Lucifer's Shadow


David Hewson - 2001
    An earnest young academic, Daniel has come for a summer job cataloguing a private collector's library. But when Daniel's employer sends him to buy a stolen violin from a petty thief, a chain reaction of violence and deception ignites. Suddenly Daniel is drawn into a police investigation and a tempest swirling around a beautiful woman, a mysterious palazzo, and a lost musical masterpiece dating back centuries. With each step he takes, Daniel unwittingly retraces a journey that began in 1733, when another young man came to Venice. And when, in this realm of intrigue and beauty, two lovers came face-to-face with a killer and a mystery was born. Separated by centuries, two tales of passion, betrayal, and danger collide in David Hewson's dazzling novel. Sweeping us from the intrigue of Vivaldi's Venice to the gritty world of a modern cop, from the genius of a prodigy to the greed of a killer, Lucifer's Shadow builds to a shattering crescendo and one last, breathtaking surprise.From the Hardcover edition.

The Ghosts of Varner Creek


Michael Weems - 2007
    Left with his alcoholic and abusive father, Sol lived his life believing the story he'd been told, the story all the people of Varner Creek believed about what happened that summer. But in a plot of twists and family secrets that will leave the reader reaching for their jaw upon the floor, Sol is taken back to his childhood by the spirits he knew in life when he passes away so many years later . . . it is only then he learns what secrets The Ghosts of Varner Creek have been keeping so many years. "Very well written . . . this debut novel is a real page turner with some very interesting characters."-Jani Brooks, Romance Review Today This was a wonderfully woven story about an American family, their secrets, tragedies, love lost and redeemed. - Goodreads 5 Star Review from Robert Stadnik, author of Exodus Of The Phoenix, Phoenix Among The Stars, and Tales Of A Former Child Superhero. Terrific book! This story was haunting and chilled me to the core. I couldn't read fast enough to find out what happened to the characters. I was definitely hooked from the very beginning. I would recommend this book if you are looking for a great mystery. - Nook 5 Star Review Never anything but page-turning . . . I was hooked on this book right from the start. - Dr. Jon P. Bloch, Professor, Author, and Reviewer for The Kindle Book Review, blog website.

The Boy from Reactor 4


Orest Stelmach - 2011
    An angry, secretive man, he died when she was thirteen, leaving his past shrouded in mystery. When a stranger claims to have known her father during his early years in Eastern Europe, she agrees to meet—only to watch the man shot dead on a city sidewalk. With his last breath, he whispers a cryptic clue, one that will propel Nadia on a high-stakes treasure hunt from New York to her ancestral homeland of Ukraine. There she meets an unlikely ally: Adam, a teenage hockey prodigy who honed his skills on the abandoned cooling ponds of Chernobyl. Physically and emotionally scarred by radiation syndrome, Adam possesses a secret that could change the world—if she can keep him alive long enough to do it. A twisting tale of greed, secrets, and lies, The Boy from Reactor 4 will keep readers guessing until the final heart-stopping page.

The Ark


Boyd Morrison - 2009
    Before he dies in her arms, he gasps a few cryptic words about a vast conspiracy to hide an awesome historical artifact and tells Dilara that the only person who can help her is a decorated former Army combat engineer named Tyler Locke.Two days later, Locke is consulting on a North Atlantic oil platform when a ferry helicopter carrying Dilara suffers a mechanical failure and goes down next to the rig. With only minutes before the survivors freeze to death in the frigid waters, the quick-thinking Locke manages to rescue everyone on board, including Dilara. She tells him that the helicopter crash was no accident. Someone wants to stop her from finding Noah’s Ark.A second attempt on Dilara’s life convinces a skeptical Locke that there is truth to her story. When a movie star’s private jet crashes into the Mojave desert, it proves to be another link to the conspiracy. Locke and Dilara head to Arizona, and their investigation reveals a chilling discovery. A group of religious fanatics has recovered a weapon from the Ark that will let them recreate the effects of the biblical flood and mold the remnants of humanity according to their leader’s twisted vision.Now Locke and Dilara have just seven days to find the Ark and the secret hidden inside before it is used to wipe out civilization again…

Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead


Nick Drake - 2006
    With her husband, Akhenaten, she rules over Egypt, the most affluent, formidable, sophisticated empire in the ancient world. But an epic power struggle is afoot, brought on by the royal couple's inauguration of an enlightened new religion and the construction of a magnificent new capital. The priests are stunned by the abrupt forfeiture of their traditional wealth and influence; the people resent the loss of their gods—and the army is enraged by the growing turbulence around them. Then, just days before the festival that will celebrate the new capital, Nefertiti vanishes.Rahotep, the youngest chief detective in the Thebes division, has earned a reputation for his unorthodox yet effective methods. Entrusted by great Akhenaten himself with a most secret investigation, Rahotep has but ten days to find the missing Queen. If he succeeds, he will bask in the warmth of Akhenaten's favor. But if Rahotep fails, he and his entire family will die.

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

Storm Warning


Jack Higgins - 1976
    The destination was Germany, the route five thousand miles of storm-swept ocean barred by the overwhelming military might of American and British forces - both in the sea and in the air.While the Deutschland and her crew set out on this voyage, Fate moves other parties like chess pieces about the world, in preparation for the final encounter month later off Scotland, on the Outer Hebridean island of Fhada:Janet Munro, an American doctor caught in Europe by the war and now working with air raid victims.her uncle, Rear Admiral Carey Reeve, severely wounded and fretting under the personal order of General Eisenhower that he spend the rest of the war out of the firing line,U-Boat ace Paul Gericke, ordered on a desperate mission to penetrate the Royal Naval installation at Falmouth,Harry Jago and the surviving crew of his gunboat. who have seen action from the Solomons to the English Channel.As the Deutschland struggles north these and others are drawn inexorably together to coincide at that one point on the map: Washington Reef, three miles northwest of Fhada. And then, out of the North Atlantic, the winds start to blow up the storm of the Century.Americans, Germans, Scottsmen, lairds, prisoners, fishwives, admirals - all are there. The presence of each of them has a history that we have followed in parallel with the progress of the barkentine, and now all are drawn together in the desperate struggle against man's oldest and implacable foe - the sea. This is the point at which the enmities of war fade into insignificance.Storm Warning is immensely impressive, both in its grand sweep and its command of detail, in its handling of the interweaving histories of its many fascinating characters, in its sheer powerful storytelling action. It is a compulsively readable, gripping, and moving book.

Closure


Randall Wood - 2009
    Special Agent Jack Randall of the FBI finds himself appointed to track down and stop the shooter. Not by his superiors, but by the killer himself.As more bodies fall the shooter takes his message to the press, earning the support of the public with his choice of targets and confounding the FBI at every turn. From the desert of Nevada to the urban jungle of New York City, Jack and his team follow the trail of bodies and haunting messages left behind by the killer. With the pressure to find him mounting on Jack, the assassin’s crimes grow bolder, and his message more sinister and closer to home.It becomes clear to Jack that in order to find the shooter, he may have to look inside his own past, and become the man he was years ago.

A Raging Storm


Richard Castle - 2012
    Teaming up again with FBI agent April Showers, Storm must talk to Ivan Petrov, a secretive millionaire who has ties to the assassination, coordinates for the gold, and a mole leaking information to the Russian government from within his inner circle. And while the CIA mission is getting heated, it's nothing compared to the growing sexual tension between Storm and Showers...

Don't Try to Find Me


Holly Brown - 2014
    Though the message on the kitchen white board is written in Marley's hand, her mother Rachel knows there has to be some other explanation. Marley would never run away.As the days pass and it sinks in that the impossible has occurred, Rachel and her husband Paul are informed that the police have "limited resources." If they want their 14-year-old daughter back, they will have to find her themselves. Desperation becomes determination when Paul turns to Facebook and Twitter, and launches FindMarley.com.But Marley isn't the only one with secrets.With public exposure comes scrutiny, and when Rachel blows a television interview, the dirty speculation begins. Now, the blogosphere is convinced Rachel is hiding something. It's not what they think; Rachel would never hurt Marley. Not intentionally, anyway. But when it's discovered that she's lied, even to the police, the devoted mother becomes a suspect in Marley's disappearance.Is Marley out there somewhere, watching it all happen, or is the truth something far worse?

Doubt


C.E. Tobisman - 2016
    Right away, her new boss asks her to find out whether a popular GMO causes healthy people to fall ill. Caroline is only supposed to dig in the trenches and report up the ladder, but her tech background and intuition take her further than planned. When she suspects a link between the death of a prominent scientist and the shadowy biotech giant, she cries foul and soon finds herself in the crosshairs. The clock is ticking and thousands of lives are on the line…including her own.Now this rookie lawyer with a troubled past and a penchant for hacking must prove a billion-dollar company is responsible for thousands of deaths…before they come after her.

The Informationist


Taylor Stevens - 2011
    Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle's most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running. After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in Dallas, she's never looked back. Until now."

When Eight Bells Toll


Alistair MacLean - 1966
    The all time classic.Millions of pounds in gold bullion are being pirated in the Irish Sea. Investigations by the British Secret Service, and a sixth sense, have bought Philip Calvert to a bleak, lonely bay in the Western Highlands. But the sleepy atmosphere of Torbay is deceptive. The place is the focal point of many mysterious disappearances. Even the unimaginative Highland Police Sergeant seems to be acting a part. But why?This story is Alistair MacLean at his enthralling best. It has all the edge-of-the-seat suspense, and dry humour that millions of readers have devoured for years.

Sanctus


Simon Toyne - 2011
    This is no ordinary suicide but a symbolic act. And thanks to the media, it is witnessed by the entire world.But few understand it. For charity worker Kathryn Mann and a handful of others in the know, it is what they have been waiting for. The cowled and secretive fanatics that live in the Citadel suspect it could mean the end of everything they have built – and they will kill, torture and break every law to stop that. For Liv Adamsen, New York crime reporter, it begins the next stage of a journey into the heart of her own identity.And at that journey's end lies a discovery that will change EVERYTHING …SANCTUS is an apocalyptic conspiracy thriller like no other – it re-sets the bar for excitement and fascination, and marks the debut of a major talent in Simon Toyne.

The Last Templar


Raymond Khoury - 2005
    The ship vanishes without a trace.In present day Manhattan, four masked horsemen dressed as Templar Knights emerge from Central Park and ride up the Fifth Avenue steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the blacktie opening of a Treasures of the Vatican exhibit. Storming through the crowds, the horsemen brutally attack anyone standing between them and their prize. Attending the gala, archaeologist Tess Chaykin watches in silent terror as the leader of the horsemen hones in on one piece in particular, a strange geared device. He utters a few cryptic Latin words as he takes hold of it with reverence before leading the horsemen out and disappearing into the night.In the aftermath, an FBI investigation is led by anti-terrorist specialist Sean Reilly. Soon, he and Tess are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading Knights, plunging them into a deadly game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers as they race across three continents to recover the lost secret of the Templars.