Book picks similar to
Fifth Column by Christopher Remy


historical-fiction
fiction
world-war-2
wwii

Dark River Road


Virginia Brown - 2011
    Unchallenged, until now.Like everyone else in Cane Creek, Mississippi, Chantry Callahan grew up in the shadow of town boss Bert Quinton. Quinton held the lives of local people in his harsh grasp, never letting go. He knew where all their secrets were buried, along with the bodies of anyone who had dared to defy him.As a boy, Chantry couldn't best Quinton. Couldn't protect the people he loved, including his own mother. But now Chantry is grown. He's come back for answers.And for justice.

Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem


Philip Kerr - 1993
    We first meet ex-policeman Bernie Gunther in 1936, in March Violets (a term of derision which original Nazis used to describe late converts.) The Olympic Games are about to start; some of Bernie's Jewish friends are beginning to realize that they should have left while they could; and Gunther himself has been hired to look into two murders that reach high into the Nazi Party. In The Pale Criminal, it's 1938, and Gunther has been blackmailed into rejoining the police by Heydrich himself. And in A German Requiem, the saddest and most disturbing of the three books, it's 1947 as Gunther stumbles across a nightmare landscape that conceals even more death than he imagines. (For a review of Kerr's latest novel, The Grid, see our Thrillers section.)

The Secrets We Kept


Lara Prescott - 2019
    Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world--using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and under Sally's tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops, and invisibly ferry classified documents.

White Jade


Alex Lukeman - 2011
    WHITE JADE is a fast-paced thriller that spins a web of deceit and murder across the globe, featuring characters caught up in a deadly international power game. Former Recon Marine Nick Carter works for the Project, a covert black ops unit reporting to the President. He's taciturn and tough, with a dark history of emotional and physical scars. Selena Connor is a beautiful, strong and skilled linguist. When her wealthy uncle is murdered by someone looking for an ancient book about the elixir of immortality, she's thrown into Nick's dangerous world. Nick is assigned to protect Selena and help her recover the missing text. The search escalates into a life and death adventure reaching from the gold country of California to the high country of Tibet, from Washington to Beijing. Along the way Nick and Selena begin a relationship forged by danger, combat and betrayal. Someone is out to take over China and attack America--and Nick and Selena are right in the line of fire. International intrigue, terrorist acts, romance, patriotism and the threat of nuclear war form the core of the book, the first volume in a series featuring Nick, Selena, the Project and the ongoing, complex relationship between the main protagonists.

The Titanic Plan


Michael Bockman - 2011
    Pierpont Morgan and a group of Wall Street bankers took direct control of the American economy.100 years ago radical firebrands were conspiring to create a workers revolution.100 years ago the American government was paralyzed by a bitter political struggle.100 years ago a great ship sank on her maiden voyage.They said it was an accident. They said it was an error of judgment.They were wrong.---------------------------------------------------------------On October 16, 1907, the American financial system stood on the brink of collapse after one of the largest investment firms failed because of speculative trading. There was no Federal Reserve to help, no government agencies to prop up the failing institutions. Seeing this as a defining crisis, J. Pierpont Morgan stepped in and organized a consortium of bankers and financiers to support the ailing system until the crisis passed. When it finally did, Morgan vowed that he would do everything in his power to make sure such a calamity never happen again.Set between the years of 1907 to 1912 and inspired by true events, The Titanic Plan tells the story of the many factions of American society as they struggled for power in one of the most dynamic times in the country’s history. The major characters are the giants of that era: capitalists J. Pierpont Morgan, John Astor, William Vanderbilt; labor leaders Big Bill Haywood and Emma Goldman; and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.At the center of it all is Captain Archibald Butt, the Military Aide and close confidant to both Roosevelt and Taft. Captain Butt becomes involved in a deepening intrigue that leads him from the White House, to the anarchist circles in Greenwich Village, to the shadowy halls of the newly created FBI, and finally, to the parlors of the rich and powerful. Amid double-crosses and shifting alliances, Archie Butt witnesses the formulation of a brilliant and dangerous power grab that will lead to the first great disaster of the 20th Century

Disappear


Iain Edward Henn - 2012
    None seem to have aged.On the trail of a vicious killer, Jennifer and homicide detective Neil Lachlan are drawn into a human minefield of deception and terror; into the depths of a mystery that baffles the police and defies logic. Investigating at the forefront of scientific and medical technologies, they confront a threat that is closer than either of them could ever have imagined.

Only the Truth


Adam Croft - 2017
    He travels for work and plays the carefree bachelor when he can. But now, on a solo business trip, in a remote coastal hotel, he’s surprised to find Lisa in his bathroom. She’s dead.He has no idea how she got there but one chilling fact is clear: everything points to Dan having murdered her. Someone is trying to frame him. Someone who might still be watching. In a panic, he goes on the run. But even as he flees across Europe, his unknown enemy stacks up the evidence against him.Dan is determined to clear his name and take revenge on Lisa’s killer, but the culprit is closing in. And then there’s the agony of his own guilty conscience. No, he didn’t kill her—but is it all his fault?

The Ragtime Kid


Larry Karp - 2006
    It’s destiny calling. Asking for ragtime lessons, he’s told, “No, Ragtime is colored music.” So Brun runs away from the family farm to Sedalia, Missouri, to persuade Joplin to take him on as a pupil. What Brun doesn’t expect is to trip over the body of a young woman. He thoughtlessly picks up a couple of items before he rushes away from the murder scene.When Edward Fitzgerald, a man who befriended Brun his first night in town, is arrested for the woman’s murder, Brun is certain he’s innocent. But if the boy shows anyone the things he pocketed at the scene—things he now knows belonged to Scott Joplin—he’ll point the finger at the composer...and himself. Brun decides to get Fitzgerald, Joplin, and himself off the hook by finding the real killer, but for that he eventually needs some help from Dr. Overstreet, the alcoholic town mayor; and John Stark, a man pushing sixty, who’s been employing Brun at his music store.Sedalia is rife with suspects, some of them opportunists bent on stealing Joplin’s music. And then there are the girls and women—mysteries to Brun—like a teenager seized with religious fever, a couple of mischievous prostitutes, and an attractive, ambitious young woman with a hint of scarlet in her past, who further complicate his pursuit of the killer.

The Assiduous Quest of Tobias Hopkins: The Complete Novel


James Faro - 2015
    It is October in the year 1675. New England trader, Tobias Hopkins, arrives in Jamaica to discover the truth about his missing father. It transpires that, not only has the man been dead for six years, but he has left Toby with a half-brother and the clue to an inheritance which promises to change the course of their lives. However, Toby's inquiries have attracted the attention of others who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims. Will the cryptic message written by his father lead him to a promised fortune, or will it lead him into the hands of those who aim to destroy him? Haunted by nightmares from his past, Toby continues with his quest. But who can he trust? His faithful associate, John? the astute businesswoman Elizabeth? or Magdalena, mother of his half-brother Eduardo? Some of those around him are not what they seem to be, and it soon becomes clear that Toby and those closest to him are in imminent danger. His quest leads him to the Island of Nevis where he reaps the fruits of his search. All appears well until he travels to Virginia. It is only at this point that Tobias Hopkins is forced to face the consequence of his actions.

Jack 1939


Francine Mathews - 2012
    Reckless. Brilliant. Deadly. A young Jack Kennedy travels to Europe on a secret mission for Franklin Roosevelt as the world braces for war.It’s the spring of 1939, and the prospect of war in Europe looms large. The United States has no intelligence service. In Washington, D.C., President Franklin Roosevelt may run for an unprecedented third term and needs someone he can trust to find out what the Nazis are up to. His choice: John F. Kennedy.It’s a surprising selection. At twenty-two, Jack Kennedy is the attractive but unpromising second son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Roosevelt’s ambassador to Britain (and occasional political adversary). But when Jack decides to travel through Europe to gather research for his Harvard senior thesis, Roosevelt takes the opportunity to use him as his personal spy. The president’s goal: to stop the flow of German money that has been flooding the United States to buy the 1940 election—an election that Adolf Hitler intends Roosevelt lose.In a deft mosaic of fact and fiction, Francine Mathews has written a gripping espionage tale that explores what might have happened when a young Jack Kennedy is let loose in Europe as the world careens toward war. A potent combination of history and storytelling, Jack 1939 is a sexy, entertaining read.