Book picks similar to
The Vets by Stephen Leather


stephen-leather
fiction
thriller
thrillers

City of Gold


Len Deighton - 1992
    Here in a hotbed of corruption, espionage, and profiteering, the war will reach a turning point and the future of the free world will be decided. Captain Bert Cutler, late of the Glasgow police, has been brought to Egypt with one purpose: to find Rommel's spy and plug the remarkable leak of exact intelligence that is making the Axis advance toward Cairo unstoppable. In a heady atmosphere of social gaiety, explosive politics, black marketeering, and sudden violence, Alice Stanhope, the beautiful young aristocrat with a well-connected mother in Alexandria; Prince Plotr, the aging Tsarist; Peggy West, the handsome British nurse awaiting her husband's return from a distant secret mission; exquisite Zeinab el-Shazil and her handsome brother, Sayed; Solomon al Masri, the wily arms dealer; Wally Wallingford, the reckless adventurer with his Independent Desert Teams; and a host of others will be ensnared in the tangled web of intrigue. From the formal headquarters of British Intelligence through the ancient streets of Cairo to bohemian soirees at the Hotel Magnifico...from a flamboyant houseboat on the Nile to remote desert villages and the shell-shattered wastes of the Sahara, Bert Cutler must pursue his clever and elusive prey. Even as the odds against the Allies escalate and the only victory possible must be snatched from the jaws of defeat, he dreams of a life with the lovely Alice, keenly aware that he himself is not what he seems. He is a man caught in a strange twist of fate...a man playing a brilliant charade. He is a man who has attended an inquiry into his own death and may yet live to face a charge of murder. Seizing a crucial moment of history and bringing it vividly to life in all its drama, irony, and ambiguity, Len Deighton has created a brilliant and compelling thriller that will grab you on the first page and hold you spellbound to the very end.

Deep Fathom


James Rollins - 2001
    Solar flares have triggered a series of gargantuan natural disasters. Earth-quakes and hellfire rock the globe. Air Force One has vanished from the skies with America's president on board.Now, with the United States on the narrow brink of a nuclear apocalypse, Kirkland must pilot his oceangoing exploration ship, Deep Fathom, on a desperate mission miles below the ocean's surface. There, devastating secrets await him--and a power an ancient civilization could not contain that has been cast out into modern day, where it will forever alter a world that's already racing toward its own destruction.

Skinner


Charlie Huston - 2013
    To touch anyone under his protection was to invite destruction. A savagely effective methodology, until Skinner's CIA handlers began to fear him as much as his enemies did and banished him to the hinterlands of the intelligence community. Now, an ornate and evolving cyber-terrorist attack is about to end that long exile. His asset is Jae, a roboticist with a gift for seeing the underlying systems violently shaping a new era of global guerrilla warfare. At the root of it all is a young boy, the innocent seed of a plot grown in the slums of Mumbai. Brought to flower, that plot will tip the balance of world power in a perilous new direction. A combination of Le Carre spycraft with Stephenson techno-philosophy from the novelist hailed by the Washington Post as "the voice of twenty-first century crime fiction," Skinner is Charlie Huston's masterpiece -- a new kind of thriller for a new kind of world.

The Fighting Man


Gerald Seymour - 1994
    Now in a self-imposed exile, he is recruited by a group looking for a fighting man to help in their uprising against the dictatorship in one of the world's most oppressed countries. Brown finds his past and future irreversibly entwined as he is plunged into a war without mercy. HC: HarperCollins.

The Target H


Lionel Derrick - 2000
    heroin trade. Mark Hardin... He'd learned how in Vietnam: Infiltrate the enemy's position, determine the plan of action and then strike swiftly, taking out as many key men as possible, wreaking destruction, leaving chaos in your wake. He is a new breed of warrior, without uniform, without rank - dedicated to the American way of life, and pledged to fight anyone who seeks to destroy it. On either side of the law. That's why he's in Los Angeles. Just the beginning of a long and lonely series of brush fire wars.

Secret Sanction


Brian Haig - 2001
    When the legal maverick is assigned by the top brass to investigate a Bosnian massacre in which a Green Beret A-team and the Kosovo Liberation Army detachment they were "advising" got trapped behind Serbian lines, he gets the subtext that's part of his orders. What the Army doesn't need are headlines about the cold-blooded execution of 35 Serbian soldiers, and they're counting on Drummond to clean things up fast, before a public scandal blows dirt all over their medals. Drummond is provided with two associates to help with the investigation: an attractive young woman captain who's a Harvard Law School graduate, and an equally illustrious Judge Army General's Corps lawyer whose reputation precedes him.Once Drummond and his team get to Bosnia, it's clear that the accused Green Berets have their own cover-up going, and they're not going to make it easy for the lawyers to figure out what happened. Drummond has a few tricks up his own sleeve, and when he finds out that his CO has put a spy on his team, he's even more determined to get to the bottom of what really went on, even if he has to bully his way out of a murder frame-up to do it. The moral dilemma Drummond faces when he learns the real story (and understands why the Army is so desperate to keep the cover-up going) reveals the man behind the maverick, and lifts Brian Haig's novel a cut above the genre. Haig might have spent more time making his secondary characters as interesting as his protagonist and tightened up his narrative. Still, fans of military thrillers will find this a good enough read.

The Prometheus Crisis


Thomas N. Scortia - 1975
    Momentarily, the President of the United States is going to announce to the nation that Prometheus has been activated and that this country has the solution to the energy crisis within its grasp. But deep within the reactor's central core, the factor of human error sparks that one chance in 300,000,000: Prometheus unleashes a hideous nuclear holocaust that no one can reverse.

Pirate Latitudes


Michael Crichton - 2009
    Port Royal, Jamaica′s capital, a cut-throat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses, is devoid of London′s luxuries; life here can end swiftly with dysentery or a dagger in your back. But for Captain Charles Hunter it is a life that can also lead to riches, if he abides by the island′s code. In the name of His Majesty King Charles II of England, gold in Spanish hands is gold for the taking. And law in the New World is made by those who take it into their hands.Word in port is that the Spanish treasure galleon El Trinidad, fresh from New Spain, is stalled in nearby Matanceros harbor awaiting repairs. Heavily fortified, the impregnable Spanish outpost is guarded by the blood-swiller Cazalla, a favorite commander of King Philip IV himself. With the governor′s backing, Hunter assembles a roughneck crew to infiltrate the enemy island and commandeer the galleon, along with its fortune in Spanish gold. The raid is as perilous as the bloody legends of Matanceros suggest, and Hunter will lose more than one man before he finds himself on the island′s shores, where dense jungle and the firepower of Spanish infantry are all that stand between him and the treasure.With the help of his cunning crew, Hunter hijacks El Trinidad and escapes the deadly clutches of Cazalla, leaving plenty of carnage in his wake. But his troubles have just begun. . . .

Eye of the Storm


Jack Higgins - 1992
    Now Dillon is a terrorist for hire, a master of disguise employed by Saddam Hussein. Brosnan is the one man who knows Dillon’s strengths and weaknesses … and brilliant mastery of espionage. — Once friends, now enemies, they are playing the deadliest game of their careers. A game that culminates in a frightening -- and true -- event: Iraq’s attempted mortar attack on the British war cabinet at 10 Downing Street in February 1991.

Mary Higgins Clark: Three Complete Novels: Where are the Children / A Stranger is Watching / The Cradle Will Fall


Mary Higgins Clark - 1995
    Includes The Cradle Will Fall, A Stranger is Watching, and Where are the Children? She's the world's leading mystery writer, and her millions of fans will be eagerly awaiting this new collection. 608 pages.

The Sanctuary


Raymond Khoury - 2007
    In the dead of night, three men with swords burst into the bed chamber of the Marquis de Montferrat. Their leader, Raimundo di Sangro – the Prince of San Severo – accuses him of being an imposter, and demands to know a secret he believes the marquis harbors. The false marquis resists and manages to escape, leaving behind a burning palazzo and a raging prince now obsessed with finding his quarry – and his secret – at any cost.Baghdad, 2003. An army unit tracking Saddam’s cronies stages a spectacular raid on a fortified villa and makes a horrifying discovery in its basement: a state- of-the-art, concealed lab where dozens—men, women, children—have died, the subjects of gruesome experiments. The mysterious scientist they were after, a man believed to be working on a bioweapon and known only as the hakeem—the doctor—escapes, taking with him the startling truth about his work. In one of his victims’ cells, a puzzling clue is left behind: an Ouroboros – the tail devourer – a circular symbol of a snake that’s feeding on its own tail.As the power of the symbol comes to light, revealing the centuries of mystery and pain left in its wake, one unsuspecting woman – Mia Bishop, a geneticist – stands at the center of a conspiracy that could change the world forever. From Baghdad to the chaos of a Beirut still reeling from a fresh war in the fall of 2006, to the lost villages of eastern Turkey and northern Iraq by way of epic chapters set in eighteenth century Europe, and in the masterful hands of international bestseller Raymond Khoury, The Sanctuary delivers the same rapid-fire suspense and provocative scholarship that made The Last Templar an international blockbuster.

The Manuscript


Russell Blake - 2011
    This first book, The Manuscript, chronicles the saga of NY private eye Michael Derrigan, as he unwittingly comes into possession of a manuscript that will change the world order if its secrets are aired. Clandestine factions of the U.S. government will do anything to keep the story buried, and a trail of butchery follows Derrigan as he races for his life in a chase that takes him from New York, to Mexico, to Havana. An epic roller-coaster ride of a thriller, The Delphi Chronicle's unflinching and often disturbing twists and turns question the nature of reality and of the integrity of our governments in a post-modern world of lies, deceit and betrayal.

The Face of Fear


Brian Coffey - 1977
    With a beautiful, terrified woman. On the 40th floor of a deserted office building. By the psyshopath they call "The Butcher."DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause you're an ex-mountain climber. Because a fall from Everest left you with a bad leg... and a paralyzing fear of heights.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause he has slaughtered the guards and short-circuited the elevators. Because the stairways are blocked, and for you and the woman with you, there's only one escape route.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause 600 feet of empty space are looking back at you."A real breath-taker... should hold you glued to its pages till the wee small hours." --West Coast Review of Books

The Final Detail / Just One Look


Harlan Coben
    

Heartbreaker


Robert Ferrigno - 1999
    Meanwhile, an L.A. playboy beds a gorgeous redhead and wakes up with a psychopath trying to kill him. Neither Val nor Kilo know it yet, but they are on a collision course with a sexy marine biologist and one lethally dysfunctional family in this "dark, comic tour de force" (James Ellroy).