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Casino Royale
Ian Fleming - 1953
007, is sent to France to play in a high-stakes baccarat game in an effort to take down Le Chiffre, a financier for the villainous SMERSH. Things get more complicated when he is partnered with Vesper Lynd, a beautiful and smart MI6 employee with a dark secret. Bond is one of the most iconic characters in 20th-century literature. In addition to the 12 novels and 9 short stories written by Ian Fleming, there have been over 40 novels and short stories written about the spy by other authors, and over 25 blockbuster films starring such actors as Sean Connery and Daniel Craig.Here's the first.
Mayday
Nelson DeMille - 1979
The flight crew is crippled or dead. Now, defying both nature and man, three survivors must achieve the impossible. Land the plane. From master storyteller Nelson DeMille and master pilot Thomas Block comes Mayday, the classic bestseller that packs a supersonic shock at every turn of the page....the most terrifyingly realistic air disaster thriller ever. Like a growing tidal wave, the escaping air was gathering momentum. A teenaged girl in aisle 18, seat D, near the port-side aisle, her seat dislocated by the original impact, suddenly found herself gripping her seat track on the floor, her overturned seat still strapped to her body. The seatbelt failed and the seat shot down the aisle. She lost her grip and was dragged after it. Her eyes were filled with horror as she dug her nails into the carpet, as the racing air pulled her toward the yawning hole that led outside. Her cries were unheard by even those passengers who sat barely inches away from her struggle. The noise of the escaping air was so loud that it was no longer decipherable as sound, but seemed instead a solid thing pounding at the people in their seats......
The Intern's Handbook
Shane Kuhn - 2014
That’s the mantra behind HR, Inc., an elite "placement agency" that doubles as a network of assassins-for-hire, taking down high-profile executives who wouldn't be able to remember an intern’s name if their lives depended on it.At the ripe old age of twenty-five, John Lago is already New York City’s most successful hit man. He’s also an intern at a prestigious Manhattan law firm, clocking eighty hours a week getting coffee, answering phones, and doing all the grunt work no one else wants to do. But he isn't trying to claw his way to the top of the corporate food chain. He was hired to assassinate one of the firm’s heavily guarded partners. His internship is the perfect cover, enabling him to gather intel and gain access in order to pull off a clean, untraceable hit.The Intern’s Handbook is John Lago's unofficial survival guide for new recruits at HR, Inc. (Rule #4: "Learn how to make the perfect cup of coffee: you make an exec the best coffee he’s ever had, and he will make sure you’re at his desk every morning for a repeat performance. That’s repetitive exposure, which begets access and trust. 44% of my kills came from my superior coffee-making abilities.")Part confessional, part how-to, the handbook chronicles John’s final assignment, a twisted thrill ride in which he is pitted against the toughest—and sexiest—adversary he’s ever faced: Alice, an FBI agent assigned to take down the same law partner he’s been assigned to kill.
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.
Sphinx
Robin Cook - 1979
Innocently she cast her eyes in forbidden places and discovered the clue to a treasure beyond imagination. It was then that terror overtook her, as the most fearful curse of the ancient world and the most savage menace of the modern one threatened to destroy her. One dangerously attractive man offered Erica help...he offered her protection...he offered her love. And in this strange, exotic land of seductive evils, where no one could be trusted, desire became for Erica the deadliest snare of all...
The Kill Clause
Gregg Andrew Hurwitz - 2003
marshal who is very good at his job—until everything he believes in is shattered by the brutal murder of his own daughter.Betrayed by an imperfect judicial system, Rackley watches helplessly as the killer walks free on a legal technicality. Devastated, furious, and burning with a righteous need for vengeance, he is suddenly forced to explore his own deadly options—a quest that leads him into a shadowy no-man's-land between justice and the law . . . and into the welcoming fold of "the Commission."A vigilante group made up of people like him—relentless streetwise operators who have each lost a loved one to violent crime—the Commission confronts the failings of a system that sets predators loose to hunt again, cleaning up society's "mistakes" covertly, efficiently, and permanently. But as he is dragged deeper into a deadly morass of hidden agendas and murderous justice, Tim Rackley discovers that playing God is an excruciating and fearsome task. When his new secret life starts coming unwound at an alarming speed, he is suddenly caught in the most terrifying struggle he has ever faced—a desperate battle to save his marriage, his career, his life, his soul . . . and everything left that's worth fighting for.
Net Force
Steve Perry - 1998
Those who control them, control the world. To enforce the Net Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: Net Force.When the director of Net Force is assassinated, Deputy Director Alex Michaels is thrust into one of the most powerful and dangerous positions in the world. At the same time, cyber-terrorists sabotage mainframe computers across the country, causing famine, chaos, and death.Now Michaels and his team must find out who is responsible—and what they have to gain. But there is another problem. If they assassinated one Net Force director, what will stop them from assassinating another?A powerful examination of America's defense and intelligence systems of the future, Tom Clancy's Net Force is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, inspiring this novel as well as the explosive ABC Television miniseries.
The Righteous Men
Sam Bourne - 2006
. . .A teenage computer prodigy is mortally strangled in Mumbai. A far-right extremist is killed in a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest. A wealthy businessman is murdered in Thailand. A pimp in Brooklyn is found stabbed to death and mysteriously covered by a brown shroud. What connects the victims is an ancient prophecy that leads to the end of the world, and it's up to Will Monroe, a fledgling reporter at the New York Times, to stop it.But Monroe's investigation quickly makes him some shadowy enemies, who kidnap his wife and hold her hostage in Crown Heights. Desperate to find the link between the killings and to save his wife, he enlists his college sweetheart, TC, an eccentric artist and Kabbalah expert. As the death toll rises, they follow a trail of clues that seems to lead inexorably to a set of ancient texts containing a prophecy that promises to save the world—or to destroy it.What will happen when the one secret that has kept the world safe for thousands of years is revealed to all? In The Righteous Men, a blistering thriller filled with mystery, romance, and suspense, Sam Bourne takes readers deep into the hidden worlds of fundamentalist religion, mysticism, and biblical prophecies. This is a visionary tale that is as frightening as it is entertaining. Readers won't stop turning the pages until the very end.
The Winner
David Baldacci - 1997
All she has to do is change her identity and leave the U.S. forever.The KillerIt's an offer she dares to refuse...until violence forces her hand and thrusts her into a harrowing game of high-stakes, big-money subterfuge. It's a price she won't fully pay...until she does the unthinkable and breaks the promise that made her rich.The WinnerFor if LuAnn Tyler comes home, she will be pitted against the deadliest contestant of all: the chameleonlike financial mastermind who changed her life. And who can take it away at will...
The Plot
Jean Hanff Korelitz - 2021
Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written--let alone published--anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then... he hears the plot.Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker's first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that--a story that absolutely needs to be told.In a few short years, all of Evan Parker's predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his "sure thing" of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?Hailed as breathtakingly suspenseful, Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot is a propulsive read about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.
Nimitz Class
Patrick Robinson - 1997
Nimitz-Class aircraft carrier is seen as impregnable. But when the USS Thomas Jefferson suddenly disappears at sea, the Pentagon is stunned. There are no survivors, and all signs point to a tragic nuclear accident.While the world stands in shock, reports suggest that it was no accident. A rogue submarine armed with nuclear warheads may be on the loose. Where did it come from? How could it get within striking distance of the Thomas Jefferson? Worse yet, where is it now and could it strike again? The tension mounts, and a deadly chase begins.
Hit Man
Lawrence Block - 1998
Keller goes in, does the job, gets out: usually at a few hours’ notice . . . Often Keller’s work takes him out of New York to other cities, to pretty provincial towns that almost tempt him into moving to the woods and the lakeshores. Almost but not quite. But then one job goes wrong in a way Keller has never imagined and it leaves him with a big problem. Finding himself with an orphan on his hands, Keller's job begins to interfere with his carefully guarded life. And once you let someone in to your life, they tend to want to know what you do when you're away. And killing for a living, lucrative though it is, just doesn't find favour with some folks.
Elephant Song
Wilbur Smith - 1991
* ' With Wilbur Smith the action is never further than the turn of a page.' – The Independent * 'Sex, money, ambition fear and blood ... an emotional stampede.' – The Daily Mail
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.