. After JFK's murder in 1963, he drove to Arizona to lay low and hide the sniper rifle. Now near death, he confesses his crime and the rifle's location to her. Go get the rifle, he tells her. Show the world what really happened. Kate travels to Arizona to enlist the help of Michael Cole and locate the true assassin's rifle.Before they can find it, rumors surface of the Kennedy Rifle and a mysterious auction on the fiftieth anniversary. Billionaire collectors, criminal arms-dealers, and coup d'etat participants join the hunt. Some want the truth, some want the truth buried, but all want the rifle...and Kate and Cole dead. Thanks to the miracle of Kindle publishing, this is a modified version with additional new material and a different ending from the original release.
Ash
Jason Brant - 2013
10:32 AM EST: An entire floor of government agents leap to their death from their office building. 12:57 PM EST: All the police officers inside a station murder each other. And the day has just begun. Lieutenant Asher Benson left Iraq with a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and a Purple Heart. His doctors warned that the symptoms would be life altering. They had no idea. As his body healed, the thoughts of those around him began to echo through Ash’s mind, stretching the boundaries of his sanity. Five years later, Ash is drowning the voices with copious amounts of booze and self-loathing. When unidentified intelligence agents abduct him in broad daylight, Ash is thrust into a world of espionage and assassinations. A unique terrorist is operating on U.S. soil, and the government needs Ash, and the malady that has plagued him for half a decade, to find the killer. *Ash is the first book in the Asher Benson thriller series, which is full of snarky humor and nonstop action.
The Grave Tattoo
Val McDermid - 2006
What she never expected was to find herself at the heart of a 200-year-old mystery that still has the power to put lives on the line. And with each new lead she pursues, death follows hard on her heels….