Political Fiction

There is a saying that when lovers fall out, a plane goes down. A Case of Exploding Mangoes is the story of one such plane. Why did a Hercules C130, the world's sturdiest aircraft, carrying Pakistan's military dictator General Zia ul Haq, go down on 17 August, 1988?

Was it because of: mechanical failure; human error; the CIA's impatience; a blind woman's curse; generals not happy with their pension plans; the mango season? Or could it be your narrator, Ali Shigri?

Michelle Obama became First Lady on January 20, 2009. But before she lived at the White House, she was a powerful lawyer. Learn about her childhood, education, and goals as First Lady of the United States.

When President Kate Lee calls Stone Barrington to Washington on an urgent matter, it's soon clear that a potentially disastrous situation requires the kind of help more delicate than even he can provide...and he knows just the right man for the job. Teddy Fay: ex-CIA, master of disguise, and a gentleman not known for abiding by legal niceties in the pursuit of his own brand of justice.

When Mma Potokwane suggests to Mma Ramotswe that she run for a seat on the city council, Mma Ramotswe is at first unsure. But when she learns about the proposed construction of the flashy Big Fun Hotel next to a graveyard, she allows herself to be persuaded. Her opponent is none other than Violet Sephotho, who is in the pocket of the hotel developers.

Elena McMahon walks off the presidential campaign she has been covering for a major newspaper to do a favor for her father. Elena's father does deals. And it is while acting as his agent in one such deal - a deal that shortly goes spectacularly wrong - that she finds herself on an island where tourism has been superseded by arms dealing, covert action, and assassination. The Last Thing He Wanted is a tour de force - persuasive in its detail, dazzling in its ambiguities, enchanting in its style.

High-flying pediatric surgeon Emily Lawrence is new to Washington, DC. Her first week in her new job puts her on a collision course with the most powerful woman in America, President Calvin. Constance "Connie" Calvin's first term is proving turbulent thanks to trying to juggle work and life as a widowed single mother to a twelve-year-old boy. Running for re-election is imminent, and the critics are gunning for her. Worse, her famed icy cool is in danger of melting in the face of Emily's passion, commitment, and charm.

In the midst of a tyrannical regime and political invasion, Dèmi just wants to survive: to avoid the suspicion of the nonmagical Ajes who occupy her ancestral homeland of Ife; to escape the King’s brutal genocide of her people—the darker skinned, magic wielding Oluso; and to live peacefully with her secretive mother while learning to control the terrifying blood magic that is her birthright.

Go, Went, Gone is the masterful new novel by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, “one of the most significant German-language novelists of her generation” (The Millions). The novel tells the tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz. Curiosity turns to compassion and an inner transformation, as he visits their shelter, interviews them, and becomes embroiled in their harrowing fates.

In the South African veld poaching gangs are resorting to extreme levels of violence to hunt down valuable rhino horns. Battling to defend the dwindling rhino population, a veteran anti-apartheid freedom fighter is forced to break his lifetime loyalty to the ANC as he confronts corruption at the very highest level.

For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.

From the universally acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Krik? Krak!, a brilliant, deeply moving work of fiction that explores the world of a "dew breaker", a torturer, a man whose brutal crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality.

When a cold case dossier lands on Captain Benny Griessel's desk, he and his partner Vaughn Cupido, fellow member of the Hawks elite police unit in South Africa, reluctantly set to work reviewing the evidence of the disappearance - and possible murder - of ex-cop Johnson Johnson on the world's most luxurious train line. Two fellow travelers might have the answers Griessel and Cupido need - but they too seem to have disappeared into thin air, and the few clues that exist suggest a cover-up.

Imagine a First Contact without contact, and an alien arrival where no aliens show up. Imagine the sudden appearance of exclusion zones all over the planet, into which no humans are allowed. Imagine an end to all violence. Imagine an end to borders, an end to all crime. Imagine a world where hate has no outlet and the only harm one can do is to oneself. Imagine a world transformed, but with no guidance and no hint of what’s coming next. What questions can you ask - what questions dare you ask - when the only possible answers come from the all-too-human face in your mirror?

Moses longs for something outside the grim existence he has known. He and his friend Kioso hitch a ride out of the city on the back of a truck, only to find themselves in the wilderness where their street wisdom no longer helps them as they encounter poisonous snakes, cruel jungle travelers, and a brutal shoot-out with elephant poachers.

When Tiro, the confidential secretary (and slave) of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events that will eventually propel his master into one of the most suspenseful courtroom dramas in history.

In 1972, Morgan Llywelyn tells the story of Ireland from 1950-1972 as seen through the eyes of young Barry Halloran, son and grandson of Irish revolutionaries. Northern Ireland has become a running sore, poisoning life on both sides of the Irish border. Following family tradition, at 18, Barry joins the Irish Republican Army to help complete what he sees as "the unfinished revolution". But things are no longer as clear cut as they once were.

Welcome to the Capitol, where nothing is as it seems. Senator John Hawthorne's career has been long and illustrious, but as age creeps in, his once firm grip on power begins to waver. At ninety-four, Senator Elizabeth Morrow stands as a beacon of resilience, tirelessly advocating for healthcare reform despite the whispers of vulnerability. Behind the scenes, the Capitol is a labyrinth of ambition and intrigue. Every politician, every aide, and every reporter has a role to play in the delicate dance of power.

In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war, a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end. For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed location, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds. And yet the balance is beginning to give way.

Can an idealist from the city stop his estranged friend in the country from exposing a grim and damning secret from their past? On the surface, Greg Simmons seems an utterly improbable informant. He's an idealistic, Cascadia independence proponent from the city of Portland. When the FBI calls on Greg to go undercover to investigate a dangerous militia movement out in rural Oregon, he knows exactly why: his long-estranged friend from the country, Donny Wilkie, could have deep ties to the militia.

A prelude to Hidden Order, Brad Thor's most recent pulse-pounding Scot Harvath thriller.