Abduction


Robin Cook - 2000
    A mysterious transmission from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean leads a crew of divers and oceanographers to investigate a phenomenon beyond scientific understanding....And to the discovery that will permanently change everything we have previously come to know about life on this Earth.

Gray Justice


Alan McDermott - 2011
    But when the killer is let off with time served on remand, Gray knows there is something fundamentally wrong with the justice system. Engaging the help of his ex-SAS buddies, he kidnaps five repeat offenders and asks the public to vote on their fate: Should they be allowed to continue their criminal ways with inadequate punishment, or has Britain had enough?His website attracts a worldwide audience and, although the authorities know where he is, they are powerless to stop him.Can Gray carry out his audacious plan? Will Andrew Harvey and his fellow MI5 operatives find a way to stop him?Gray Justice is more than a simple tale of revenge: it’s a rollercoaster ride with an ending you’ll never forget.

Jack Reacher's Rules


Lee Child - 2012
      You don’t have to break the rules if you make the rules. Case in point: Jack Reacher, the two-fisted, quick-witted, “current poster-boy of American crime fiction” (Los Angeles Times). The brainchild of #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child, Reacher is a freelance troubleshooter with a mysterious past—and a serious passion for justice.  Now the hard-won knowledge and hard-hitting strategies of fiction’s toughest tough guy are within every thriller reader’s reach—in a rapid-fire rundown of the trade secrets, tried-and-true tricks, and time-honored tactics that separate the man in the street from the man to beat.  Rule 1. When in doubt, drink coffee.Rule 2. Never volunteer for anything.Rule 3. Don’t break the furniture.Rule 4. Only one woman at a time.Rule 5. Show them what they’re messing with.Please note: Jack Reacher’s Rules is a compilation of advice, wisdom, and facts from the Jack Reacher series of novels by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child. It features an introduction by Lee Child, but is not a Jack Reacher novel.

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 Ludwig Conspiracy


Oliver Pötzsch - 2011
    He died mysteriously soon thereafter, his eccentric and beautiful castles his only legacy.When an encoded diary by one of Ludwig’s confidants falls into the hands of rare book dealer Steven Lukas, he soon realizes that the diary may bring him more misery than money. Others want the diary as well—and they will kill to get it. Believing the diary to contain the secret truth behind Ludwig’s death, Steven and the detective Sara Lengfeld go on the run, investigating each of Ludwig’s three famous castles for clues. Just what in the diary could be so explosive that Ludwig's deranged modern-day followers will do whatever it takes to keep it hidden?Combining contemporary mystery and a gripping historical saga, putting computers and smartphones alongside derringers and palace intrigue, The Ludwig Conspiracy is a bold new thriller from the best-selling author of The Hangman’s Daughter series.

The Abominable


Dan Simmons - 2013
    Everest. By the following year, three climbers -- a British poet and veteran of the Great War, a young French Chamonix guide, and an idealistic young American -- find a way to take their shot at the top. They arrange funding from the grieving Lady Bromley, whose son also disappeared on Mt. Everest in 1924. Young Bromley must be dead, but his mother refuses to believe it and pays the trio to bring him home.Deep in Tibet and high on Everest, the three climbers -- joined by the missing boy's female cousin -- find themselves being pursued through the night by someone . . . or something. This nightmare becomes a matter of life and death at 28,000 feet -- but what is pursuing them? And what is the truth behind the 1924 disappearances on Everest? As they fight their way to the top of the world, the friends uncover a secret far more abominable than any mythical creature could ever be. A pulse-pounding story of adventure and suspense, The Abominable is Dan Simmons at his spine-chilling best.

Creepers


David Morrell - 2005
    Built in the glory days of Asbury Park by a reclusive millionaire, the magnificent structure - which foreshadowed the beauties of art deco architecture - is now boarded up and marked for demolition.The five people are "creepers," the slang term for urban explorers: city archeologists with a passion for investigating abandoned buildings and their dying secrets. On this evening, they are joined by a reporter who wants to profile them - anonymously, as this is highly illegal activity - for a New York Times article.Frank Balenger, a sandy-haired, broad-shouldered reporter with a decided air of mystery about him, isn't looking for just a story, however. And after the group enters the rat-infested tunnel leading to the hotel, it becomes clear that he will get much more than he bargained for. Danger, terror, and death await the creepers in a place ravaged by time and redolent of evil.

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.

The Last Good Man


A.J. Kazinski - 2010
    The thirty-six protect us. Without them, humanity would perish. But the thirty-six do not know they are the chosen ones. In Beijing, a monk collapses in his chamber, dead. A fiery mark—a tattoo? a burn?—spreads across his back and down his spine. In Mumbai, a beloved economist, a man who served the poor, dies suddenly. His corpse reveals the same symbol. Similar deaths are reported around the world—the victims all humanitarians, all with the same death mark. In Venice, an enterprising Italian policeman links the deaths, tracing the evidence. Who is killing good people around the world? In Copenhagen, police are preparing for a world climate summit when they receive the Interpol alert. The task falls to veteran detective Niels Bentzon: Find the “good people” of Denmark and warn them. But Bentzon is a man who is trained to see the worst in humanity, not the good. One by one, people are crossed off his list. He senses their secrets and wrongdoings. Just as Bentzon is ready to give up, he meets Hannah Lund, a brilliant astrophysicist mourning the death of her son and the implosion of her marriage. With Hannah’s help, Bentzon begins to piece together the puzzle of these far-flung deaths. A pattern emerges. It is, they realize, a perfectly executed plan of murder. There have been thirty-four deaths—two more to come if the legend is true. According to the pattern, Bentzon and Hannah can predict the time and place of the final two murders. The deaths will occur in Venice and Copenhagen. And the time is now.

Mind's Eye


Douglas E. Richards - 2014
    But they're about to get far worse. Because he's being hunted by a team of relentless assassins. Soon Hall discovers that advanced electronics have been implanted in his brain, and he now has two astonishing abilities. He can surf the web using thoughts alone. And he can read minds. But who inserted the implants? And why? And why is someone so desperate to kill him?As Hall races to find answers, he comes to learn that far more is at stake than just his life. Because his actions can either catapult civilization to new heights--or bring about its total collapse.Extrapolated from actual research on thought-controlled web surfing, Mind's Eye is a smart, roller-coaster ride of a thriller. One that raises a number of intriguing, and sometimes chilling, possibilities about a future that is just around the corner.

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.

The Breach


Patrick Lee - 2009
    It is the world's best-kept secret-and its most terrifying. Trying to regain his life in the Alaskan wilds, ex-con/ex-cop Travis Chase stumbles upon an impossible scene: a crashed 747 passenger jet filled with the murdered dead, including the wife of the [resident of the United States.Though a nightmare of monumental proportions, it pales before the terror to come, as Chase is dragged into a battle for the future that revolves around an amazing artifact. Allied with a beautiful covert operative whose life he saved, Chase must now play the role he's been destined for-a pawn of incomprehensible forces or humankind's final hope-as the race toward Apocalypse begins in earnest. Because something is loose in the world. And doomsday is not only possible...it is inevitable.

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…

You've Been Warned


James Patterson - 2007
    Struggling to make ends meet, she works full-time as the nanny for the fabulously wealthy Turnbull family, looking after their two wonderful children and waiting for her glamorous life as a New York photographer to begin. When her photographs are considered by an elite Manhattan art gallery, it seems she might finally get the chance that will start her career.But Kristin has a major distraction: forbidden love. The man of her dreams is almost hers for keeps. Breathless with an inexhaustible passion and the excitement of being within reach of her goals, Kristen ignores all signs of catastrophe brewing.Fear exists for a reason. And Kristin can only dismiss the warnings for so long. Searching desperately for the truth through the lens of her camera, she can only hope that it's not too late. This novel of psychological suspense is a stunning achievement for thriller master James Patterson, "one of the bestselling writers in history" New York Sun.

Sirens


Eric Van Lustbader - 1981
    Suddenly she finds her private life invaded by a nightmare that matches the script . . .From the Paperback edition.Cover Artist: Jerome Podwil