Body of Lies ($2.21), by David IgnatiusBook Description
Roger Ferris is one of the CIA's soldiers in the war on terrorism. He has come out of Iraq with a shattered leg and an intense mission—to penetrate the network of a master terrorist known only as "Suleiman." Ferris's plan for getting inside Suleiman's tent is inspired by a masterpiece of British intelligence during World War II: He prepares a body of lies, literally the corpse of an imaginary CIA officer who appears to have accomplished the impossible by recruiting an agent within the enemy's ranks.
This scheme binds friend and foe in a web of extraordinary subtlety and complexity, and when it begins to unravel, Ferris finds himself flying blind into a hurricane. His only hope is the urbane head of Jordan's intelligence service—a man who might be an Arab version of John le Carré's celebrated spy, George Smiley. But can Ferris trust him?
Sepulchre ($2.71), by Kate Mosse, is 592 pages in print, so is definitely one I'd prefer on the Kindle.Book Description
In 1891, young Leonie Vernier and her brother Anatole arrive in the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains, in the Pyrenees of southwest France. Born and raised in Paris, they've come at the invitation of their widowed aunt, whose mountain estate, Domain de la Cade, is famous in the region. But it soon becomes clear that their aunt and the Domain are not what Leonie had imagined. For starters, Tante Isolde is no graying dowager she is young, willowy, and beautiful, but with a melancholy air that suits the strange, slightly sinister Domain de la Cade. Leonie discovers that the house has long been the subject of local superstition. The villager claim that the Devil walks in the forests of the Domain, and that Isolde's late husband died after summoning a demon from the old Visigoth sepulchre high on the mountainside. A book from the Domain's cavernous library describes not only the spell used to bring forth the demon, but the strange Tarot pack that is part of the ritual, a set of cards that has mysteriously disappeared following the uncle's death. But while Leonie delves deeper into the ancient mysteries of the Domain, a different evil stalks her family one which may explain why Leonie and Anatole were invited to the Domain in the first place.More than a century later, Meredith Martin, an American graduate student, arrives in France to study the life of Claude Debussy, a 19th century French composer. Meredith finds a letter by Debussy suggesting a connection with the town of Rennes-le-Bains and unable to find any information in Paris, Meredith heads south. In Rennes-le-Bain, she checks into a grand old hotel the Domain de la Cade built on the site of a famous mountain estate destroyed by fire in 1896. Something about the hotel feels eerily familiar, and strange dreams and visions begin to haunt Meredith's waking hours. A chance encounter leads her to a piece of 19th century music known as "the Sepulchre" and pack of Tarot cards painted by Leonie Vernier, which may hold the key to this 21st century American's fate just as they did to the fate of Leonie Vernier more than a century earlier. What is the connection between Meredith and Leonie? Do demons really haunt the mountains of the Domain? All will be revealed when the Sepulchre is opened at last...
Bimbos of the Death Sun ($3.99), by Sharyn Mccrumb, won an Edgar Award in 1988 for Best Original Paperback Mystery.Book Description
For one fateful weekend, the annual science fiction and fantasy convention, Rubicon, has all but taken over a usually ordinary hotel. Now the halls are alive with Trekkies, tech nerds, and fantasy gamers in their Viking finery *all of them eager to hail their hero, bestselling fantasy author Appin Dungannon: a diminutive despot whose towering ego more than compensates for his 5' 1" height . . . and whose gleeful disdain for his fawning fans is legendary.
Hurling insults and furniture with equal abandon, the terrible, tiny author proceeds to alienate ersatz aliens and make-believe warriors at warp speed. But somewhere between the costume contest and the exhibition Dungeons & Dragons game, Dungannon gets done in. While die-hard fans of Dungannon's seemingly endless sword-and-sorcery series wonder how they'll go on and hucksters wonder how much they can get for the dead man's autograph, a hapless cop wonders, Who would want to kill Appin Dungannon? But the real question, as the harried convention organizers know, is Who wouldn't?
Adam ($4.05), by Ted DekkerBook Description
It takes an obsessive mind to know one. And Daniel Clark knows the elusive killer he's been stalking.
He's devoted every waking minute as a profiler to find the serial killer known only as Eve. He's pored over the crime scenes of sixteen young women who died mysterious deaths, all in underground basements or caverns. He's delved into the killer's head and puzzled over the twisted religious overtones of the killings.
What Daniel can't possibly know is that he will be Eve's next victim. He will be the killer's first Adam. After sixteen hopeless months, the case takes a drastic turn on a very dark night when Daniel is shot and left for dead.
Resuscitated after twenty minutes of clinical death, Daniel finds himself haunted by the experience. He knows he's seen the killer's face, but the trauma of dying has obscured the memory and left him with crushing panic attacks. Nothing--not even desperate, dangerous attempts to reexperience his own death--seems to bring him closer to finding the killer.
Then Eve strikes again, much closer to home. And Daniel's obsession explodes into a battle for his life . . . his sanity . . . his very soul.
Enter a world of death and near death that blurs the lines between fiction and reality in a way that will leave you stunned.
Liberty ($3.32), by Stephen Coonts, is the tenth in his Jake Grafton series. You can also find bargain prices on Cuba ($3.99), Hong Kong ($3.99) and America ($4.99), the 7th, 8th and 9th in the series.Book Description
On a quiet park bench in Manhattan---just miles from the ruins of the World Trade Center---spymaster Jake Janos Illin delivers a chilling secret message to Jake Grafton: A rogue Russian general has sold four nuclear warheads to a radical Islamic terrorist group, the Sword of Islam. The group intends to detonate them in America in the ultimate terror strike, the apocalypse that will trigger a holy war between Western civilization and the Muslim world. After passing Illin s message to his superiors, Grafton is charged by the president with the task of assembling a secret team to find the warheads before America s population centers are consumed by a nuclear holocaust.
As he hunts for the terrorists, Grafton soon finds himself up to his neck in power politics, techno-billionaires, money-grubbing traitors, anarchists, and spies. He also discovers that the terrorists don t all come from the Middle East. They come from places close to home. They masquerade as patriots. Some may even have the president s ear.
With the survival of Western civilization at stake, Grafton pulls out all the stops. Calling on the assistance of the indomitable Toad Tarkington, and CIA burglar Tommy Carmellini, he raids the prisons to assemble his team while the clock ticks toward Armageddon.
Songs for the Missing ($2.55), by Stewart O'NanBook Description
An enthralling portrait of one family in the aftermath of a daughter's disappearance.It was the summer of her Chevette, of J.P. and letting her hair grow. It was also the summer when, without warning, popular high school student Kim Larsen disappeared from her small midwestern town. Her loving parents, her introverted sister, her friends and boyfriend must now do everything they can to find her. As desperate search parties give way to pleading television appearances, and private investigations yield to personal revelations, we see one town's intimate struggle to maintain hope and, finally, to live with the unknown.Stewart O'Nan's new novel begins with the suspense and pacing of a thriller and soon deepens into an affecting family drama of loss. On the heels of his critically acclaimed and nationally bestselling Last Night at the Lobster, Songs for the Missing is an honest, heartfelt account of one family's attempt to find their child. With a soulful empathy for these ordinary heroes, O'Nan draws us into the world of this small American town and allows us to feel a part of this family.
