Charles Cumming’s Box 88 kicks off a gritty and brainy spy series with a foot in two eras: the Cold War’s dying days and the chaos of modern espionage. Lachlan Kite is the man in the middle—recruited straight out of boarding school into a shadow agency so secret even MI5 doesn’t know it exists. One minute he’s in France tailing an Iranian businessman tied to the Lockerbie bombing. The next, it’s 2020, and he’s being tortured for the secrets he uncovered thirty years earlier. Cumming pulls off the dual timelines with real finesse. The flashbacks don’t feel like detours—they add layers, deepen the stakes, and keep the tension tight. The 1989 […]
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A Smart, Tense Espionage Thriller with a Fierce MI5 Operative
British author Henry Porter delivers a gripping spy thriller with The Enigma Girl, proving why he’s considered a worthy successor to John le Carré. The novel introduces Slim Parsons, a disgraced MI5 agent who’s as sharp as she is dangerous. After a botched deep-cover operation leaves her with a target on her back, she’s reluctantly pulled back in to infiltrate an investigative news site. What starts as a routine job soon turns into a tangled web of political intrigue, cyber threats, and old enemies resurfacing with a vengeance. Tension, layered subplots, and sharp character work fill the novel. Slim is an exceptional lead: smart, resourceful, and unafraid to challenge authority. […]
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Secrets, Subplots, and Strange Skies: Cornwell’s Latest Scarpetta Mystery
3.5 stars for the eBook, 5 stars for the narration. Identity Unknown takes Dr. Kay Scarpetta into two chilling cases: the suspicious death of 7-year-old Luna Briley and the bizarre murder of Nobel-winning physicist Sal Giordano, who was once Scarpetta’s lover. The story begins with intrigue, from a tragic child abuse case to a haunting murder scene in an abandoned theme park, complete with crop circles and eerie clues. The forensic details are sharp, but the novel feels overloaded. With countless subplots and references to past events, I struggled to keep track. This isn’t a standalone—new readers will probably feel left out. The UFO angle was weird, though it ironically […]
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Electrifying Action: Brian Freeman Delivers with The Bourne Shadow
Brian Freeman’s The Bourne Shadow is an absolute knock-out. The fifth installment in Freeman’s continuation of the Jason Bourne series is everything you’d want in a high-octane thriller—loaded with tension, packed with action, and impossible to put down. Freeman dives into David Webb’s haunting past, weaving a taut narrative that forces Bourne to confront secrets buried under years of amnesia. When a woman unexpectedly recognizes him as Webb, it sets off an electrifying chain of events that thrusts him into a breakneck journey across Europe. From neo-Nazi cells to political intrigue, the stakes couldn’t be higher as Bourne searches for answers about his forgotten life. The pacing here is masterful. […]
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A High-Stakes Espionage Thriller
3.5 stars rounded down to 3. Night Owl plunges readers into a world of espionage, high-tech sabotage, and international intrigue. The story follows Brad Trasker, a retired counterintelligence agent still reeling from personal loss and disillusionment. He experiences an abrupt shattering of his quiet life when he attends the launch of a groundbreaking aircraft by Kylie Connor, an innovative aerospace CEO. The event takes a deadly turn when the plane explodes, nearly killing Kylie and setting off a chain of mysterious events, including missing data, a vanishing engineer, and a suspicious death. Mayne keeps the tension high with a mix of forensic detail, advanced technology, and relentless action. As Trasker […]
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The Paris Betrayal Delivers Nonstop Action
4.5 stars I love finding authors I’ve never read before, and James R. Hannibal is the real deal! The Paris Betrayal is a fast-paced spy thriller that hooked me from the start. The story follows Ben Calix, a skilled operative whose life spirals out of control after a mission in Rome goes wrong. Tasked with uncovering a deadly bioweapon, Ben barely escapes, only to return to Paris and find his world in ruins. Disavowed by his agency, cut off from all support, and hunted by unknown enemies, Ben’s situation couldn’t be worse. The action is nonstop as Ben races across Europe to piece together the conspiracy against him. Along the […]
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Unmasking a Nazi Conspiracy in 1930s Hollywood
“If not us, who? If not now, when? It must be us, and it must be now. I would fight this war. I would not be silent!”― Stephanie Landsem, Code Name Edelweiss. Code Name Edelweiss is a fabulous historical thriller that reveals a chilling but little-known chapter of American history. Set in the summer of 1933, it follows Liesl Weiss, a single mother in Los Angeles, struggling to support her family during the Great Depression. Enter Leon Lewis, a Jewish lawyer deeply alarmed by the rise of Adolf Hitler and the increase in anti-Semitism in America. Convinced that Nazi agents are plotting to seize control of Hollywood, the world’s greatest propaganda machine, […]
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A Gripping Espionage Thriller
In Moscow X, David McCloskey delivers a high-stakes espionage thriller set in modern-day Russia. CIA operatives, Sia and Max, enter Russia to recruit Vladimir Putin’s moneyman. Sia works for a London firm that conceals the wealth of the super-rich, while Max runs a family horse-breeding business in Mexico, a CIA front since the 1960s. They pose as a couple, targeting Vadim, Putin’s private banker, and his wife, Anna, who is both a banker and an intelligence officer. As they navigate a world of luxury and gangland violence, they hope Anna, who is playing her own game, will be their ally. Disgraced CIA officer Artemis Aphrodite Procter sees a chance to […]
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A Gripping Political Thriller
“But I believe that evil forces make evil men do evil things. That’s how I anticipate what can and will happen next in life. That’s how I got to be the head of the Mossad, young man. And why I’m good at it. It’s going to be one hell of an August, and my country is going to suffer very badly because your country doesn’t believe in evil, and mine was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust.”—Joel C. Rosenberg, The Last Jihad. Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy, two of Wall Street’s shrewdest strategists, are close friends of the President of the United States. They are working on a […]
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A Thrilling Tale of Espionage, Friendship, and Unfinished Business
Former spy Maggie Bird, at 60, has settled in the seaside village of Purity, Maine, hoping to leave her dangerous past behind. She lives a quiet life on her chicken farm, enjoying cocktails with her close-knit group of friends—all retired CIA operatives. But when a body is dumped in her driveway, and someone takes shots at her, Maggie soon realizes her past isn’t done with her yet. Enlisting the help of her “Martini Club,” Maggie dives back into the world of espionage to uncover who’s trying to kill her and why. Complicating matters is Purity’s acting police chief, Jo Thibodeau, who is more used to handling rowdy tourists than homicides […]
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