Political Thriller Fiction

It was a "million-dollar bullet," a sniper shot delivered from over a mile away. Its victim was a United States citizen, targeted by the United States government, and assassinated in the Bahamas. The nation's most renowned investigator and forensics expert, Lincoln Rhyme, is drafted to investigate. As details of the case start to emerge, the he discovers that not all is what it seems. When a deadly, knife-wielding assassin begins systematically eliminating the witnesses, Lincoln's investigation turns into a chilling battle of wits against a cold-blooded killer.

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?

After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of Red Pill arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches Blue Lives - a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life - and soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all.

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.

Meredith Morris-Dale is a CIA case officer and a damn good one...even if this last mission did go terribly wrong. Now she has been summoned back to Langley where she expects to be fired. Instead, she is met by the Deputy Director with stunning news. A single well-placed CIA mole in Iran’s uranium enrichment program has kept the terrorist nation from building a bomb by sabotaging the performance of their covert centrifuge arrays. But after losing his daughter in an airliner shootdown, the mole wants out—leaving the world on the brink.

In The 13th Juror, Dismas Hardy, lawyer/investigator, undertakes the defense of Jennifer Witt, accused of murdering her husband and their eight-year-old son as well as her first husband, who had died nine years earlier from an apparent drug overdose. While preparing his case, Hardy learns that both of Jennifer's husbands had physically abused her. But Jennifer refuses to allow a defense that presumes her guilt. She is not guilty, she claims. Hardy is now driven to seek an alternative truth a jury can believe.

A plan to destroy America, a hundred years in the making, is about to be unleashed. There is a powerful technique called the Overton Window that can shape our lives, our laws, and our future. It works by manipulating public perception so that ideas previously thought of as radical begin to seem acceptable over time. Move the Window and you change the debate. Change the debate and you change the country.

Lod Airport, Israel: Two Concorde jets take off for a U.N. conference that will finally bring peace to the Middle East. Covered by F-14 fighters, accompanied by security men, the planes carry warriors, pacifists, lovers, enemies, dignitaries - and a bomb planted by a terrorist mastermind. Suddenly they're forced to crash-land at an ancient desert site. Here, with only a handful of weapons, the men and women of the peace mission must make a desperate stand against an army of crack Palestinian commandos....

Minutes after Vice President Nick Cappuano and Lt. Sam Holland get the call that President Nelson has been found dead in the residence on Thanksgiving, they’re still processing that Nick has been asked to come to the White House to take the oath of office. As they go through the motions to ensure a peaceful transition of power, Sam has a million and one concerns about her husband, her family, the Nelson family, the country, and the enormity of what Nick is about to take on.

In an Osaka noodle bar, a powerful businessman meets a grisly end—eviscerated and beheaded. Another influential figure sits entombed in his fortress-like underground bunker, anxiously anticipating a similar fate. Night after night, a spectral woman stalks his dreams: an unyielding assassin backed by a ruthless yakuza army. Systematically eliminating key figures in Japanese business, she appears to be climbing the power ladder toward her ultimate target.

When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows. But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement. Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty.

With the death of his heroic father, bomber and space warfare veteran Patrick McLanahan, Bradley McLanahan must now fly solo, leading a team of young engineers designing Starfire, the world’s first orbiting solar power plant. Starfire will not only deliver unlimited and inexpensive electricity anywhere on planet Earth, it can also transmit power to the moon, and even to spacecraft and asteroids. It’s a crucial first step in the exploration of the solar system, and Bradley and his team are on the cutting edge.

One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim—Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US as a maintenance worker at the Sea Breeze Motel. Now, convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still not safe.

It is 54 B.C. Gaius Julius Caesar is sweeping through Gaul. While his victories in the name of Rome are epic, the conservative leaders of the Republic are not pleased -- they are terrified. Where will the boundless ambition of Rome's most brilliant soldier stop? He must be destroyed before he can overthrow the government and install himself as Dictator.

Inspector Chen's mentor in the Shanghai Police Bureau has assigned him to escort US Marshal Catherine Rohn. Her mission is to bring Wen, the wife of a witness in an important criminal trial, to the United States. Inspector Rohn is already en route when Chen learns that Wen has unaccountably vanished from her village in Fujian. Or is this just what he is supposed to believe? Chen resents his role; he would rather investigate the triad killing in Shanghai's beautiful Bund Park. Li insists that saving face with Inspector Rohn takes priority.

In The Road To Gandolfo, Robert Ludlum introduced us to the outrageous General MacKenzie Hawkins and his legal wizard, Sam Devereaux, whose plot to kidnap the Pope spun wildly out of control into sheer hilarity. Now Ludlum's two wayward heroes return with a diabolical scheme to right a very old wrong - and wreak vengeance on the (expletive deleted) who drummed the hawk out of the military. Their outraged opposition will be no less than the White House.

By the time Phil Chase is elected president, the world's climate is far on its way to irreversible change. Food scarcity, housing shortages, diminishing medical care, and vanishing species are just some of the consequences. The erratic winter the Washington, D.C., area is experiencing is another grim reminder of a global weather pattern gone haywire: bone-chilling cold one day, balmy weather the next. BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Kim Stanley Robinson.

The Great Fire has ravaged London. Now, guided by the Fire Court, the city is rebuilding, but times are volatile and danger is only ever a heartbeat away. James Marwood, a traitor’s son, is thrust into this treacherous environment when his father discovers a dead woman in the very place where the Fire Court sits. The next day his father is run down. Accident? Or another murder....

In Any Means Necessary, nuclear waste is stolen by jihadists in the middle of the night from an unguarded New York City hospital. The police, in a frantic race against time, call in the FBI. Luke Stone, head of an elite, secretive, department within the FBI, is the only man they can turn to. Luke realizes right away that the terrorists’ aim is to create a dirty bomb, that they seek a high-value target, and that they will hit it within 48 hours. A cat and mouse chase follows, pitting the world’s most savvy government agents versus its most sophisticated terrorists. As Agent Stone peels back layer after layer, he soon realizes he is up against a vast conspiracy, and that the target is even more high value than he could have imagined—leading all the way to the President of the United States. In Oath of Office, a biological agent is stolen from a biocontainment lab. Weaponized, it could kill millions, and a desperate national hunt ensues to catch the terrorists before it is too late. Luke Stone, head of an elite FBI department, with his own family still in jeopardy, has vowed to walk away—but when the new President, barely sworn in, calls him, he can’t turn his back on her.

When mercenaries attack in Eastern Ukraine, the world is thrust into turmoil. Russian President Luchnik is quick to respond, launching a full-scale military invasion to quell this “national emergency” in the former Soviet country. The United States, reluctant to put boots on the ground in yet another regional conflict, takes a different path. President Serrano hires Sentinel Holdings, a private military contractor, to hold back the Russian threat. Don Riley, head of the CIA’s Emerging Threats Group, sees trouble ahead.