Book picks similar to
The Metronome by D.R. Bell
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mystery
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The 13th Enumeration
William Struse - 2012
For the next nineteen centuries, this list becomes one of the most disputed texts of the New Testament and the basis for one of the most important biblical secrets of all time. The 13th Enumeration is the key to that forgotten secret.Darius Zaridast, CEO of Aquarius Elemental Solutions, is on a quest to destroy those he believes are responsible for the death of his father and the status of his homeland, Persia, as a third-world dictatorship ruled by religious fanatics. Darius finds evidence that this group, which he calls the Order, is also part of a centuries-old conspiracy to keep the secret of the 13th Enumeration. This secret, he learns, is their greatest fear because it is the key to information that could destroy them.His research into this secretive group of people is compiled in a dossier he calls FILE-13. Darius believes some of history's most influential men are somehow connected to the secret:*Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most influential scientists of all time, spent a good portion of his life looking for a hidden biblical code.*Charles Thomson, one of only two signers of the original Declaration of Independence, was responsible for the most notorious symbol in American history. This symbol, known by only a few, is a key to the secret.*William Frishmuth, a German chemist and secret agent for Abraham Lincoln, was so valued for his services he was paid two hundred dollars from Abraham Lincoln's private purse. *William Colgate of Colgate/Palmolive, one of America's early entrepreneurs, owned a building which featured an unsolved brick symbol--a symbol which today is known as the "American Da Vinci Code." This cipher holds the key to the forgotten secret.*Sir Robert Anderson, commissioner of Scotland Yard during the Ripper murders, almost discovered the secret.*Benjamin Franklin, writer, inventor, philosopher, and statesman, may have been involved in guarding this ancient knowledge.As Darius's plot for revenge matures, he initiates the most devastating attack in the history of New York's financial district. With Manhattan Island a ghost town, Darius uses the ensuing events to perpetrate the greatest financial manipulation of all time. Just when he has the world convinced he is its savior, Darius Zarindast destroys his entire corporate empire, causing the largest financial meltdown in history. He has finally realized his revenge. The only bitterness in his cup of retribution is his inability to solve the secret of the 13th Enumeration.In this battlefield of revenge, conspiracy, and superstition, an archeological discovery is made in Capernaum, Israel--a discovery which will forever change the way the prophecies of the Bible are understood. Zane Harrison, a dig volunteer, and Rachael Neumann, daughter of the director of Israeli Antiquities, unwittingly stumble upon an incredible treasure of artifacts. Their find leads to the rediscovery of the 13th Enumeration. They soon learn their discovery is the key to a mathematical cipher found in the very first chapter of the New Testament, an ancient code which has profound implications regarding the status of Jesus Christ as the biblical Messiah. The unearthing of this ancient secret places them directly in the crosshairs of the Order. Will they be able to share their discovery with the world before the Order destroys the evidence and once again erases all knowledge of the 13th Enumeration from the pages of history?The 13th Enumeration is a thrilling page-turner which weaves little-known historical and biblical facts into a plot that could have been taken from today's headlines. The explosive conclusions of this story will leave the secular and Christian reader alike wondering if this is really a work of fiction--or the greatest discovery of our generation.
The Gemini Effect
Chuck Grossart - 2012
By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop.As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens.
The Gemini Effect was originally published as The Mengele Effect. This edition has been completely edited and revised, including significant plot changes.
Leaving Berlin
Joseph Kanon - 2014
Almost four years after the war’s end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a defiant, blockaded city is barely surviving on airlifted supplies; in the East, the heady early days of political reconstruction are being undermined by the murky compromises of the Cold War. Espionage, like the black market, is a fact of life. Even culture has become a battleground, with German intellectuals being lured back from exile to add credibility to the competing sectors.Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the cross-hairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong. A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he discovers his real assignment — to spy on the woman he left behind, the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our moral boundaries? At betrayal? Survival? Murder?Joseph Kanon’s compelling thriller is a love story that brilliantly brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.
Mr. Sandman
Lyle Howard - 1995
What is the mystery that Lance Cutter’s DNA is hiding? Whatever the secret is, they had it, they lost it, and now they will do anything to get it back...
Time is running out.
Lance Cutter is born out of a horrific experiment by a deranged scientist. Presumed dead in an explosion at birth, Lance and his mother create a quiet, normal life. But what is normal for others is not so for Lance. He is faster, smarter and more agile than other children. When Lance and his mother go to Washington seeking answers, they are greeted by deadly force. Barely escaping the clutches of government agents, the plane they are traveling on crashes into the icy Potomac river. Thought dead for the second time in his life, Lance grows up and finds a quiet, secluded existence working as an arson investigator in Florida. But when innocent people begin to spontaneously combust, Lance must use all of his extraordinary talents to stop the deranged killer.Cutter now finds himself front page news. It’s these headlines that will finally bring him face to face with the truth about his birthright and put him in a life and death struggle to survive.
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A Patriot's Betrayal
Andrew Clawson - 2012
Parker realizes that his death was far more than a robbery gone bad, and soon finds himself pursued by the very men who killed his uncle. Joined by his brilliant ex-girlfriend, Parker fights to stay one step ahead of a shadowy organization hell-bent on silencing him forever.Desperate to discover why his uncle died, Parker realizes that he had uncovered information about a centuries old mystery involving America's Founding Fathers. Soon both the CIA and police join the death-dealing group of murders in the chase to capture Parker, who must run for his life while unraveling the greatest conspiracy in American history.
The Fourth Descendant
Allison Maruska - 2015
All she has to do is find a century-old key. Three others – a guitarist, an engineer, and a retiree – receive similar calls. Each family possesses a key to a four-lock safe found buried in a Virginia courthouse, though their connection is as mysterious as the safe itself. Their ancestors should not have interacted, had no apparent reason to bury the safe, and should not have disappeared thereafter. Bearing their keys, Michelle and the other descendants converge in the courthouse basement and open the safe, revealing the truth about their ancestors - a truth stranger, more deadly, and potentially more world-changing than any of them could have imagined. Now it’s up to them to keep their discovery out of the wrong hands. “I rarely read a story that I can’t wait to get back to, and this was one. It’s full of drama and suspense. It’s fresh and new, something very much needed, and it’s totally unpredictable." - John Darryl Winston, author of IA: Initiate
Winter Men
Jesper Bugge Kold - 2014
Karl, a former soldier and successful businessman, dutifully answers the call to defend his country, while contemplative academic Gerhard is coerced into informing for the Gestapo. Soon the brothers are serving in the SS, and as Hitler’s hateful agenda brings about unspeakable atrocities, they find themselves with innocent blood on their hands.Following Germany’s eventual defeat, Karl and Gerhard are haunted by their insurmountable guilt, and each seeks a way to escape from wounds that will never heal. They survived the war and its revelation of systematic horrors, but can they survive the unshakable knowledge of their own culpability?
One Small Sacrifice
Hilary Davidson - 2019
A mysterious disappearance. Did one man get away with murder—twice?NYPD detective Sheryn Sterling has had her eye on Alex Traynor ever since his friend Cori fell to her death under suspicious circumstances a year ago. Cori’s death was ruled a suicide, but Sheryn thinks Alex—a wartime photojournalist suffering from PTSD—got away with murder.When Alex’s fiancée, Emily, a talented and beloved local doctor, suddenly goes missing, Sheryn suspects that Alex is again at the center of a sticky case. Sheryn dislikes loose ends, and Cori’s death had way too many of them.But as Sheryn starts pulling at the threads in this web, her whole theory unravels. Everyone involved remembers the night Cori died differently—and the truth about her death could be the key to solving Emily’s disappearance.
The Netherfield Affair: A Dark Darcy Mystery
Penelope Swan - 2015
Could the rumours about the country manor being haunted be true? Then a midnight encounter with a tall, dark stranger thrusts Elizabeth straight into the path of scandal and danger. As she races to unravel the mystery, she finds unexpected assistance from the handsome but arrogant Mr Darcy. Is such a proud, reserved man to be trusted?A romantic Regency mystery inspired by Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice! This is the first book in the Dark Darcy Mysteries - a Pride and Prejudice variation combining mystery and romance. * Each book in this series features a standalone mystery which is resolved, but the overall story of Darcy and Elizabeth's courtship is told over the 4 books of the series.- The Netherfield Affair (Book 1)- Intrigue at the Ball (Book 2)- The Poisoned Proposal (Book 3)- Secrets at Pemberley (Book 4)
The Northminster Mysteries Books 1-3
Harriet Smart - 2018
Northminster, 1840: a once-picturesque cathedral city, where dirty smoke stacks now rival ancient spires. Here, young Scottish surgeon Felix Carswell and Chief Constable Major Giles Vernon are tasked to uncover the truth in three complex tales of murder and detection set in Early Victorian England. The Butchered Man When workmen make the shocking discovery of a mutilated corpse in a ditch outside the ancient walls, Giles Vernon and Felix Carswell are charged with solving the case. Intelligent and practical, Chief Constable Major Vernon has transformed the old city watch into a modern police force, and he throws himself into the investigation with the same energy. But as he probes a murky world of professional gamblers and jilted lovers, he is drawn into a dangerous emotional game that threatens to undermine his authority. Newly-qualified police surgeon Felix Carswell is determined to make his way in the world on his own terms despite being the bastard son of prominent local grandee Lord Rothborough. Called to treat a girl in an asylum for reformed prostitutes, what he uncovers there brings him into conflict with his new employer, Vernon, and throws the case into disarray. Together they must overcome their differences and find the brutal truth behind the mystery of The Butchered Man. The Dead Songbird “Death is too good for a whore like you. But He may show you mercy yet. BE PREPARED” Celebrated singer Anna Morgan has come to Northminster to escape a troubled past and sing at the city’s Handel Festival. But when she continues to receive the poisonous letters that have been plaguing her, she turns to Chief Constable Major Giles Vernon and Police Surgeon Felix Carswell to find her persecutor, drawing the two men into her charismatic orbit. At the same time a talented young tenor is found dead in curious circumstances in a locked chapel, and the hunt for a murderer is on. Together, Vernon and Carswell must untangle the web of secrets that surround the dead man, uncovering a Northminster that throbs with clandestine passions and thwarted desires, a world of illegal pornographic books and risqué theatricals. The Shadowcutter Police surgeon Felix Carswell has joined Major Giles Vernon and his convalescent wife, Laura, for a few days in the elegant spa town of Stanegate – it’s a welcome holiday from the summer stench of Northminster. But no sooner has he arrived than a Spanish colonial gentleman, dying of consumption, requires his urgent care, while Major Vernon is called away to Lord Rothborough’s country house, where a lady’s maid has been found drowned in a secluded pool. Major Vernon investigates above and below stairs in the great house, assisted by Lord Rothborough’s eldest daughter, Lady Charlotte. When a quantity of valuable jewellery is found missing, the cause of the dead maid’s death only becomes more mysterious. Meanwhile, when his patient dies in his arms after confiding a secret, Carswell is drawn into baffling intrigues involving the government-in-exile of the dead man’s homeland, the Caribbean island of Santa Magdalena.
I Will Never Leave You
S.M. Thayer - 2018
Banking heiress Trish and her husband, James, seem to have it all, from a lavish lifestyle to a historic mansion in the nation’s capital. All that’s missing from their privileged life is a baby.So when Trish sees Anne Elise for the first time, it’s no surprise that she falls deeply in love. There’s just one problem: Trish isn’t the mother. The baby belongs to Laurel, James’s young mistress. And James and Laurel want the wife out of the picture.When Trish becomes perversely obsessed with making Laurel’s baby her own, the lovers come up with a wicked plan to end James’s marriage that quickly goes awry. As the love triangle becomes more and more dangerous, how far is each of them willing to go to get what they want?
Regarding Anna
Florence Osmund - 2015
When certain clues draw her to a boardinghouse once owned by Anna Vargas, she becomes convinced that Anna was her real mother. She believes the boardinghouse walls have been harboring vital secrets for years, but when she meets up with the cantankerous old woman who had bought the place after Anna’s death, she questions whether she’ll ever be able to peel back all the layers surrounding her parentage.The lies and deceit that Grace unearths in her pursuit to validate her identity are shocking, complicated, and not all buried in the past. Does this force Grace to back down, or just heighten her determination uncover the whole truth?
Blue Fall
B.B. Griffith - 2011
Day after day, he slogs through the same routine. Until the day he gets handed a case that pulls him into an underground world of political conspiracy, intrigue, and blood sport known only as the tournament.The powerful patrons of the tournament pit teams of three against one another in a global war game using state-of-the-art weaponry. Shadowy sponsors use the competition to settle outrageous wagers. The tournament is constrained by no laws and has only one real rule: it must stay secret.Greer Nichols manages the USA team and has watched them develop intense rivalries with other teams over the years. Part of his job is to keep the game underground, but that's easier said than done when his players are willing to do anything to win. Even if it means getting loud.The world Frank lives in and the world Greer lives in couldn't be farther apart, but Frank will soon find himself on a collision course with the tournament… at a time when the tournament is primed to ignite.
An Untimely Death
Blythe Baker - 2020
Discovering who killed the quarrelsome Colonel will require joining forces with the victim’s attractive nephew, Jerome Townson, but is the charming Mr. Townson hiding darker motives than anyone guesses?A formidable dowager, an incompetent Chief Constable, and a host of greedy relations become obstacles in Anna’s search for the truth. Will the head butler and the other inscrutable household servants become her allies? Or will Anna face her ultimate fate – and a ruthless killer – alone?
The Kabbalistic Murder Code
Nathan Erez - 2005
It incorporates two seemingly unconnected elements: a string of strange murders and the deciphering of ancient Kabbalistic texts, along with their hidden and mystical meanings.A professor from Jerusalem, an expert in decoding ancient Hebrew manuscripts, is hired to carry out a mysterious task, one that sends him to three continents. He becomes entangled in a web of murders that leave him deeply puzzled. However, he quickly discovers that if he does not succeed in deciphering the enigmatic manuscripts, through his in-depth knowledge of Kabbalah, the lives of many people - including his own family - will be endangered.Interwoven within this exciting tale are curious passages reviewing the many conquests that the city of Jerusalem has endured during its long history. Their relevance and significance become clear only at the end of the book.The Kabbalistic Murder Code is an exciting and fast-paced thriller. Thanks to its unique structure and enriching subject matter (the secret wisdom of Kabbalah), you simply cannot put it down. The drama’s surprising solution integrates Kabbalistic elements and weaves the whole to a magical picture, leaving the reader almost breathless. It has been translated to date into four languages.
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