Episode 242: Deanna Raybourn

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Four women, who happen to be sixty-something professional assassins, are celebrating their recent retirement in Deanna Raybourn’s new thriller, Killers of a Certain Age.The Killers of the title—Billie, Natalie, Mary Alice and Helen—are looking forward to pursuing all the things that being on-call for “The Museum,” as they called the organization who contracted them out for… Read more »

Episode 228: David McCloskey

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Syria isn’t the only thing aflame in Damascus Station, David McCloskey’s debut thriller set against the ongoing conflict: McCloskey’s protagonist, CIA officer Sam Joseph, has fallen for a source, strictly forbidden, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Only, when it comes to the CIA “F-ups happen to good officers. Deception does not. You… Read more »

Episode 224: Karen Cleveland

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At the start of Karen Cleveland’s new thriller, You Can Run, it’s just a normal day for CIA reports officer Jill Bailey, who postpones approving a new intel source to take a break and log into the video stream from her son’s daycare. Only he’s not there. To get him back Jill must do “just… Read more »

Episode 210: Daniel Pyne

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In Water Memory, Daniel Pyne’s new thriller, in the aftermath of a particularly violent operation in which she sustained a concussion, private security contractor Aubrey Sentro decides to follow a doctor’s advice and go on a cruise. Not just any cruise, but a jaunt down the east coast of the U.S. to South America on… Read more »

Episode 154: Henry Porter

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Firefly, Henry Porter’s new novel is a classic thriller—with a twist. Two groups—Paul Samson and MI-6 and an ISIS warlord and his posse—are in a race to see who gets to the target first. The twist is that the target is Naji, a 12-year-old Syrian boy, a refugee making his way from a camp on the… Read more »

Episode 149: Olen Steinhauer

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In The Middleman, Olen Steinhauer’s new novel, rising concern—fueled for the most part by right-wing media—about a left-wing resistance movement called Massive Brigade causes the FBI, which had been monitoring the organization, to put the investigation into hyperdrive     Is Massive Brigade something to be feared? The answer is complicated.

Episode 141: Sebastian Rotella

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In Rip Crew, the third novel in Sebastian Rotella’s series featuring Valentine Pescadore, the global nature of organized crime is brought home—literally and figuratively, as the story travels from New York City’s financial heart to the border between Mexico and Guatemala to Naples, and the lawlessness of Italy’s mafia        

Episode 140: Lee Goldberg

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Three years after spitballing doomsday scenarios for a U.S. intelligence agency, thriller writer Ian Ludlow—the protagonist of Lee Goldberg’s True Fiction—sees his horrible imaginings become reality. If that wasn’t bad enough, the agency who hired him would now like to clean up after themselves by destroying the evidence of their nefarious actions, and that means eliminating… Read more »

Episode 106: Scott Reardon

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There’s an imposter posing as a covert agent in the CIA’s Paris office, but that’s the least of the Agency’s problems in The Prometheus Man, Scott Reardon’s debut thriller about the human repercussions of a rogue experiment to create the perfect warrior    

Episode 82: Barry Eisler

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In Barry Eisler’s The God’s Eye View, an out-of-control Director at the National Security Agency is running a program that can see everything and is eliminating anyone who poses a threat—not to the country—but to the program. A work of fiction. Really   Photo of Barry Eisler ©Naomi Brookner