Every day, we hear about crises worldwide and wonder what our government is doing to keep us safe and prosperous. Reality is often very different from what we see on the news. I was lucky to serve as a senior State Department diplomat and witnessed how the American government machine reacts to wars, coups, and political upheavals. Insights from the inside gave me both comfort (about the high quality of US officials), fear (about how many serious threats we face), and exasperation (at how messy things often get). When I left government, I wanted to share some of those frustrations and found fiction was the best vehicle.
I love Palmer’s thrillers because he writes while he’s still working as a senior US diplomat. I have no idea how he got clearance to publish his books, but they’re fun, light, and absolutely authentic about what it’s like to work in a US embassy overseas. This book is his first, a wild romp that also rings true to my experience inside the State Department.
Global headlines come to life as intrigue and international politics collide in this electrifying debut thriller from Matthew Palmer.
After a devastating experience in Darfur strips Alex Baines, former rising star of the State Department, of his security clearances, he is faced with two choices: spend the rest of his career in visa-stamping limbo or move to the private sector.
On the verge of resigning, he receives a call from his old mentor with an incredible opportunity to start over with a role in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet the job isn't quite what Alex imagined it to…
A young FBI agent finds herself in West Africa in the 1980s just as the Cold War drives everything the US government does. She’s pulled into a covert plot to depose a communist-leaning politician while struggling with her own demons. I loved the story because it pulled together so much: politics, history, intrigue, and romance.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
The first in a series, this espionage thriller was written by a former CIA spymaster who uses his experience to tell the story of a Russian seductress targeting US officials. I was drawn in by the multi-layered protagonist, while the little details of spycraft enrich the plot and its authenticity.
THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton and Jeremy Irons.
Dominika Egorov, former prima ballerina, is sucked into the heart of Putin's Russia, the country she loved, as the twists and turns of a betrayal and counter-betrayal unravel.
American Nate Nash, idealistic and ambitious, handles the double agent, codenamed MARBLE, considered one of CIA's biggest assets. He needs to keep his identity secret for as long as the mole can keep supplying golden information.
Will Dominika be able to unmask MARBLE, or will the mission see her faith destroyed in the country she has always passionately defended?
Also, by a former CIA officer, this is a completely different kind of book, a goofy satire poking fun at both the US and its enemies. Alex Finley (not her real name) brings wit and searing insights to the often ridiculous nature of what American officials are trying to do worldwide. A preview: the terrorist target is Omar al-Suqqit.
Victor Caro is a counterterrorism officer with the CYA, caught in a world where job security trumps national security. On assignment in West Africa in a post-9/11 world, he is tasked with hunting down the terrorist Omar al-Suqqit, who is looking to launch his group of ragtag militants onto the international jihadi stage. But chasing a terrorist proves an easier challenge than managing his agency’s bureaucracy. Omar, meanwhile, faces his own bureaucratic struggles as he joins forces with a global terrorist group that begins micro-managing its franchises in an effort to streamline attacks. When Victor appears on his own country’s…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
Winslow is one of my all-time favorite authors. His epic three-book series about an American DEA agent and his Mexican narco-boss nemesis starts here. I was riveted through the next two books, too, but I’ve added this one to my list because of the subtle ways I learned that the politics of the DEA are so much like what I faced at the State Department. Bonus: the narrator, Ray Porter, makes a great story even better.
'Breathtaking' JEREMY CLARKSON 'Winslow's masterpiece (so far) ... should have a place on every crime freak's bookshelf. Superb' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY _______________________ A brilliant page-turning thriller of power and revenge on the front lines of the drug war.
Drug lord Miguel Angel Barrera is head of the Mexican drug federacion, responsible for millions of dollars worth of cocaine traffic into the US and the torture and murder of those who stand in its way. His nephew, Adan Barrera, is his worthy successor.
Art Keller is a US government operative, so determined to obtain revenge for a murdered colleague that his…
Judd Ryker is the new chief of the State Department’s experimental Crisis Reaction Unit. He abandoned the cozy life of a college professor to test his ideas—and himself—in the real world of international diplomacy and intrigue. So far, Ryker’s experiment is failing.
A sudden crisis in the Sahara is his big chance. Mali’s president has been overthrown in a coup, a Senator’s daughter has been kidnapped in Timbuktu, and a violent new Jihadist cell has arisen in the desert. Ryker has just 100 hours to restore the president, rescue the hostage, and protect the American embassy from terrorist attacks. But first, Ryker must uncover the truth.
This is the fourth book in the Joplin/Halloran forensic mystery series, which features Hollis Joplin, a death investigator, and Tom Halloran, an Atlanta attorney.
It's August of 2018, shortly after the Republican National Convention has nominated Donald Trump as its presidential candidate. Racial and political tensions are rising, and so…
“Rowdy” Randy Cox, a woman staring down the barrel of retirement, is a curmudgeonly blue-collar butch lesbian who has been single for twenty years and is trying to date again.
At the end of a long, exhausting shift, Randy finds her supervisor, Bryant, pinned and near death at the warehouse…
