Whether it’s a national power struggle or an international political scandal, these titles are filled with secrets, lies, conspiracies and corruption. They are often action-packed page turners. Settle in with a a comfy blanket and a steaming cup of tea, because you’re not going to want to put these down.
For a printable copy of this list, click here: Political Thrillers
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Warriors
Ted Bell
Dashing counterspy Alex Hawke must rescue a kidnapped American scientist as the United States and China move dangerously close to all-out nuclear war in this adrenaline-fueled thriller in the New York Times bestselling series that combines the hallmarks of Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Ian Fleming, and Daniel Silva. When an elderly professor at Cambridge is murdered, a victim of bizarre, ancient Chinese torture, Alex Hawke teams up with his Scotland Yard colleague and friend Inspector Ambrose Congreve to find the killer. But the death is only the opening move in a tense and lethal game of geopolitical brinksmanship. In the United States the president has begun behaving strangely. Is his mental health deteriorating—or is there something far more sinister behind his questionable moves? The answer is crucial, for tensions are mounting between China, North Korea, and the U.S. And China has launched fighter jets and a mega submarine vastly more sophisticated than any seen before—military technology that leapfrogs anything the U.S. and Great Britain possess. With the situation edging toward an unthinkable abyss, Hawke must pull off his most daring mission yet: infiltrate the China and neutralize the source of their advantage . . . or risk witnessing World War III.
Read More View in CatalogNovember Road
Lou Berney
"When people say they want to read a really good novel, the kind you just can't put down, this is the kind of book they mean. Exceptional." —STEPHEN KING NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • AARP • Newsweek • Dallas Morning News • South Florida Sun-Sentinel • Chicago Public Library • Real Book Spy • CrimeReads • Litreactor • Library Journal • LitHub • Booklist Winner of the Barry, Macavity, and Anthony Awards, the Hammett Prize, the Left Coast Crime “Lefty” Award for Best Mystery Novel, and the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction Novel! Set against the assassination of JFK, a poignant and evocative crime novel that centers on a desperate cat-and-mouse chase across 1960s America—a story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone. Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out. A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Within hours of JFK’s murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects he’s next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associate—a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish. Guidry knows that the first rule of running is "don’t stop," but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car. For her, it’s more than a car— it’s an escape. She’s on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who’s a hopeless drunk. It’s an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope—and find each other on the way. Charlotte sees that he’s strong and kind; Guidry discovers that she’s smart and funny. He learns that’s she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can’t know that he’s desperate to leave his old one behind. Another rule—fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn’t just a road, it’s a trail, and Guidry’s ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time. Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just can’t throw away the woman he’s come to love. And it might get them both killed.
Read More View in CatalogThe 14th Colony: Exclusive Free Preview
Steve Berry
THE 14TH COLONY Exclusive Preview Download the first 14 chapters of Steve Berry’s The 14th Colony! What happens if both the president and vice-president-elect die before taking the oath of office? The answer is far from certain—in fact, what follows would be nothing short of total political chaos. Shot down over Siberia, ex-Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is forced into a fight for survival against Aleksandr Zorin, a man whose loyalty to the former Soviet Union has festered for decades into an intense hatred of the United States. Before escaping, Malone learns that Zorin and another ex-KGB officer, this one a sleeper still embedded in the West, are headed overseas to Washington D.C. Noon on January 20th—Inauguration Day—is only hours away. A flaw in the Constitution, and an even more flawed presidential succession act, have opened the door to disaster and Zorin intends to exploit both weaknesses to their fullest. Armed with a weapon leftover from the Cold War, one long thought to be just a myth, Zorin plans to attack. He’s aided by a shocking secret hidden in the archives of America’s oldest fraternal organization—the Society of Cincinnati—a group that once lent out its military savvy to presidents, including helping to formulate three invasion plans of what was intended to be America’s 14th colony—Canada. In a race against the clock that starts in the frozen extremes of Russia and ultimately ends at the White House itself, Malone must not only battle Zorin, he must also confront a crippling fear that he’s long denied, but which now jeopardizes everything. Steve Berry’s trademark mix of history and speculation is all here in this provocative new thriller.
Read More View in CatalogDeception Point
Dan Brown
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and Inferno and the “master of smart thrills” (People) comes a “rocket-fast thriller” (Vince Flynn) about an astonishing NASA discovery that unravels a deadly conspiracy that leads all the way to the White House. When a NASA satellite spots evidence of an astoundingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory—one that could have profound implications for US space policy and the impending presidential election. With his re-election hanging in the balance, the President sends White House Intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton to the Milne Ice Shelf to verify the authenticity of the find. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic academic Michael Tolland, Rachel uncovers the unthinkable: evidence of scientific trickery. Before she can contact the President, she and Michael are attacked by a deadly team of assassins controlled by a mysterious power broker who will stop at nothing to hide the truth. Fleeing for their lives in an environment as desolate as it is lethal, their only hope for survival is to find out who is behind this masterful ploy. The truth, they will learn, is the most shocking deception of all in this “taut, fast-paced, barn-burner of a book” (St. Petersburg Times).
Read More View in CatalogThe Terminal List
Jack Carr
A Navy SEAL has nothing left to live for and everything to kill for after he discovers that the American government is behind the deaths of his team in this ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller that is “so powerful, so pulse-pounding, so well-written—rarely do you read a debut novel this damn good” (Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author). On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s entire team was killed in a catastrophic ambush. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government. Now, with no family and free from the military’s command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he’s learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates. With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law. “Told with a deft hand and a keen eye for detail, The Terminal List…is explosive and riveting” (Kevin Maurer, co-author of No East Day) and is perfect for fans of Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Stephen Hunter, and Nelson DeMille.
Read More View in CatalogPalace Council
Stephen L. Carter
A gripping, nationally bestselling political thriller set against the backdrop of Watergate, Vietnam, and the Nixon White House. Philmont Castle is a man who has it all: wealth, respect, and connections. He's the last person you'd expect to fall prey to a murderer, but then his body is found on the grounds of a Harlem mansion by the young writer Eddie Wesley, who along with the woman he loves, Aurelia Treene, is pulled into a twenty-year search for the truth. The disappearance of Eddie's sister June makes their investigation even more troubling. As Eddie and Aurelia uncover layer upon layer of intrigue, their odyssey takes them from the wealthy drawing rooms of New York through the shady corners of radical politics all the way to the Oval Office and President Nixon himself.
Read More View in CatalogThe Emperor of Ocean Park
Stephen L. Carter
After the death of his father, the flamboyant and controversial Judge Oliver Garland, Talcott must unravel the truth about his father's life, a quest that brings him face to face with old scandals and family secrets.
View in CatalogExecutive Orders
Tom Clancy
"Debt of Honor" ended with Tom Clancy's most shocking conclusion ever: a joint session of Congress destroyed, the President dead, most of the Cabinet and the Congress dead, the Supreme Court and Joint Chiefs likewise. Dazed and confused, the man who only minutes before had been confirmed as the new Vice-President of the United States is told that he is now President. President John Patrick Ryan. And that is where Executive Orders begins. Ryan had agreed to accept the vice-presidency only as caretaker for a year, and now suddenly, an incalculable weight has fallen on his shoulders. How do you run a government without a government? Where do you even begin? With stunning force, Ryan's responsibilities crush in on him. He must calm an anxious and grieving nation, allay the skepticism of the world's leaders, conduct a swift investigation of the tragedy, and arrange a massive state funeral - all while attempting to reconstitute a Cabinet and a Congress with the greatest possible speed. But that is not all. Many eyes are on him now, and many of them are unfriendly. In Beijing, Tehran, and other world capitals, including Washington, D.C., there are those eager to take advantage where they may, some of whom bear a deep animus toward the United States - some of whom, from Ryan's past, harbor intense animosity toward the new President himself. Soon they will begin to move on their opportunities; soon they will present Jack Ryan with a crisis so great even he cannot imagine it.
Read More View in CatalogThe Hunt for Red October
Tom Clancy
Both the Americans and the Soviets commence an intense naval search when a trusted and skilled Soviet naval officer defects--using the USSR's most valuable nuclear submarine as his escape vehicle
View in CatalogFirst Strike
Ben Coes
Deep within the Pentagon, a covert, multi-billion arms-for-influence program was created. The objective was to protect the United States and its allies from terrorist acts by secretly enabling a hand-picked man to emerge as the most powerful leader in the Middle East. But the charismatic Tristan Nazir double-crosses America, twisting the program for his own violent ends to create ISIS. Now America is at great risk. Elite operative Dewey Andreas is sent to Syria to retrieve details about the source of ISIS’s funding but his cover is blown mid-operation and chaos erupts in the streets of Damascus. Trapped and outnumbered, Dewey manages to send proof of the awful truth—unknown at even the highest levels in the government—that ISIS’s munitions were indeed provided by America itself. This information arrives in time to for the U.S. to cut off a final arms shipment before it reaches ISIS. But the vicious Nazir, is far from finished. He launches a bold strike into the heart of America, sending a terrorist cell to take over a dorm at Columbia University, capturing hundreds of college students as hostages. For every hour that the shipment of weapons is withheld, the terrorists will publicly execute one student. The potential loss of life is intolerable. A frontal assault is impossible. Releasing the shipment is unthinkable. There is nowhere to turn... In a situation with no solutions, there remains only one option—Dewey Andreas.
Read More View in CatalogThe Manchurian Candidate
Jennifer Krediet
Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco's doubts deepen, Shaw's political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.
Read More View in CatalogHouse of Cards
Michael Dobbs
Political mover and shaker Frank Urquhart, willing to do whatever he must to become prime minister, butts heads with Mattie Storin, a tenacious young reporter who has a knack for uncovering the real stories behind the headlines.
View in CatalogProtect and Defend
Vince Flynn
#1 New York Times bestselling author of American Assassin—now a major motion picture Vince Flynn’s thrilling bestseller sends counterterrorist agent Mitch Rapp on a collision course with America’s most feared enemy. No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel brings down Iran’s billion-dollar nuclear program in an ingeniously conceived operation. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in its wake, and has Iranian president Amatullah calling for blood—American blood. Seeing opportunity where others fear reprisals, Mitch Rapp devises a brilliant plan to humiliate Iran’s government and push the nation to the brink of revolution. But when a back-channel meeting between CIA director Irene Kennedy and her Iranian counterpart goes disastrously wrong, Rapp is locked in a showdown with a Hezbollah mastermind in league with Amatullah—and he is given twenty-four hours to do whatever it takes to stop unthinkable catastrophe.
Read More View in CatalogTransfer of Power
Vince Flynn
This “roller-coaster, edge-of-your-seat thriller” (Star-Tribune, Minneapolis) in the #1 New York Times bestselling Mitch Rapp series follows the CIA’s top operative as he must stop a massacre in Washington, DC, and save the president before terrorists reach the White House. The stately calm of a Washington morning is shattered when a group of terrorists descends, killing dozens and taking nearly one hundred hostages as they try to infiltrate the White House. The Secret Service immediately evacuates the president to an underground bunker—and while officials argue over how best to negotiate with the enemy, Mitch Rapp, the CIA’s top counterterrorism operative, moves stealthily among the hidden corridors and secret passageways of the nation’s capital to save the hostages before the terrorists reach the president. But there’s someone waiting in the wings, someone within the Washington elite, who is determined to see Rapp’s rescue mission fail. With heart-pounding thrills and feverish pacing, Transfer of Power “mixes in a spicy broth of brutal terrorists, heroic commandos, and enough secret-agent hijinks to keep the confrontation bubbling until its flag-raising end” (Publishers Weekly).
Read More View in CatalogThe Day of the Jackal
Frederick Forsyth
THE CLASSIC THRILLER FROM #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR FREDERICK FORSYTH “The Day of the Jackal makes such comparable books such as The Manchurian Candidate and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold seem like Hardy Boy mysteries.”—The New York Times The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man. One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. And as the minutes count down to the final act of execution, it seems that there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal.
Read More View in CatalogThe Quiet American
Graham Greene
A “masterful . . . brilliantly constructed novel” of love and chaos in 1950s Vietnam (Zadie Smith, The Guardian). It’s 1955 and British journalist Thomas Fowler has been in Vietnam for two years covering the insurgency against French colonial rule. But it’s not just a political tangle that’s kept him tethered to the country. There’s also his lover, Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman who clings to Fowler for protection. Then comes Alden Pyle, an idealistic American working in service of the CIA. Devotedly, disastrously patriotic, he believes neither communism nor colonialism is what’s best for Southeast Asia, but rather a “Third Force”: American democracy by any means necessary. His ideas of conquest include Phuong, to whom he promises a sweet life in the states. But as Pyle’s blind moral conviction wreaks havoc upon innocent lives, it’s ultimately his romantic compulsions that will play a role in his own undoing. Although criticized upon publication as anti-American, Graham Greene’s “complex but compelling story of intrigue and counter-intrigue” would, in a few short years, prove prescient in its own condemnation of American interventionism (The New York Times).
Read More View in CatalogBy Order of the President
W.E.B. Griffin
When a leased Boeing 727 is violently hijacked from Angola and flown to parts unknown, the President turns to an outsider—Major Carlos Guillermo Castillo—for answers. A pilot, West Point graduate, and veteran of Desert Storm, Castillo has a sharp eye for the facts—and the truth behind them. In Africa, he is helped and hindered by unexpected allies and ruthless enemies, and begins to untangle a plot of horrific dimensions—a plot that, unless Castillo acts quickly, will end very, very badly.
Read More View in CatalogFatherland
Robert Harris
Fatherlandis set in an alternative world where Hitler has won the Second World War. It is April 1964 and one week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Xavier March, a detective of the Kriminalpolizei, is called out to investigate the discovery of a dead body in a lake near Berlin's most prestigious suburb. As March discovers the identity of the body, he uncovers signs of a conspiracy that could go to the very top of the German Reich. And, with the Gestapo just one step behind, March, together with an American journalist, is caught up in a race to discover and reveal the truth -- a truth that has already killed, a truth that could topple governments, a truth that will change history.
Read More View in CatalogTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
John le Carré
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; and The Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston. John le Carré’s memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, is now available. The man he knew as "Control" is dead, and the young Turks who forced him out now run the Circus. But George Smiley isn't quite ready for retirement—especially when a pretty, would-be defector surfaces with a shocking accusation: a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest level of British Intelligence. Relying only on his wits and a small, loyal cadre, Smiley recognizes the hand of Karla—his Moscow Centre nemesis—and sets a trap to catch the traitor. The Oscar-nominated feature film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) and features Gary Oldman as Smiley, Academy Award winner Colin Firth (The King's Speech), and Tom Hardy (Inception). With an introduction by the author. John le Carré's Our Kind of Traitor is now a major motion picture starring Ewan McGregor, Naomie Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Damian Lewis.
Read More View in CatalogThe Bourne Initiative
Eric Van Lustbader
Jason Bourne is on the run. The NSA believes Bourne controls the cyber weapon devised by his old friend, General Boris Karpov, capable of penetrating the heart of America's final defence: nuclear launch codes. Flushed from cover, hunted by assassins and nearly killed, Bourne must join forces with his bitterest enemy, Keyre, the Somali terrorist, whose organization Bourne once decimated. From the Greek island of Skyros to Somalia and the underbelly of Moscow, Bourne must unravel the mystery of Boris Karpov's last legacy, a weaponized code that may very well bring about the unthinkable: a violent end to America.
Read More View in CatalogDrone Threat
Mike Maden
Troy Pearce and his team of drone experts are called to action when ISIS launches a series of attacks on U.S. soil. On the eve of President Lane’s historic Asian Security Summit, a hobby-store quadcopter lands on the White House lawn carrying a package and an ominous threat: Fly the enclosed black flag of ISIS over the White House by noon today or suffer the consequences. The threat further promises that every day the flag isn’t flown a new attack will be launched, each deadlier than the first. President Lane refuses to comply with the outrageous demand, but the first drone attacks, sending a shudder through the U.S. economy. With few options available and even fewer clues, President Lane unleashes Troy Pearce and his Drone Command team to find and stop the untraceable source of the destabilizing attacks. But the terror mastermind proves more elusive and vindictive than any opponent Pearce has faced before . . . and if Pearce fails, the nation will suffer an unimaginable catastrophe on its soil or be forced into war.
Read More View in CatalogToo Bad to Die
Francine Mathews
November 1943. Weary of his deskbound status in the Royal Navy, intelligence officer Ian Fleming spends his spare time spinning stories in his head that are much more exciting than his own life. until the critical Tehran Conference, when Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin meet to finalise the D-Day invasion. With the Big Three in one place, Fleming is tipped off that Hitler's top assassin has infiltrated the conference. Seizing his chance to play a part in a real-life action story, Fleming goes undercover to stop the Nazi killer.
Read More View in CatalogRed Sparrow
Jason Matthews
Drafted against her will to serve the regime of Vladimir Putin as an intelligence seductress, Dominika Egorova engages in a charged effort of deception and tradecraft with first-tour CIA officer Nathaniel Nash before a forbidden attraction threatens their careers.
Read More View in CatalogLet You Be My Puppet Once
Preetika Mehra
Losing their faith in the System, a group of MNC-employed youngsters decide to take revenge on some politicians and businessmen after having suffered at their hands. Their master plan also exposes the connections of the powerful with the rich, of the mafia with politicians and of those who exploited the poor. All this leads to a war. A war that had never happened. The Chief of Intelligence had never dealt with such brilliant people who were entangling him in multiple versions of events. After a while, he is unable to differentiate between the real and planted evidence. The clock is ticking. The media is on adrenaline. The Chief is faced with several questions. How did it all happen? Will he be able to solve the case? Can he get the accused politicians acquitted? Should he find an escape for himself amidst the turmoil? It's time he found the answers!
Read More View in CatalogThe Inner Circle
Brad Meltzer
After an archivist goes against security protocol to show an ex-crush the president's private room at the National Archives, the two stumble upon a dictionary once owned by George Washington and are soon entangled in a web of conspiracy and murder. By the #1 best-selling author of The Book of Fate.
Read More View in CatalogGhosts of War
Ryan Smithson
Ryan Smithson joined the Army Reserve when he was seventeen. Two years later, he was deployed to Iraq as an Army engineer. In this extraordinary and harrowing memoir, readers march along one GI's tour of duty. It will change the way you feel about what it means to be an American.
Read More View in CatalogThe Lions of Lucerne
Brad Thor
When a group of Secret Service agents is massacred in Utah and the president of the United States is abducted, surviving agent Scot Harvath vows to avenge his murdered colleagues and find the kidnappers. Reissue.
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