The bestselling author of Ilium and Olympos transforms the true story of a legendary Arctic expedition into a thriller worthy of Stephen King or Patrick O’Brian. Their captain’s insane vision of a Northwest Passage has kept the crewmen of The Terror trapped in Arctic ice for two years without a thaw. But the real threat to their survival isn’t the ever-shifting landscape of white, the provisions that have turned to poison before they open them, or the ship slowly buckling in the grip of the frozen ocean. The real threat is whatever is out in the frigid darkness, stalking their ship, snatching one seaman at a time or whole crews, leaving bodies mangled horribly or missing forever. Captain Crozier takes over the expedition after the creature kills its original leader, Sir John Franklin. Drawing equally on his own strengths as a seaman and the mystical beliefs of the Eskimo woman he’s rescued, Crozier sets a course on foot out of the Arctic and away from the insatiable beast. But every day the dwindling crew becomes more deranged and mutinous, until Crozier begins to fear there is no escape from an ever-more-inconceivable nightmare.

The new international thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bourne LegacyBraverman Shaw—“Bravo” to his friends—always knew his father had secrets. But not until Dexter Shaw dies in a mysterious explosion does Bravo discover the enormity of his father's hidden life as a high-ranking member of the Order of Gnostic Observatines, a sect founded by followers of St. Francis of Assisi and believed to have been wiped out centuries ago. For more than eight hundred years, the Order has preserved an ancient cache of documents, including a long-lost Testament attributed to Christ that could shake Christianity to its foundations. Dexter Shaw was the latest Keeper of the Testament—and Bravo is his chosen successor.Before Dexter died, he hid the cache where only Bravo could find it. Now Bravo, an accomplished medieval scholar and cryptanalyst, must follow the esoteric clues his father left behind. His companion in this quest is Jenny Logan, a driven young woman with secrets of her own. Jenny is a Guardian, assigned by the Order to protect Bravo, or so she claims. Bravo soon learns that he can trust no one where the Testament is concerned, perhaps not even Jenny . . .Another secret society, the Knights of St. Clement, originally founded and sponsored by the Papacy, has been after the Order's precious cache since the time of the Crusades. The Knights, agents and assassins, will stop at nothing to obtain the treasure. Bravo has become both a target and a pawn in an ongoing war far larger and more deadly than any he could have imagined.

A global thriller presenting an apocalyptic vision of a world on the brink of despair and destruction.What would you do if the world was brought to a standstill? If you heard deafening static followed by the words, ‘My children. Do not be afraid’?Would you turn to God? Subscribe to the conspiracy theories? Or put your faith in science and a rational explanation?The lives of all twenty-six people in this account are affected by the message. Most because they heard it. Some because they didn’t.The Testimony – a gripping story of the world brought to its knees and of its people, confused and afraid.

On the ocean liner Mauretania, two European scientists with a dramatic new invention are barely rescued from abduction by the Van Dorn Detective Agency's intrepid chief investigator, Isaac Bell. Unfortunately, they are not so lucky the second time. The thugs attack again-and this time one of the scientists dies. What are they holding that is so precious? Only something that will revolutionize business and popular culture-and perhaps something more.For war clouds are looming, and a ruthless espionage agent has spotted a priceless opportunity to give the Germans an edge. It is up to Isaac Bell to figure out who he is, what he is up to, and stop him. But he may already be too late… and the future of the world may just hang in the balance.

Stealing things from people who had upset her was something Polly did quite a lot. There was her Aunt Pauline; a girl at school; a boyfriend who left her; and there was the man on the plane…Humiliated and scared, by a total stranger, Polly does what she always does. She steals something. But she never could have imagined that her desire for revenge would have such terrifying results.

From Library JournalBlock introduced Evan Tanner, specialist in lost political causes, in this rousing, often comic 1966 yarn. Unable to sleep for 15 years following a Korean War head wound, Tanner devotes his considerable free time to reading, learning languages, and turning his affliction into a livelihood by writing theses and dissertations for graduate students in New York. Then he learns of hidden Armenian gold in Turkey and sets off on an unlikely adventure that makes him the most wanted fugitive in the world as well as the accidental leader of a Macedonian revolt. Block's tale gets off to an engaging start, sags in the middle partly because of some bone-jarring violence, and recovers neatly at the end. Nick Sullivan handles the characters' many accents quite well. Highly recommended.

Mitch Rapp, the CIA's top counterterrorism operative, is sent on his final mission, to eliminate a European industrialist who has been selling sensitive equipment to one of terrorism's most notorious sponsors. But he doesn't know that the ultimate target of this mission is himself. Set up by forces within the US who do not want the next Director-elect of the CIA to take over, and therefore need a disaster for the present regime, Mitch refuses to die… the conspirators have made an awful miscalculation. They have enraged one of the most lethal and efficient killers the CIA has ever produced. Now they will pay.

A note on the kitchen table was the last that her boyfriend, Jason, heard of Amy Sinclair. At first, he had let her have her space but as the weeks turned to months the worries had set in… and eventually he went after her. What he found appalled him.

Officially, it doesn't exist. Off the books, Room 59 is mandated to disrupt and terminate threats that bury official channels in red tape. Driven, dedicated and extremely efficient, the elite agents recruited for the ultimate spy game ply their trade below the radar and on the razor's edge of action.and sudden death.New recruit Jason Siku is ex-CIA, a cold, calculating agent with black ops skills and a brilliant mind - a loner perfect for deep espionage work. Using his Inuit heritage and a search for his lost family as covers, he tracks intelligence reports of a new Russian Oscar-class submarine capable of reigniting the Cold War. But when Jason discovers weapons smugglers and an idealistic yet dangerous brother he never knew existed, the line between his mission and a secret hope collide with deadly consequences.Special thanks and acknowledgment to Garrett Dylan for his contribution to this work.

Tight plotting, Solid FinishBecause he’s a damn good writer James Lee Burke knows how to keep a plot going from start to finish with no loose ends or out-of-the-blue surprises that amateurishly attempt to explain and finish off a narrative. He easily weaves several ancillary situations into the story line of The Tin Roof Blowdown. These are of interest on their own, but more importantly they serve to expand and add often curious layers to the main show that centers around the eye of mayhem left behind by a pair of hurricanes.I bring this up since I just finished reading a book by Jeffrey Deaver titled The Cold Moon. The bad guy, a most interesting sociopath called The Watchmaker who is a brilliant killer with machinations of Machiavellian stature, is the author of a poem about a cold moon, so one would suppose that he would figure prominently in the denouement of the novel. He doesn’t. Not at all. He escapes from the cops and vanishes from the book with nearly one-hundred pages left, obviously setting a not-so-subtle stage for a return in another Deaver effort. This strikes me as venal artifice by a writer who certainly has reached a point of financial and critical security where such shenanigans are unnecessary and beneath him.None of this fakery for Burke. From the first book I read by him years ago, The Neon Rain to others that included Black Cherry Blues, The Lost Get-Back Boogie, Jolie Blon’s Bounce, and now this one, Burke has played it straight telling his stories and making sure loose ends are tied up when the last page is read. And like I said he can write.I said he smiled. That’s not quite right. Jude shined the world on and slipped its worst punches and in a fight knew how to swallow his blood and never let people know he was hurt. He had his Jewish mother’s narrow eyes and chestnut hair, and he combed it straight back in a hum, like a character in a 1930s movie. Somehow he reassured others that the earth was a good place, that the day was a fine one, and that good things were about to happen to all of us.Tight, succinct descriptions like the one above or similarly structured vignettes connect and in doing so glide the reader from scene to scene. None of this is as easy as Burke makes it look. That’s called skill. He’s got it in spades.But this is to be expected of a man who’s written more than twenty-five novels, a man who divides his time between seemingly disparate locations – Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana. Living in these two places seems to give him an expanded and sympathetic view of the world and those of us who bump and grind our way through it making his characters and their short comings easily assimilated, allowing the reader to experience sympathy and often empathy.The setting of The Tin Roof Blowdown is largely post-apocalypse Louisiana following the devastation wrought by first Hurricane Katrina then Rita. The landscape has been reduced to a naturally nuked wasteland where murder, rape and theft are the order of the day perpetrated by both punks run amok and many cops. Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Detective Dave Robicheaux is deployed to New Orleans, the once grand city now reduced to a feudal state without electrical power, clean water, food or any sense of societal order. Bloated bodies – humans, cats, dogs – float in flooded streets or lie tangled in downed, shattered trees. In this chaos Robicheaux must locate two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who quite possibly is more dangerous than the thugs looting the city and shooting at rescue helicopters overhead. Based on past books, just another day at the office for Robicheaux. Burke’s got so much going on here that it would be easy for him to inadvertently confuse the reader, if not himself, beyond salvation allowing the book to devolve into a miasma of none-related tales – a rag-tag collection of short stories pretending to be a novel.Again his skill and also confidence as a writer never allows this to happen. Not even close. Each section and chapter advances the drama logically and without undo cliff hangings. A good example is when a killer stalking the detective’s daughter is spotted outside a cabin.Out among the willows, I saw the solitary fisherman lean down in his boat and pick up something from the bottom. He knocked his hat off his head to give himself better vision and raised the rifle to his shoulder. I could not make out the features of his face, but the moon had started to rise and I saw the light gleam on his bald head inside the shadows.I was already out the screen door and running down the slope when he let off the first round.So many mystery writers would then wander off for a chapter or several on another tangent leaving a person wondering what’s going on back at the bayou. Not Burke. He again displays his confidence by moving directly forward with the above scene in the next chapter. He knows that each element in his books can stand on its own and doesn’t need the tired device of leaving the reader up in the air for pages on end to maintain interest in the overall narrative arc.And Burke slips in sharp, humorous observations on the human condition throughout the book like this one following an argument between Robicheaux and his wife, a former nun.I just went outside and started the truck, my face hot, my ears ringing with the harshness of our exchange. The yard had fallen into shadow and cicadas were droning in the trees, like a bad headache that won’t go away. Just as I was backing into the street, regretting my words, trying to accept Molly’s anger and hurt feelings, she came out on the gallery and waved good-bye.That’s what happens when you marry nuns.For those who’ve not yet read Burke, The Tin Roof Blowdown is a great place to start. For those who are already fans of his, this mystery is merely one more top-notch effort by a most talented author.

Much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, Gia, Repairman Jack doesn’t deal with appliances. He fixes situations—situations that too often land him in deadly danger. His latest fix is finding a stolen necklace which, unknown to him, is more than a simple piece of jewelry.Some might say it’s cursed, others might call it blessed. The quest leads Jack to a rusty freighter on Manhattan’s West Side docks. What he finds in its hold threatens his sanity and the city around him. But worst of all, it threatens Gia’s daughter Vicky, the last surviving member of a bloodline marked for extinction.

From the author of THE HUNT FOR ATLANTIS, comes an electrifying new novel – prepare yourself for an adrenalin-fuelled ride. An ancient warrior For archaeologist Nina Wilde it's the opportunity of a lifetime. Her studies of an ancient text have convinced her that a tomb containing the remains of legendary warrior Hercules may actually exist. If she can locate it, it will be the most important historical find ever to be unearthed. An incredible treasure As Nina and Eddie Chase, her ex-SAS bodyguard, begin their search it's clear that others want to find the tomb – and the unimaginable riches contained within. Then Chase's attention is diverted by the re-appearance of a face from his past! A lethal enemy Nina and Chase are soon following a violent trail of corruption and conspiracy around the globe. FromSwitzerland toShanghai,Botswana toLondon, it's a race against time to find the Tomb of Hercules before it falls into the most evil of hands!

In the small town of Potter's Field, Wyoming, where the police chief is a man called Slaughter, strange things are happening. Faced by an elemental terror beyond his experience, Slaughter holds the town's life in his hands. High in the night sky, the moon is full.