Book picks similar to
Designated Survivor by John H. Matthews


thriller
fiction
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Fifteen Digits


Nick Santora - 2012
    Five walks of life. Every day they come together at the white shoe law firm Olmstead & Taft. But they’re not lawyers. They’re “Printers”: blue-collar guys consigned to the dark basement of the firm charged with copying, collating and delivering the mountains of paperwork that document millions of dollars of sensitive legal secrets.Until the five are approached by an ambitious young attorney who teaches them what they have: insider information. Together they make a plan: take the classified documents that pass through their hands every day and use them to get rich. They create a joint account to deposit the spoils. An account with a safeguard-each one only knows one section of the access code.Which means that for all five conspirators, there’s no way out. But as too much money piles up to go unnoticed, the Printers will discover there’s one thing even worse than being an outsider: being in too deep.“FIFTEEN DIGITS is a taut, gripping thrill-ride that appeals to the white collar criminal in all of us. I couldn’t put it down.”–Terence Winter, Creator and Executive Producer of Boardwalk Empire, Executive Producer and Writer of The Sopranos“FIFTEEN DIGITS reads like John Grisham and Martin Scorsese’s nasty love child. Brimming with unique, indelible characters, it’s a cautionary tale of greed, jealousy and vice.”–Shawn Ryan, Creator and Executive Producer of The Shield

The Family that Lies


Lakisha Johnson - 2016
    With a father who thought the world of them, life was good. Until one day everything changed. While Grayce got love and attention, Merci got all the hell, forcing her to leave home. She never looks back, putting the past behind her until … her sister shows up over a decade later begging for help, bringing all of the forgotten past with her. Merci wasn't the least bit prepared for what was about to happen next. Merci realizes, she’s been a part of something much bigger than she'd ever imagined. Yea, every family has their secrets, hidden truths and ties but Merci had no idea she’d been born into the family that lies.

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 Keeper's Cup


Ken Fry - 2020
    a story that when revealed, could rock the Christian world?What will powerful factions do to get hold of this information? How will they use it?Near the Qumran Caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, archaeologists unearth scrolls supposedly written by the apostles, Philip and Thomas. And they're telling a different story...Death quickly follows. The Pope funds an excavation team to verify the stories of the apostles. What they discover is a tale buried under Britian's mysterious past. A history that's different from what we know.

Stand By Me!


Sudeep Nagarkar - 2019
    

The Cromwell Deception


John Paul Davis - 2014
    For over four hundred years the Crown jewels of England have been held safely in the Tower of London, yet in the coming days they are removed, never to be seen in public again. Government receipts confirm the jewels have been sold and melted down for mint value.Only one man knows the truth...Present day: In the heart of London, a famous art gallery is robbed in the dead of night. Two paintings are taken: a newly purchased £10million self-portrait of a famous 17th-century artist and a portrait of a Roundhead soldier of moderate fame. For gallery director Gillian McKevitt, news of the theft is an absolute nightmare. Aside from the theft occurring less than two days before the self-portrait's unveiling, CCTV footage suggests the theft was an inside job.As the news sinks in, a surprise revelation from Gillian's predecessor confirms she is dealing with no ordinary theft. One of the portraits contains an unimaginable secret, one with the potential to reveal the whereabouts of a long-lost treasure. With time running out before the grand unveiling, Gillian realises she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. Following the clues revealed by earlier x-ray and infrared examination of the painting, Gillian finds herself in a frantic, and dangerous, race across England and through history as she attempts to track down the thieves before they reach their goal. To succeed, she must not only uncover their identity, but also unearth one of England's best-kept secrets...

Drowning With Others


Linda Keir - 2019
    Did one of them kill to get it?Prep school sweethearts Ian and Andi Copeland are envied by everyone they know. They have successful businesses, a beautiful house in St. Louis, and their eldest daughter, Cassidy, is following in their footsteps by attending prestigious Glenlake Academy. Then, a submerged car is dredged from the bottom of a swimming hole near the campus. So are the remains of a former writer-in-residence who vanished twenty years ago—during Ian and Andi’s senior year.When Cassidy’s journalism class begins investigating the death, Ian and Andi’s high school secrets rise to the surface. Each has a troubled link to the man whose arrival and sudden disappearance once set the school on edge. And each had a reason to want him gone. As Cassidy unwittingly edges closer to the truth, unspoken words, locked away for decades, will force Ian and Andi to question what they really know—about themselves, about the past, and about a marriage built on a murderous lie.

The Camel Club


David Baldacci - 2005
    Led by a mysterious man known as "Oliver Stone," they study conspiracy theories, current events, and the machinations of government to attempt to discover the "truth" behind the country's actions.Their efforts bear little fruit --- until the group witnesses a shocking murder, and becomes embroiled in an astounding, far-reaching conspiracy. Now the Club must join forces with a Secret Service agent to confront one of the most chilling spectacles ever to take place on American soil --- an event that may trigger the ultimate war between two different worlds. All that stands in the way of this apocalypse is five unexpected heroes.Librarian's note: this is one of five volumes in the author's Camel Club series.

Drug Gang


Neil Walker - 2017
     What would you be prepared to do to have everything you ever wanted? How far would you go and where would you draw the line? These are the questions facing John Kennedy in Drug Gang, as he arrives in Manchester in the summer of 2001 and finds the sinister but exciting world of The Brotherhood. If he is prepared to sell drugs, risk his life and commit vicious acts without limits, a life of luxury and huge sums of money can be his. As events spiral out of control, are the money and the glamorous lifestyle enough to keep him locked in a destructive cycle of cruelty and violence?

The Pakistan Conspiracy, A Novel Of Espionage


Francesca Salerno - 2014
    Kate Langley, a CIA officer based in Pakistan, must put her life on the line, for the second time in six months, to prevent AQ from detonating the weapon in a Western city to avenge OBL’s death. The Pakistan Conspiracy, A Novel Of Espionage opens in the tension-fraught days right after the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of SEAL Team Six in Abbottabad. Kate is a young, ambitious CIA agent tethered to a desk at the American Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. Though she had little to do with the action in Abbottabad, Kate finds herself “PNG’d” by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry in the wake of OBL’s death—declared persona non grata in the euphemistic language of diplomacy, for “activities incompatible with diplomatic status,” code words for having been outed as a spy. With Langley soon back in Washington, DC, it becomes apparent that something far worse than 9/11 is on the Al Qaeda drawing boards, now on an accelerated timetable as payback for OBL’s martyrdom. Kate gets wind of Al Qaeda’s purchase of a highly portable tactical nuclear weapon in the former Soviet RA-211 series, a small device, by the standards of nuclear weapons, that can fit in a footlocker. But this bomb has an energy release of 17 kilotons, which is sufficient to turn to dust everything within a radius of 2.5 kilometers. Set off in the center of Manhattan, this weapon would kill millions of people, flatten skyscrapers, and set the entire island aflame. Motivated by ambition and a desire to help her country, Kate Langley soon finds herself back in South Asia, this time not as part of the coddled staff of an American embassy, with perks, diplomatic passport, and a safety net of Marine guards, but as a NOC, or “knock,” spy-speak for a CIA agent under “non-official cover.” If caught, such an agent has no protection whatsoever—other than her wits. From Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Kate Langley is soon on the trail of Yasser Khalidi Al-Greeb, who appears to be the AQ mastermind behind the acquisition of the nuclear weapon. With her sometime ally, Pakistani Brigadier Mahmood Mahmood, Kate Langley tracks the weapon from Moscow, to Tashkent, to Karachi, where Al-Greeb’s terrorist Al Qaeda plotters get the weapon aboard ship smuggled in an intermodal container headed for the Port of Long Beach. This is a story as contemporary as tomorrow’s headlines, as frightening as 9/11, and as compelling and exciting as the very best espionage fiction today.

Brainrush


Richard Bard - 2010
     Before he slid into the MRI machine, Jake Bronson was just an ordinary guy with terminal cancer. But when an earthquake hits during the procedure, Jake staggers from the wreckage a profoundly changed man, now endowed with uncanny mental abilities. An ocean away, Luciano Battista wants a piece of Jake's talent. Posing as a pioneering scientist, the terrorist leader has been conducting cerebral-implant experiments in a sinister quest to create a breed of super jihadist agents...and Jake's altered brain may be the key to his success. But Jake refuses to play the pawn in an unholy war--and when an innocent woman and autistic child are taken hostage to force his cooperation, he embarks on a jihad of his own. Jake and his band of loyal friends are thrust into a deadly chase that leads from the canals of Venice through Monte Carlo and finally to an ancient cavern in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan--where Jake discovers that his newfound talents carry a hidden price that threatens the entire human race.

A Shadow Fell


Patrick Dakin - 2012
    Patrick Dakin once again thrills fans with a tale that is never predictable and is always entertaining.

A Damned Serious Business


Gerald Seymour - 2018
    Massive thefts of personal information, electoral interference, catastrophic disruptio n of commercial and social services, banks, airlines, even whole countries disabled - this is happening now. Nicknamed 'Boot' because of his obsession with the Duke of Wellington and the battle of Waterloo, Edwin Coker is a case officer at the Vauxhall headquarters of MI6. When a young hacker falls into his hands and reveals details of a secret meeting, Boot conceives a daring plan to strike back - not with a computer virus of his own, but with a bomb that will seriously damage the Russian operation, spreading fear and distrust.Now Boot and his little team need a 'deniable' handler to deliver the explosives across the border from Estonia into Russia and bring the hacker back out. They turn to Merc, an ex-soldier fighting in Iraq, a gun-for-hire who knows how to get out of a tight spot. They hope.From the moment Merc sets out to cross the River Narva things do not go to plan and when the hacker's sister becomes involved, his mission turns from tough to near impossible. The scene is set for a classic story of pursuit and evasion and an epic battle for survival.

Lockout


John J. Nance - 2016
    But with puzzled passengers reporting stars on the wrong side and growing alarm over the sudden failure of all their radios – and when armed fighters pull alongside to force them to land – the confused pilots discover that Flight 10 is streaking back toward the hyper-volatile Middle East and there is nothing they can do about it.With an alphabet soup of federal agencies struggling for answers and messages flying between Washington, and Tel Aviv where the flight began, the growing supposition that Flight 10 may be hijacked is fueled by the presence of a feared and hated former head of state sitting in first class, a man with an extreme Mid East agenda who may somehow be responsible for the Airbus A-330’s loss of control. As frantic speculation spreads, the possibility that the unresponsive airliner could be the leading edge of a sophisticated attack on Iran designed to provoke a nuclear response drives increasingly desperate decisions.As time and fuel runs low, flying at full throttle toward a hostile border ahead, Captain Jerry Tollefson and First Officer Dan Horneman have to put their personal animosities aside and risk everything to wrest control from the electronic ghost holding them – and perhaps the world – on a course to certain disaster.And in the “Hole” – as the war room in Tel Aviv is called – the interim Prime Minister of Israel grapples with a horrifying choice in the balance between 300 airborne lives and the probability of nuclear war.

Flight to Redemption


S.L. Menear - 2013
    Note: This story was previously published as Deadstick Dawn and has been subsequently edited by the author.Cleared by the NTSB of any fault when a mid-flight explosion demands a white-knuckle emergency landing of a Boeing jumbo jet, twenty-six-year-old pilot Samantha 'Danger Magnet' Starr heads to the Scottish Highlands for rest and relaxation.But peace and serenity quickly fade when Sam rescues a boy named Charlie from being abducted by a political terrorist organization.Arriving at the nearest police station with the intent of returning Charlie to his powerful and influential father, Sam discovers the police are in cahoots with the abductors, and she's the one being fingered for kidnapping.Now, dodging terrorists, corrupt police, and haunted by her younger brother's kidnapping and murder years prior, Sam will do anything to protect Charlie in a thrilling Flight to Redemption.