Book picks similar to
Dillinger by Harry Patterson
fiction
jack-higgins
thriller
historical-fiction
The Violent Enemy
Hugh Marlowe - 1966
A seductively beautiful woman, and the dream of a perfect escape… Many lives had been sacrificed for the Irish cause, but legendary freedom fighter Colum O’Mare, ageing and critically illl, was ready to gamble once more for a last devastating strike. Which is why Sean Rogan, soldier of the Irish Republican Army gets all the help he needs to break out of a mainland security prison. An escape into a nightmare beyond anyone’s control…
Bloody Passage
James Graham - 1974
But when the Mafia kidnaps his sister, his life is turned upside down and he agrees to complete a dangerous assignment for the powerful mob boss Dimitri Stavrou in order to gain her freedom: Grant must save Stavrou’s son from a secret cliff-top prison in Libya. To accomplish this mission, he must scale the rocky crag and somehow get Stavrou’s son out alive. His sister’s life—and his own—hang in the balance.
The Plantation
Chris Kuzneski - 2000
But these aren’t random kidnappings. They’re crimes of passion,planned and researched several months in advance, then executed with a singular objective in mind. Revenge.Ariane Walker is one of the victims, dragged from her apartment with few clues to follow. The police said there’s little they can do for her, but that isn’t good enough for her boyfriend, Jonathon Payne.With the help of his best friend (David Jones), Payne gives chase, hoping that a lead in New Orleans somehow pays off. Together, they uncover the mystery of Ariane’s abduction and the truth behind the South’s most violent secret.
The Bormann Testament
Martin Fallon - 1962
He knows that if he's being called into action, a job has gone bad --- and it's about to get a lot worse.As Hitler's private secretary --- and an influential member of the Third Reich --- Martin Bormann was one of those rare Nazis who managed to simply disappear at the end of World War II. But the terrible secrets Bormann carried into oblivion are about to be revealed to the world. A manuscript that exposes former Nazis, who are now in hiding, is up for grabs, and there are those in power who have much to lose with its discovery.Now, Chavasse must retrieve the Bormann testament before it is buried forever --- and him along with it ...
Memoirs of a Dance-Hall Romeo
Jack Higgins - 1989
He longed to sell his first novel, leave his teaching post at a dangerous slum school--and explore the mysteries of women. A lusty novel of a man in love with life's infinite possibilities.
The Scarlatti Inheritance
Robert Ludlum - 1971
But his defection entails the release of the ultra-top-secret file on the Scarlatti Inheritance - a file whose contents will destroy many of the Western world's greatest and most illustrious reputations if they are made known...THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE is a spellbinding story of international terror and intrigue, greed and cunning, suspense and murder.
Honor Among Thieves
Jeffrey Archer - 1993
- While the Clinton Administration grapples with its domestic policies, a sinister plot is being masterminded six thousand miles away in Baghdad. By using $100 million as bait and spinning a deadly web of corruption, forgery, and terror, Saddam Hussein seeks to embarrass the U.S. with the ultimate revenge: to steal a treasured historical document and then destroy it before the world's media-on July 4, 1994.As the countdown to Independence Day begins, two agents stand in the way of his nearly flawless plan: Scott Bradley, a rising star in the CIA who is desperate to prove his patriotism, and Hannah Kopec, the stunning Mossad operative who has already lost o much that she fears nothing and trusts no one. Their unrelenting quest to prevent what would undoubtedly be the most humiliating day in U.S. history takes them across four continents and climaxes in a dramatic, triple-twist ending.Ingeniously plotted and as up-to-the-minute as today's headlines, Honor Among Thieves resonates with the brilliant pace that is the trademark of master storyteller Jeffrey Archer.
Serpent
Clive Cussler - 1999
But few know that within its bowels rests a priceless pre-Columbian antiquity—a treasure that now holds the key to a puzzle that is costing people their lives. For Kurt Austin, the leader of a courageous National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) exploration team, the killing begins when he makes a daring rescue of a beautiful marine archaeologist. The target of a powerful Texas industrialist named Halcon, Nina Kirov was attacked off the coast of Morocco after her discovery of a carved stone head that may prove Christopher Columbus was not the first European to discover America.Soon Kurt and Nina embark on a deadly mission to uncover Halcon's masterful plan—an insidious scheme that would have him carve out a new nation from the southwest United States and Mexico, and ride to power on a wave of death and destruction. With Austin's elite NUMA crew attacking the murderous conspiracy from different sides, an extraordinary truth emerges; that Columbus may have made a fifth, unknown voyage to America in search of a magnificent treasure. And that the silent, steel hull of the Andrea Doria not only holds the answer to what the explorer may have found—but the fate of the United States itself.
The Book of Fate
Brad Meltzer - 2006
None of us knew it was coming."So says Wes Holloway, a young presidential aide, about the day he put Ron Boyle, the chief executive's oldest friend, into the president's limousine. By the trip's end, a crazed assassin would permanently disfigure Wes and kill Boyle. Now, eight years later, Boyle has been spotted alive. Trying to figure out what really happened takes Wes back into disturbing secrets buried in Freemason history, a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, and a two-hundred-year-old code invented by Thomas Jefferson that conceals secrets worth dying for.
The Hammer of Eden
Ken Follett - 1993
Crackerjack young FBI agent Judy Maddox is assigned to track down the elusive, sinister group called the "Hammer of Eden."Judy's boss, who has a grudge against her, thinks he has given her a waste-of-time assignment. But Judy's research leads her to maverick seismologist Michael Quercus, who gives her the shocking news that it might just be possible for an earthquake to be deliberately triggered. And when a tremor in a remote California desert shows evidence of being machine-generated, Judy knows the threat is terrifyingly real.Suddenly in charge of a life-or-death investigation, Judy must pinpoint the terrorists' next target, with the help of the erratic but attractive Michael. Their compelling romantic drama is played out as they race to beat the terrorist deadline and prevent an unthinkable disaster.Unknown to them, Michael's estranged wife, gorgeous but angry, has fallen under the spell of a clever, sexy cult leader called Priest -- and they have stolen from Michael's computer the key data that enables the Hammer of Eden to carry out their cataclysmic threat. Worse still, Michael's son is with his wife -- and under the control of Priest. All of them are in mortal jeopardy as Judy and Michael fight to save San Francisco from being brought down in ruins.Ken Follett became a best-selling author in 1978 with the publication of "Eye of the Needle, " which won the Edgar award and became a major motion picture. He has sincewritten numerous other best-selling thrillers and historical novels, including "The Third Twin, " and "A Place Called Freedom."
10 lb Penalty
Dick Francis - 1997
At 18, the reserved Benedict is asked by his father to enter into a pact: Neither of the two will do anything that could somehow hinder or destroy George's blossoming political career. Young Benedict, who has no stronger ambition than to ride steeplechase as an amateur jockey, agrees to the pact, without possibly knowing what lies ahead. Twelve years pass, and Ben has since abandoned his dream of making a career on the racetrack. Like his father, Ben enters the political arena, becoming George Juliard's closest ally and most trusted confidant as he makes his move to become prime minister. However, Ben suddenly finds himself the target of a fierce attack brought on by his father's brutally ambitious enemies. Through his son, George Juliard is discredited and destroyed just as he makes his drive for the prime ministership, leading Ben into an existence of treachery and lies. As these events unfold, Ben quickly realizes that it is his responsibility to protect his father's career as well as his own, but more important, he must protect their lives. Like past Francis books, 10 LB. Penalty is a masterfully plotted mystery that also examines the power of family and the bond between father and son.
Altar of Eden
James Rollins - 2009
. . and armed men are seen looting the city zoo. Amid a hail of bullets, a concealed underground lab is ransacked--and something horrific is set loose upon the world.Seven years later, Louisiana state veterinarian Lorna Polk investigates an abandoned shipwrecked fishing trawler carrying exotic caged animals, part of a black market smuggling ring. But there is something disturbingly wrong with these beasts--each an unsettling mutation of the natural order, all sharing one uncanny trait: incredibly heightened intelligence.Joining forces with U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jack Menard--a man who shares with her a dark and bloody past--Lorna sets out to uncover the truth about this strange cargo and the terrorist threat it poses. Because a beast escaped the shipwreck and is running amok--and what is about to be born upon the altar of Eden could threaten not only the future of the world but the very foundation of what it means to be human.
The Columbus Affair
Steve Berry - 2012
But when one of his stories from the Middle East is exposed as a fraud, his professional reputation crashes and burns. Now he lives in virtual exile—haunted by bad decisions and a shocking truth he can never prove: that his downfall was a deliberate act of sabotage by an unknown enemy. But before Sagan can end his torment with the squeeze of a trigger, fate intervenes in the form of an enigmatic stranger. This stranger forces Sagan to act—and his actions attract the attention of the Magellan Billet, a top-secret corps of the United States Justice Department that deals with America’s most sensitive investigations. Sagan suddenly finds himself caught in an international incident, the repercussions of which will shudder not only Washington, D.C., but also Jerusalem. Coaxed into a deadly cat-and-mouse game, unsure who’s friend and who’s foe, Sagan is forced to Vienna, Prague, then finally into the Blue Mountains of Jamaica—where his survival hinges on his rewriting everything we know about Christopher Columbus.
Breathless
Dean Koontz - 2009
That night, through the trees, under the moon, a pair of singular animals will watch Grady's isolated home, waiting to make their approach. A few miles away, Camillia Rivers, a local veterinarian, begins to unravel the threads of a puzzle that will bring all the forces of a government in peril to her door. At a nearby farm, long-estranged identical twins come together to begin a descent into darkness…In Las Vegas, a specialist in chaos theory probes the boundaries of the unknowable…On a Seattle golf course, two men make matter-of-fact arrangements for murder…Along a highway by the sea, a vagrant scarred by the past begins a trek toward his destiny… In a novel that is at once wholly of our time and timeless, fearless and funny, Dean Koontz takes readers into the moment between one turn of the world and the next, across the border between knowing and mystery. It is a journey that will leave all who take it Breathless.
Deep Down
Lee Child - 2012
The assignment that awaits him: The army is meeting with its Capitol Hill paymasters for classified talks on a new, state-of-the-art sniper rifle for U.S. forces. But vital details about the weapon are leaking—straight from the Capitol and probably into the hands of unidentified foreign arms dealers. The prospect of any and every terrorist, mercenary, or dictator’s militia getting their hands on the latest superior firepower is unthinkable. That’s where Reacher comes in. His task: infiltrate the top-secret proceedings and smoke out the mole. His target: a quartet of high-powered Army political liaison officers—all of them fast-track women on their way to the top. According to his bosses, it’s a zero-danger mission. No need to draw a gun . . . just chat over drinks. But Reacher knows that things are rarely what they seem. And he’s learned the hard way never to underestimate an opponent. Or four. Lessons that will come in handy when he starts digging for the truth—and gets his hands a lot dirtier than he expected.