An ancient fortune has lain hidden for thousands of years, one so powerful that men will kill to protect it. And only one man can unearth it…Ex-SAS operative Ben Hope is living a peaceful life in rural France – until a phone call from an old army comrade turns his world upside down. Eminent Egyptologist Morgan Paxton has been brutally murdered while working on the mysterious 'Akhenaten Project' in Cairo, and Colonel Harry Paxton wants Ben to find his son's killer. Ben is unable to refuse the request from the man who once saved his life – but when Harry asks him to avenge his son's death he's in dangerous territory. Made worse by the fact that he finds himself attracted to Zara Paxton, Harry's new bride. Carving through the seedy Cairo underworld, Ben soon realises that there was more to Paxton's research than meets the eye as he is plunged into one double-cross after another. His mission leads him from Italy and Paris via the coast of Scotland to the banks of the Nile, climaxing in a tense showdown in the war-torn Sudanese desert. At the end of the trail lies the ultimate treasure, hidden away by three rebel High Priests during the reign of the 'Heretic' Pharoah Akhenaten – a collection so valuable that some will stop at nothing to possess it!A super-charged, heart-racing thriller, perfect for fans of Dan Brown, Sam Bourne and Wilbur Smith.

"To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history…"Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself-to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive.What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed-and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler's dark reign-and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions-and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad's ancient powers-one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful-and utterly unforgettable.Amazon.com ReviewIf your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula-Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century-was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight-one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi's student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972. The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula's beleaguered homeland-sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union.Although the book is appropriately suspenseful and a delight to read-even the minor characters are distinctive and vividly seen-its most powerful moments are those that describe real horrors. Our narrator recalls that after reading descriptions of Vlad burning young boys or impaling "a large family," she tried to forget the words: "For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth." The reader, although given a satisfying ending, gets a strong enough dose of European history to temper the usual comforts of the closing words.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Considering the recent rush of door-stopping historical novels, first-timer Kostova is getting a big launch-fortunately, a lot here lives up to the hype. In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her diplomat father's library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and the word "Drakulya," but it's the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father, Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul's former adviser at Oxford, Professor Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her own research. Kostova builds suspense by revealing the threads of her story as the narrator discovers them: what she's told, what she reads in old letters and, of course, what she discovers directly when the legendary threat of Dracula looms. Along with all the fascinating historical information, there's also a mounting casualty count, and the big showdown amps up the drama by pulling at the heartstrings at the same time it revels in the gruesome. Exotic locales, tantalizing history, a family legacy and a love of the bloodthirsty: it's hard to imagine that readers won't be bitten, too.

Meet Simon Crane, the hottest hard-boiled antihero since Mike Hammer! Неге’s an ex-cop who’s up to his neck in blood, booty, and blackmail: Number One target in a gangland countdown to murder. The Hit resounds with a tough, ingenious triple-crossing twist — alter all, who would rob the Mafia?

Author Brian Garfield scores a criminal bull’s-eye in this uncompromising thriller that rips the veneer off the Establishment of a sleepy southwestern state, exposing a merry-go-round of murder, vice, and mob control. It all explodes when a Cosa Nostra kingpin is found dead m the living room of his palatial estate. A gaping wall safe discloses the killer’s motive: a missing three million dollars in cash — and a giant political scandal.

The state’s entire political elite is incriminatingly indebted to the murdered mobster, but the bloody trail seems to lead to the door of Simon Crane. A handier suspect couldn’t be found, either by the mob or by the corrupt police. Besides, no one is fool enough to openly accuse a famous political figure of robbery and murder when a desperate ex-cop might solve the mystery to save his own skin. And Crane’s alleged motive is clearly personal: her name is Joanna, a frail, blond ex-Mafia playmate whose one and only fling with the deceased was recorded on film and preserved in the safe’s incendiary archives. Wasn’t that reason enough to kill — for revenge, a king’s ransom, and the intensely private files of a first-class manipulator?

Facing trial by gunpoint either way he turns, Crane parlays his only chance into a deal with Mafia executioners: forty-eight hours to prove his innocence. Forty-eight hours to trap a wily thief and return to the mob with three million in home-grown graft and a payload of political dynamite.

It’s the biggest, nastiest, most extraordinary gamble in years, starring hard-nosed, daring Simon Crane, who plays a criminal deck with a master hand — and challenges the powerbrokers to a no-holds-barred game of survival.

The creator of Captain Jose Da Silva and Lt. Clancy adds another irresistible character to his mystery roster. Robert L. Fish presents the world’s greatest smuggler in The Hochmann Miniatures. His name is Kek Huuygens. He is known to customs officials the world over. He has smuggled everything from an original Bach cantata to a two-ton Indian elephant. And he’s never been caught — even with the elephant.

The Hochmann Miniatures, however, is more than a smuggler’s tale. It’s a novel of revenge, primeval passions, betrayed love. A long time ago Kek Huuygens swore to kill a man: Colonel Wilhelm Gruber, SS officer of Hitler’s Polish occupation army. It was Gruber who murdered Huuygens’ family and married Jadzia, beautiful, vicious Jadzia, first and only love of Huuygens’ life.

A phone call from an old Resistance comrade to Huuygens in Paris informs him that Gruber is hiding out in Lisbon... that Gruber wants to escape to Brazil and take with him a collection of priceless miniatures... that Gruber in fact needs the services of a first-rate smuggler. After twenty-five years Kek Huuygens’ hands are around his enemy’s throat.

Suspense mounts at jet pace when Huuygens flies to Lisbon and meets the Nazi fugitive. It all seems so simple. The smuggler will pretend to get Gruber and his contraband masterpieces out of the country. And then he will kill him. But what about Frau Gruber, what about Jadzia, the beguiling jezebel whom Huuygens still loves? For Jadzia there is a special plan. A plan that has nothing to do with revenge. Or so it seems.

Here is a new kind of thriller — harrowing, humorous, and wickedly ironic — that tells the story of what happens to a man when he dares to play judge, jury... and executioner.

In the small village of Hawkins Hollow, three best friends who share the same birthday sneak off into the woods for a sleepover the evening before turning 10. But a night of pre-pubescent celebration turns into a night of horror as their blood brother oath unleashes a three-hundred year curse. Twenty-one years later, Fox O'Dell and his friends have seen their town plagued by a week of unexplainable evil events two more times – every seven years. With the clock winding down on the third set of seven years, someone else has taken an interest in the town's folklore. A boutique manager from New York, Layla Darnell was drawn to Hawkins Hollow for reasons she can't explain – but the recent attacks on her life make it clear that it is personal. And though Fox tries to keep his professional distance, his interests in Layla have become personal too.

A fast-paced thriller about the conspiracy surrounding the 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, from the author of the international bestseller The Last PopeAn international journalist, a war-weary Portuguese veteran, a Muslim with visions of the Virgin MAry, a rogue priest, and members of the world's most pwoerful-and secretive-organizations come together after the suspicous death of Pope John Paul I. A few operatives bold enough to penetrate the Vatican's shadowy inner circle will investigate what went wrong-and try to prevent the popular new pope from meeting the same fate.In London, journalist Sarah Monteiro is again drawn into the web of international conspiracy, and must reunite-reluctantly-with the mysterious priest/assassin Rafael, and the sinister mastermind known only as JC. Sarah's and Rafael's commitment to truth and justice could prove to be extremely dangerous, for thema nd for John Paul II, especially if they discover the true power behind the papal throne. Author Bio:Luis Miguel Rocha was born in Oporto, Portugal, and worked for many years in London as a television writer and producer.

From Publishers WeeklyIn this tantalizing SF thriller, planet-hopping parasites are inserting their silvery centipede selves into human brains, curing cancer, eliminating war and turning Earth into paradise. But some people want Earth back, warts and all, especially Melanie Stryder, who refuses to surrender, even after being captured in Chicago and becoming a host for a soul called Wanderer. Melanie uses her surviving brain cells to persuade Wanderer to help search for her loved ones in the Arizona desert. When the pair find Melanie's brother and her boyfriend in a hidden rebel cell led by her uncle, Wanderer is at first hated. Once the rebels accept Wanderer, whom they dub Wanda, Wanda's whole perspective on humanity changes. While the straightforward narrative is short on detail about the invasion and its stunning aftermath, it shines with romantic intrigue, especially when a love triangle (or quadrangle?!) develops for Wanda/Melanie. 10-city author tour.

In The Hot Country, Christopher Marlowe Cobb (“Kit”), the swashbuckling early 20th century American newspaper war correspondent travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914, during that country’s civil war, the American invasion of Vera Cruz and the controversial presidency of Victoriano Huerta, El Chacal (The Jackal). Covering the war in enemy territory and sweltering heat, Cobb falls in love with Luisa, a young Mexican laundress, who is not as innocent as she seems.The intrepid war reporter soon witnesses a priest being shot. The bullet rebounds on the cross the holly man wears around his neck and leaves him unharmed. Cobb employs a young pickpocket to help him find out the identity of the sniper and, more importantly, why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from ammunition ships docked in the port.An exciting tale of intrigue and espionage, Butler’s powerful crime-fiction debut is a thriller not to be missed.

In The Hot Country, Christopher Marlowe Cobb (“Kit”), the swashbuckling early 20th century American newspaper war correspondent travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914, during that country’s civil war, the American invasion of Vera Cruz and the controversial presidency of Victoriano Huerta, El Chacal (The Jackal). Covering the war in enemy territory and sweltering heat, Cobb falls in love with Luisa, a young Mexican laundress, who is not as innocent as she seems.The intrepid war reporter soon witnesses a priest being shot. The bullet rebounds on the cross the holly man wears around his neck and leaves him unharmed. Cobb employs a young pickpocket to help him find out the identity of the sniper and, more importantly, why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from ammunition ships docked in the port.An exciting tale of intrigue and espionage, Butler’s powerful crime-fiction debut is a thriller not to be missed.

A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic “hot” virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their “crashes” into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.* * *This book describes events between 1967 and 1993. The incubation period of the viruses in this book is less than twenty-four days. No one who suffered from any of the viruses or who was in contact with anyone suffering from them can catch or spread the viruses outside of the incubation period. None of the living people referred to in this book suffer from a contagious disease. The viruses cannot survive independently for more than ten days unless the viruses are preserved and frozen with special procedures and laboratory equipment. Thus none of the locations in Reston or the Washington, D.C. area described in this book is infective or dangerous.