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Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Adventure / thriller > Espionage & spy thriller
A suspenseful tale of Borgesian circularity, "Shadowing
Botticelli's Beauty" features an unusual cast drawn from three
distinct spheres: C.I.A. operatives running sensitive operations
during the Cold War; players from the art world among them a
painter-architect based in Buenos Aires, and from ages past, the
Renaissance master, Sandro Botticelli; and colorful inhabitants of
an elite, New England prep school. But throughout this sinuous tale
of intrigue, there is the constancy of "Abel Baaker Charlie: "
devoted husband; journeyman case officer; apprentice school master;
autodidactic painter; and, last but not least, self-appointed art
detective. While weathering the chaos of revolutions, personal
tragedies, identity crises, a treacherous colleague, and radical
career shifts, the novel's dauntless protagonist tenaciously stalks
a lost masterpiece looted by a Nazi war criminal in the closing
days of World War II. Baaker's story, which has a basis in fact, is
told with the assuredness of a veteran insider privy to the
clandestine realm of spies, the arcane province of art historians,
and the twisted turf of private boarding schools. While making for
a fine read, with its rewarding resolution, "Shadowing Botticelli's
Beauty" ponders the opposing roles of chance and grand design in
the destiny of its memorable characters.
Move over James Bond; meet Captain Peterson Smith, formerly of the
US Navy. Smith is the son of a famous senator. He's a former US
Navy SEAL, an F-14 pilot, and an intelligence specialist-all
without breaking a sweat. He even makes time to have coffee with
his mother. Yes, Smith is the perfect soldier and perfect son ...
and the only person on earth who can save the world from mass
destruction. Follow Captain Smith through three separate vignettes
into the brave world of minisubs in Sweden. We first meet the
honorable Smith in "Minisub 83," as the captain leaves his American
home to serve in the Royal Swedish Navy. There's no time to
acclimate, however; he must use specially designed weapons against
an evil foe. In "Minisub 99," Smith must find a way to destroy
wicked Dr. Dimitriov's underwater headquarters. If Dimitriov
succeeds, he could blow the planet to smithereens But of course
Captain Smith has more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Finally, in
the rousing, rampant "Minisub 2010," the notorious Wizardess has
plans for global domination by mining gold from the Martian
surface. Can she be stopped? It's all up to Peterson Smith.
At once a vivid, haunting reimagining of 1950s Britain, a gripping,
humane spy thriller and a poignant love story, with Dominion C. J.
Sansom once again asserts himself as the master of the historical
novel. 1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the
appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As
the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the
British people find themselves under dark authoritarian rule: the
press, radio and television are controlled; the streets patrolled
by violent auxiliary police and British Jews face ever greater
constraints. There are terrible rumours too about what is happening
in the basement of the German Embassy at Senate House. Defiance,
though, is growing. In Britain, Winston Churchill's Resistance
organization is increasingly a thorn in the government's side. And
in a Birmingham mental hospital an incarcerated scientist, Frank
Muncaster, may hold a secret that could change the balance of the
world struggle for ever. Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, secretly
acting as a spy for the Resistance, is given the mission to rescue
his old friend Frank and get him out of the country. Before long
he, together with a disparate group of Resistance activists, will
find themselves fugitives in the midst of London's Great Smog; as
David's wife Sarah finds herself drawn into a world more terrifying
than she ever could have imagined. And hard on their heels is
Gestapo Sturmbannfuhrer Gunther Hoth, brilliant, implacable hunter
of men . . . 'An absorbing, thoughtful, spy-politico thriller set
in the fog-ridden London of 1952 . . . Part adventure, part
espionage, all encompassed by terrific atmosphere and a well-argued
"it might have been". - The Times
Shane Ryan is a wrong guy. Wrong race. Wrong gender. Wrong class.
Wrong side of the tracks. Wrong attitude. America in the near
future is a cold, cruel place, especially in the hardscrabble rural
Pacific Northwest. There's war in the Middle East, a revived draft,
mass unemployment, an economy permanently on the skids, greed and
corruption, incompetence and stupidity at the top. Poor blue-collar
kids from the trailer park are last in line for everything. America
has screwed Shane Ryan, and he returns the favor. He joins the
Northwest Volunteer Army, a terrorist organization dedicated to
overthrowing the United States government and establishing an
independent nation. America is about to learn the hard way that
what goes around, comes around.
This is a story about a modern day pirate, the most ruthless
gangster and feared crime boss to ever come off the streets of
Boston. Some readers would no doubt recognize this man, so his name
and the other characters in this story have been changed to protect
the dead-- and those who could become the dead. For twenty-five
years, he ruled the Boston underworld, controlling illegal
gambling, loan sharking, and drug dealing in Boston, up and down
the East Coast from Maine to Rhode Island. He was the Don of
Boston's Irish Mafia. Who is this modern day pirate? What was his
secret deal with the FBI? Where is this man now? Only The Phantom
Pirate knows
"Lines of Neutrality" is a window into the lives of two modern-day
assassins - Raven Yin and Christian Delacroix. Unbeknownst to
either of them, they are both hired to kill the same mark and
coincidentally choose the exact same night and time to strike. This
begins a chain of events that brings Raven and Christian together
to fight a war far larger and more complex than either of them
could have imagined. It is a war being waged against secret
societies whose agendas are more enigmatic than their rumored
existence.
Their personalities and methods are fundamentally different,
yet each of them discovers more about themselves by studying the
other. Despite secret societies, internal betrayal, stolen memories
and personal battles, Raven and Christian defy the odds to show
that the Society of Assassins is nobody's pawn.
When American citizens are hi-jacked at sea and a Cuban military
base goes up in flames, the eyes of the world turn towards the U.S.
with suspicion. Thus begins a maelstrom that both nations are
helpless to control or even comprehend. Accusations fly as the
situation deteriorates towards a military showdown.
The executives of Global Risk, an international risk management
company, know the truth behind the attacks. And one man stands at
the vortex, Frank Shepard, Chief of Staff to the President of the
United States and former executive at The Corporation. He
understands the extent of the company's ambition and their ability
to fulfill it. Frank must ride the razors edge as he guides the
President through the crisis and attempts to control a company that
would usurp a nation. "The Corporation"
Just another day at the office.
The Constant Gardener is a magnificent exploration of the new world
order by one of the most compelling and elegant storytellers of our
time. The novel opens in northern Kenya with the gruesome murder of
Tessa Quayle -- young, beautiful, and dearly beloved to husband
Justin. When Justin sets out on a personal odyssey to uncover the
mystery of her death, what he finds could make him not only a
suspect among his own colleagues, but a target for Tessa's killers
as well.
A master chronicler of the betrayals of ordinary people caught in
political conflict, John le Carre portrays the dark side of
unbridled capitalism as only he can. In The Constant Gardener he
tells a compelling, complex story of a man elevated through
tragedy, as Justin Quayle -- amateur gardener, aging widower, and
ineffectual bureaucrat -- discovers his own natural resources and
the extraordinary courage of the woman he barely had time to love.
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