"The setting is Berlin. Into this divided city, wrenched between East and West, between past and present; comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in an international plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life - and to lose his unwanted innocence. The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman. It is a promise that turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening - a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed."
"The second book in Bernard Cornwell’s bestselling series on the American Civil War.
Nathanial Starbuck is a Copperhead: a northerner fighting for the rebel South in America’s Civil War.
Expelled from the Faulconer Legion, Starbuck must travel a hard road before he can rejoin his comrades. He must join the shadowy war of betrayal and espionage, where nothing is certain and no one can be trusted. Starbuck’s journey will take him through the savage prisons of Richmond, across the blood-sodden battlefields of Virginia, and into the deadly high command of the northern army."
"It is 1917, and the United States is still wavering on the brink of war. At an elite intelligence meeting at a Hyde Park mansion, Kit's handlers pair him up with someone he would never have expected—his mother. There's a German mole somewhere in the British government, and the most likely suspect happens to be a diehard fan of the famous American theater actress Isabel Cobb. Disguised as a German-American reporter named Joseph William Hunter, Kit follows his mother and her escort Sir Albert Stockman from the relative safety of London into the lion's den of Berlin.
This third installment in Butler's critically-acclaimed series features the swash-buckling action, charismatic leading man, and artful prose that have won the hearts of historical crime fiction fans everywhere."
"Xerxes, a ninetysomething survivor of the extinct Brazilian Communist Party, hires an unemployed journalist to write his life story, and most importantly explain his 1935 tragic love affair with comrade Elza Fernandes, code-named The Girl. Elza’s tale is one of the most bizarre true stories in Brazilian history: as a beautiful sixteen year old, she was suspected of betraying the Party and, although the charge could not be proved, was sentenced to death by Luiz Carlos Prestes himself. Prestes, the most eminent Latin American communist leader in the romantic era prior to the Cuban revolution, had arrived undercover in Rio from Moscow with a mission of overthrowing the Vargas government. A strikingly contemporary, post-utopian narrative, Elza: The Girl blends the pace of a thriller with the insightfulness and thorough research of a historical novel, introducing the reader to a world in which emotional, political, and even artistic truths must be reappraised in order to understand our shifting present.
Winner of the 2011 Prêmio Cultura do Estado do Rio de Janeiro for Literature"
"The third installment in the legendary Matt Helm thrillers
A year after having been reactivated as a spy, Matt Helm receives a message from his ex-wife asking for his aid. The threat is an enemy agent named Martel, disguised as a mob hit man. To protect his family, Helm must remove the threat before his own children pay the ultimate price.
Originally released in the era of the James Bond novels, the Matt Helm novels were considered grittier and more realistic than Bond, garnering them critical praise and ardent fans."
"When a young trooper is shot in the head at the Regiment’s renowned Killing House, Nick Stone is perfectly qualified to investigate the mysterious circumstances more deeply. He has just returned from Moscow – still trying to come to terms with the fact that his girlfriend and baby son are safer there without him – so combines an unrivalled understanding of the Special Forces landscape with a detachment that should allow him to remain in cover.
But less than forty-eight hours later, a second death catapults him back into the firing line – into the telescopic sights of an unknown assassin bent on protecting a secret that could strike at the heart of the establishment that Stone has, in his maverick fashion, spent most of his life fighting to protect.
And now the clock is ticking, Stone hurtles from the solitude of a remote Welsh confessional to Glencoe – whose shadows still whisper of murder and betrayal – and on to Southern Spain, in an increasingly desperate quest to uncover the truth about a chain of events that began in the darkness of an Afghan hillside, and left a young man haunted by the never-ending screams of a friend the Taliban skinned alive.
Nick Stone’s most heart-stopping adventure yet will force the reader to recognise the thinness of the line that separates sacrifice from suicide, to share the nightmares that walk hand in hand with heroism – and to count the real cost of actions taken in the name of loyalty."
"The opening of a letter leads to a desperate chase across Europe in A Matter of Honour by Jeffrey Archer, one of the world's bestselling novelists.
Adam Scott listens to the reading of his father's will, aware that the contents can only be meagre. The Colonel, after all, had nothing to leave - except a letter he had never opened himself, a letter that can only bring further disgrace to the family name.
Against his mother's advice, Adam opens the letter, and immediately realizes his life can never be the same again. The contents leave him with no choice but to follow a course his father would have described as a matter of honour."
"The second installment in the legendary Matt Helm thrillers
Matt Helm, code name Eric, has been recently reactivated as an operative for a secret American government organization after fifteen years as a sedentary photographer and family man in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In his first assignment after returning to the service, he is sent to Sweden to eliminate Caselius, a long-time enemy agent. In order to do so, he must leave a trail of bodies in his wake.
Originally released in the era of the James Bond novels, the Matt Helm novels were considered grittier and more realistic than Bond, garnering them critical praise and an ardent audience."
"An escapee from a Spanish prison hunts for his best friend's killer in New York
For more than a year, Kit McKittrick languishes in a Fascist prison, his days spent in darkness and his nights tortured by fear of his limping jailer, whose name he never learns. He escapes Spain with the help of Louie Lepetino, a childhood friend who came with him to fight on behalf of the Republican cause. Back in the United States, Kit heads out West to recover from his ordeal, while Louie returns to a life of caf├®s and cocktail parties in New York. But Kit's convalescence is cut short when he learns Louie has taken a fatal tumble out of a window, and he journeys to New York to discover who gave his savior the final push.
Only a woman could have led Louie to his death, Kit thinks, and New York is full of femmes fatales. But man or woman, Louie's murderer should watch out for Kit. He wants vengeance, and he's willing to kill for it."
"When Soviet agent Viktor Tronko defected to the US in 1964, he made two intriguing claims: he insisted that Russia had not placed a mole inside the CIA, and that Lee Harvey Oswald had not been recruited to assassinate the president. Convinced that Tronko was working as a disinformation agent, the CIA furiously did everything they could to break him. But Tronko had one more surprise for them: he refused to break.
Almost two decades later, former CIA officer Mel Pokorny shows up at journalist Michael Kessler’s house and offers to talk about Tronko. It’s the scoop of a lifetime for Kessler. But the more he investigates, the closer he gets to the truth: a truth so shocking that someone would do anything to keep it under wraps. This could be the biggest story of his life…if it doesn’t kill him first.
Filled with fascinating characters and darkly delicious humor, The Soul of Viktor Tronko is a rich, suspenseful espionage saga inspired by a true story."
"For decades, the top-secret Red Cell Seven unit has operated beyond the reach of the law—defending the United States by any means necessary, with absolute impunity. But the tables have turned, and the untouchable anti-terror squad is under attack. Determined to end Red Cell Seven’s ruthless, lawless existence, the US president has tapped military assassin extraordinaire Skylar McCoy to lead a covert search and destroy mission. But McCoy isn’t the only one gunning for Red Cell Seven. A vengeful drug lord has dispatched his own hired killers to eliminate the elite commandos as the first step in the ultimate terrorist plot: exterminating the highest echelons of American government. Caught in the middle, the agents of RC7 must fight their dirtiest, most devastating battle—and dare to decide who will be saved or sacrificed for the greater good."
"Every member of the Special Ops US Air Force pararescue jumpers, the PJs, swears by the motto “That Others May Live.” A top-secret mission to save a kidnapped Saudi princess will put that oath to the ultimate test.
With a force of armed men, a former mujahideen chases across the desert of Yemen to recover his Saudi wife, kidnapped by her powerful father, a prince of the Kingdom. The kidnapping turns violent, she is badly wounded, and the PJs are dropped into the vast sere badlands to rescue the princess and a young American diplomat swept up in the plot. The mission becomes a minute-by-minute race between the pursuing husband’s band of tribal allies and the PJs rushing to the rescue, as the princess’s life seeps away.
The Empty Quarter is a pulse-quickening tour de force featuring the tactics and men of modern combat search-and-rescue and the complex politics of today’s Arabian peninsula. It’s a moving tale of desperate love and sacrifice set in the wastes of the Rub’ al Khali, the world’s largest and harshest sand desert."
