Dear John by Nicholas Sparks

 

An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who captured his heart.

But 9/11 changes everything.

John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read...and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love--and face the hardest decision of his life.

This was a strong book, but I didn't like the ending.  I always hope for the guy to get the girl.  5/5 stars, highly recommended.

Hour of the Assassin by Matthew Quirk

 

As a Secret Service agent, Nick Averose spent a decade protecting the most powerful men and women in America and developed a unique gift: the ability to think like an assassin. Now, he uses that skill in a little-known but crucial job. As a “red teamer,” he poses as a threat, testing the security around our highest officials to find vulnerabilities—before our enemies can. He is a mock killer, capable of slipping past even the best defenses.

His latest assignment is to assess the security surrounding the former CIA director at his DC area home. But soon after he breaches the man’s study, the home’s inner sanctum, Nick finds himself entangled in a vicious crime that will shake Washington to its foundations—as all the evidence points to Nick.

Nick knows he’s the perfect scapegoat. But who is framing him, and why? To clear his name, he must find the truth—a search that leads to a dark conspiracy whose roots stretch back decades. The prize is the most powerful position in the world: the Oval Office.

To save himself and the people he loves, Nick must stop the men who rule Washington before they bury him along with their secrets. 

An engrossing thriller, this book kept me reading from start to end. 5/5 stars, highly recommended. 

Total Power by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills

 

When Mitch Rapp captures ISIS’s top technology expert, he reveals that he was on his way to meet a man who claims to have the ability to bring down America’s power grid. Rapp is determined to eliminate this shadowy figure, but the CIA’s trap fails.

The Agency is still trying to determine what went wrong when ISIS operatives help this cyber terrorist do what he said he could—plunge the country into darkness. With no concept of how this unprecedented act was accomplished, the task of getting the power back on could take months. Perhaps even years.

Rapp and his team embark on a desperate search for the only people who know how to repair the damage—the ones responsible. But his operating environment is like nothing he’s experienced before. Computers and communication networks are down, fuel can no longer be pumped from gas stations, water and sanitation systems are on the brink of collapse, and the supply of food is running out.

Can Rapp get the lights back on before America descends irretrievably into chaos?

A great thriller.  5/5 stars, highly recommended.

Three Women Disappear by James Patterson and Shan Serafin

 

A man is murdered in his home. Sarah, his personal chef. Anna, his wife. Serena, his maid, all had access. Now all three women are missing. Eyes are on Detective Sean Walsh, whose personal connection to the case is stronger than the leads to solve it. Neither the powerful bankroll behind the deceased, mob accountant Anthony Costello nor Walsh's vengeful superior officer can budge the investigation. Yet as Walsh continues to dig, he uncovers even more reasons the women have to stay hidden -- from the law, and from each other.

One of Patterson's better efforts. 5/5 stars, highly reommended.

The Searcher by Tana French

 

Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets.

I have mixed feelings about Tana French.  Her early books are excellent, but the last two seem to wander and fail to get to the point.  A good read, though.  5/5 stars, highly recommended.

High Treason by Sean McFate

 

En route to the National Prayer Breakfast, the U.S. vice president’s motorcade is hit in a vicious, expertly planned attack that throws Washington, DC, into chaos. Everyone assumes it’s terrorists— everyone but young FBI agent Jennifer Lin. She is certain that the easy answers here are not the likely ones. . . . Half a world away, former military contractor Tom Locke has his own doubts about what happened—and who did it. He suspects his former employer, Apollo Outcomes. But why would the global private military corporation orchestrate such a brutal strike on U.S. soil?

Returning to DC, Locke teams with Lin and discovers that a civil war is secretly brewing in the military-contracting world. A division of one company has gone rogue, led by a power-hungry former colleague of Locke’s who may have planned the attack on the vice president himself. But this man couldn’t have pulled it off without help from inside the government. The VP’s itinerary and route were confidential—which means there must be a traitor high up in either the White House or the NSA who is leaking information.

But why? And who could be pulling the strings? Radical Islamic terrorists? Or is this a new ploy by Putin to subvert American leadership? Or is someone else behind the attack? Only Locke can get to the bottom of the conspiracy—and blow it apart with one bold strike before it’s too late.

A pretty good military thriller, a surprise as I had not read McFate before. 5/5 stars, highly recommended.

The Coast to Coast Murders by James Patterson and J. D. Barker

 
Michael and Megan Fitzgerald are siblings who share a terrifying past. Both adopted, and now grown -- Michael is a long-haul truck driver, Megan a college student majoring in psychology -- they trust each other before anyone else. They've had to. Their parents are public intellectuals, an Ivy League clinical psychologist and a renowned psychiatrist, and they brought up their adopted children in a rarefied, experimental environment. It sheltered them from the world's harsh realities, but it also forced secrets upon them, secrets they keep at all costs.

In Los Angeles, Detective Garrett Dobbs and FBI Agent Jessica Gimble have joined forces to work a murder that seems like a dead cinch. Their chief suspect is quickly identified and apprehended --but then there's another killing just like the one they've been investigating. And another. And not just in Los Angeles -- the spree spreads across the country. The Fitzgerald family comes to the investigators' attention, but Dobbs and Gimble are at a loss -- if one of the four is involved, which Fitzgerald might it be?

From coastal California to upstate New York, Dobbs and Gimble race against time and across state lines to stop an ingenious and deeply deranged killer -- one whose dark and twisted appetites put them outside the range of logic or experience.

This one had a few plot twists the made it an entertaining book.  5/5 stars, highly recommended.

The Bourne evolution by Brian Freeman

 
After the death of his lover in a mass shooting, secret agent Jason Bourne is convinced that there is more to her murder than it seems. Worse, he believes that Treadstone--the agency that made him who he is, that trained him--is behind the killing. Bourne goes rogue, leaving Treadstone behind and taking on a new mission to infiltrate and expose an anarchist group, Medusa.

But when a congresswoman is assassinated in New York, Bourne is framed for the crime, and he finds himself alone and on the run, hunted by both Treadstone and the tech cabal that had hired him. In his quest to stay one step ahead of his enemies, Bourne teams up with a journalist, Abbey Laurent, to figure out who was behind the frame-up, and to learn as much as he can about the ever-growing threat of the mysterious Medusa group.

As more and more enemies begin to hunt Bourne, it's a race against the clock to discover who led him into a trap...and what their next move may be.

Definitely has a "Bourne" feel, but somehow doesn't capture Ludlum's stories.  Recomended. 4/5 stars.

Sycamore Row by John Grisham

 

Seth Hubbard is a wealthy white man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten will. It is an act that drags his adult children, his black maid, and defense attorney Jake Brigance into a conflict as riveting and dramatic as the murder trial that made Brigance one of Ford County’s most notorious citizens, just three years earlier. 

The second will raises many more questions than it answers. Why would Hubbard leave nearly all of his fortune to his maid? Had chemotherapy and painkillers affected his ability to think clearly? And what does it all have to do with a piece of land once known as Sycamore Row?

A nice read, easy on the eyes.  5/5 stars, highly recommended.