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WAR & CRIME FICTION

VIOLENCE IN ALL ITS SPLENDOR

Posts tagged espionage
Berlin Game

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Len Deighton

FROM THE COVER: Bernard Samson had been behind a desk in Whitehall for five years when his bosses decided that he was the right man to slip into East Berlin and talk Brahms Four out of doing something disastrous. Berlin was the city he grew up in, the place he still loved like a mistress, and some of the members of the Berlin Network were men he'd known since they were streetwise Berlin schoolboys. But Samson knew there were few people he could trust, either in Berlin or at home. Too many missions had gone wrong; too many secrets had leaked. Somewhere somewhere nearer to the heart of things than he'd like to believe - there was the stink of betrayal.

As the shadows of treachery lengthen around him….

London. Hutchinson. 1983. 313p.

I Am Pilgrim

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Terry Hayes

"I Am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes is a gripping thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page. This intricately woven tale follows the life of a former intelligence operative known as Pilgrim, who is drawn back into the world of espionage to track down an elusive terrorist known as Saracen. As Pilgrim navigates a web of intrigue, deceit, and danger, the reader is taken on a thrilling journey across the globe, from the bustling streets of New York to the remote deserts of the Middle East. With its complex characters, meticulously researched plot, and heart-pounding suspense, "I Am Pilgrim" is a masterfully crafted novel that will leave readers breathless from start to finish.

London. Bantam. 2013. 707p.

LOCKED ON

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

TOM CLANCY WITH Mark Greaney

Privately training with special forces, he’s honing his combat skills to continue his work within the Campus, hunting down and eliminating terrorists wherever he can—even as Jack Ryan Sr. campaigns to become President of the United States again.
 
But what neither father nor son knows is that the political and personal have just become equally dangerous. A devout enemy of Jack Sr. launches a privately-funded vendetta to discredit him and connect him to a mysterious killing in his longtime ally John Clark’s past. All they have to do is catch him.
 
With Clark on the run, it’s up to Jack Jr. to stop a growing threat emerging in the Middle East, where a corrupt Pakistani general has entered into a deadly pact with a fanatical terrorist to procure four nuclear warheads they can use to blackmail any world power into submission—or face annihilation.

London. New York. MICHAEL JOSEPH, an imprint of PENGUIN BOOKS. 2011. 882p.

The Spy's Wife

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By Fiona McIntosh

Evie, a widow and stationmaster’s daughter, helplessly looks out for the weekly visit of the handsome man she and her sister call The Southerner on their train platform in the wilds of northern England. When polite salutations shift to friendly conversations, they become captivated by each other’s reticent manner. After so much sorrow, the childless Evie can’t believe love and the chance for her own family has come into her life again.

With rumours coming out of Germany that Hitler may be stirring up war again, local English authorities have warned against spies. Even Evie becomes suspicious of her new suitor, Roger. But all is not what it seems.

When Roger is arrested, Evie comes up with an audacious plan to prove his innocence that means moving to Germany and working as a British counter-spy. Wearing the disguise of dutiful, naïve wife, Evie must charm the Nazi Party’s dangerous officials to bring home hard evidence of war mongering on the Führer’s part.

But in this game of cat and mouse, it seems everyone has an ulterior motive, and Evie finds it impossible to know who to trust. With lives on the line, ultimate sacrifices will be made as she wrestles between her patriotism and saving the man she loves.

From the windswept moors of the Yorkshire dales to the noisy beer halls of Munich and grand country estates in the picture-book Bavarian mountains, this is a lively and high-stakes thriller that will keep you second-guessing until the very end.

Penguin. Random House. 2021. 434p.

DEEP BLACK: DEATH WAVE

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

STEPHEN COONTS AND WILLIAM H. KEITH

Deep within the NSA is Desk Three, a top-secret unit of special operatives inserted into the field when the threat is great and the response demands sensitivity and invisibility.  Charlie Dean, a former Marine sniper, is a senior officer.  With his colleagues Lia DeFrancesca and newcomer Ilya Akulinin, they form the core of a high-tech team known as Deep Black.

Off the coast of Africa lie the beautiful Canary Islands, a resort destination of millionaires. Underneath this idyllic paradise is one of the most volatile fault lines in the world. There, an alliance between radical Islamic terrorists and a rogue element of the Chinese government is planning to unleash an act of unimaginable geological terrorism that could devastate the U.S. East Coast, striking it with waves up to a thousand feet high. They plan to set off nuclear devices to precipitate a gigantic landslide that will send a death-dealing tsunami across the Atlantic.

In the Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan twelve nuclear warheads, stolen by the Russian Mafia, are about to be smuggled out of the country and delivered into the hands of the conspirators. Charlie and Ilya go on an intercept mission, but before they can retrieve them, the weapons vanish.

Meanwhile, in a hotel in New Jersey, a bestselling author is assassinated to prevent the release of his stranger-than-fiction story about an Islamic plot to change the course of history. Lia, Charlie’s girlfriend, is sent to Berlin to infiltrate the empire of a ruthless Chinese billionaire whose machinations have come to the attention of the NSA. She risks immediate execution if her true identity is revealed.

Their paths all converge in the Canary Islands. Unless the Deep Black team intervenes, the islands could be the epicenter of an apocalypse, with millions of lives---and the entire world order---at stake.

London. Quercus. 2011. 540p.

Disclosure

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Michael Crichton

A brutal struggle in the cutthroat computer industry; a shattering game of cat and mouse; an accusation of sexual harassment that threatens to derail a brilliant career ... this is the electrifying core of Michael Chrichton's new novel, his first since Rising Sun. At the center: Tom Sanders, an up-and-coming executive with DigiCom in Seattle, a man whose corporate future is certain. Until: after a closed-door meeting with his new boss - a woman who was his lover ten years before, a woman who has been promoted to the position he expected to have - he is accused of sexually harassing her. Now, as he scrambles to defend himself (enlisting the help of a sagacious woman lawyer whose career has been built on the successful prosecution of men charged with sexual misconduct), he finds himself trapped between what he knows to be true and what he knows others will assume to be the truth. And, as he uncovers an electronic trail into the company's secrets, he begins to grasp just how cynical and manipulative an abuse of truth has actually occurred ... Tackling one of the most divisive issues of our time, Disclosure compels us to see beyond our traditional responses. It is Michael Chrichton at his galvanizing best.

A.A. Knopf, 1994, 397 pages

Bodyguard

MAY CONRAIN MARKUP

By Chris Bradford

In a dangerous world, everyone needs protection.

Bodyguard: Hostage is the new thriller from Chris Bradford, bestselling author of Young Samurai. Bodyguard is a bulletproof action-adventure series that fans of Cherub and Alex Rider will love. This is Lee Child for younger readers - a teenage Jason Bourne for the next generation.

With the rise of teen stars, the intense media focus onceleb families and a new wave of billionaires, adults are no longer the only target for hostage-taking, blackmail and assassination - kids are too.

That's why they need a young bodyguard like Connor Reeves to protect them.

Recruited into the ranks of a covert young bodyguard squad, 14-year-old Connor Reeves embarks on a rigorous close protection course. Training in surveillance, anti-ambush exercises, hostage survival and unarmed combat, he's put through his paces and wonders if he will actually survive the course.

But when the US President summons Connor to protect his impulsive teenage daughter, Connor's training is put to the ultimate test. For Connor discovers that the First Daughter, Alicia, doesn't want to be guarded. She just wants to have fun. And with no clue Connor is her bodyguard, Alicia tries to elude her Secret Service agents and lead Connor astray. But unknown to her, a terrorist sleeper cell has been activated.

Its mission: to take the president's daughter HOSTAGE...

Penguin UK, May 2, 2013, 432 pages