Top 30 Action & Adventure Books -
New Books 2025
“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”
Welcome to Cozy Book Cafe 🖤​​ Discover the best new books 2025 for your Book Clubs.
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Action and adventure books are types of literature that focus on quick-moving plots packed with thrilling events and bold adventures. Usually, they feature a hero or main character who sets off on a quest or journey. These tales often present high-stakes situations, physical challenges, and conflicts, whether it's against an enemy, the elements, or destiny itself. Frequently taking place in unique settings or imaginative realms, they draw in readers by blending exciting action scenes with themes of exploration and discovery, making them perfect for anyone looking for a thrilling escape.
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★ BOOK CLUB TOP PICK ★
The Cosmos Keys by Glenn Cooper
Deep beneath the ruins of Turkey’s underground city of Derinkuyu, archaeologist David Birch makes a discovery that defies history—a bronze device covered in Greek inscriptions, its mechanisms impossibly advanced for its time. The artifact shouldn’t exist. And yet, its intricate design suggests a terrifying truth: someone in the distant past understood the future.
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Desperate for answers, David seeks out Eleni Lillakis, a brilliant historian of ancient technology. As they decipher the artifact’s origins, they stumble upon an astonishing legend—the Michaní Peproménou, the Destiny Machine. A device so powerful it was hidden from the world, tied to the secrets of the gods, and capable of glimpsing what’s to come.
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But they are not the only ones searching. A secretive cabal, willing to kill to keep the machine’s secrets buried, is closing in. From the shadowed ruins of Athens to the tunnels beneath Nottingham, from hidden crypts to modern-day power struggles, David and Eleni must unlock the truth before the machine falls into the wrong hands. Because if the legends are true, the artifact does more than reveal the future. It can change it.
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Tags - New Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, New Books 2025.
Covenant of the Iron Cross by Gary McAvoy
When Vatican archaeologist Marcus Russo uncovers the fabled Nazi Gold Train buried deep within the Owl Mountains of Poland, he expects to find a forgotten trove of looted treasures. Instead, he unearths a chilling codex that points to a dark and dangerous legacy: Operation Eisenkreuz, a Nazi plan to seed chaos and power across the globe long after their fall. But Marcus soon realizes the train’s secrets are only the beginning. Shadowed by an elusive and ruthless faction known as the Covenant of the Iron Cross, Marcus and his allies—Father Michael Dominic and journalist Hana Sinclair—must race against time to stop the Covenant from using the artifacts to reignite their deadly ambitions.
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As Marcus pieces together the codex’s fragmented clues, he discovers it holds more than history—it holds the key to a network of hidden Nazi caches and an unfinished plan that could shift the global balance of power. But the Covenant will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried, infiltrating even the highest echelons of the Vatican itself. From the war-torn archives of Rome to the frozen depths of Eastern Europe, Marcus, Michael, and Hana are drawn into a treacherous game of cat and mouse, where every discovery raises new questions. Who can they trust, and how deep does the Covenant’s influence run?
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​Tags - New Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, New Books 2025.
So Far Gone by Jess Walter
Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons.
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Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia?
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With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind.
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Tags - New Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, New Books 2025.
Tomb of the Snake by David Berens & Nick Thacker
Leah Stone is a daring, beautiful archaeologist hunting down the cryptic clues her uncle left her.
In the heart of Arizona's rugged wilderness, Leah Stone uncovers a clue to a legendary temple, hidden for centuries. Guided by the enigmatic diary of explorer G.E. Kinkaid, she sets out on a perilous journey.
Shrouded in mystery, the lost tomb is said to house ancient Egyptian artifacts, challenging the known history of the American continent.
But Leah isn't alone in her quest; a shadowy organization, led by the cunning Axel LaFitte, races against her, eyes set on the temple's untold secrets.
As Leah navigates treacherous paths and deciphers cryptic puzzles, she must also outsmart her relentless pursuers. The stakes skyrocket when she learns the temple's true purpose could alter the course of human history. With each step, Leah edges closer to a discovery that could prove monumental, all while fighting to stay one step ahead of danger.
It's a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, where knowledge is power, and the winner takes all.
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2024.
The 9th Man by Steve Berry
Luke Daniels is in London, between assignments with the Magellan Billet, when he receives a frantic call from an old friend. Jillian Stein is in trouble. She made a mistake and now her life may be in danger. She needs Luke’s help. Immediately. Racing to Belgium Luke quickly finds that she was right. A shadow team of highly-trained operatives are there on the hunt. Intervening, he finds himself embroiled in a war between two determined sides—one seeking the truth, the other trying to escape the past—a war that has already claimed one life and is about to claim more.
Thomas Rowland is a Washington insider, a kingmaker, problem-solver, but also a man with a past. For him everything turns with what happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. What history has recorded is wrong. There is more to the story, much more, and Thomas Rowland is at the center of that terrible reality. But forces are working against him, and Rowland will do anything to keep the world from learning what actually happened on that fateful day, including killing Luke, Jillian and anyone else who might be a threat.
In a race from Belgium, to Luxembourg, to the bayous of Louisiana and the Wyoming wilderness, to a final confrontation in the Bahamas, Luke Daniels confronts a series of shocking truths which not only rewrite history but will forever change his own life—as he comes face to face with the ninth man.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2023.
The Vatican Code by Rob Jones
The Knights Templar. An Ancient Relic. An Epic Quest.
Ex-soldier and MI6 operative Jed Mason is on his final mission and looking forward to a new life when he is involved in a car crash with an American scholar in the Lazio countryside. Offering to drive her into Rome, Mason soon learns she is connected to an important Vatican announcement due later that evening, one that will shock the world forever.
But minutes into the event, sinister masked terrorists storm the Sistine Chapel and take everyone hostage before stealing an ancient Knights Templar document, one lost to the world for centuries until now.
When Mason learns who the terrorists really are, and why they stole the document, he knows he must put his new life on hold and help his new friends in their quest, but is Mason prepared for the final, shocking revelation?
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2023.
The Anubis Plague by Matthew James & Nick Thacker
Zahra Kane is a brilliant and daring archaeologist. The former British Army Intelligence Linguist has used her fluency in a laundry list of languages, as well as her combat training, to succeed at the highest level. The intrepid adventurer isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or blow past the point of no return to obtain her prize.
Late one night, she receives a frantic phone call from her estranged brother, an Egyptologist who’s been tasked with examining a newly discovered tomb and the prize it contains: the original Book of the Dead — a scroll made of human skin and penned in human blood.
This book contains an additional segment of text describing a place forgotten to time, where archaic experimentations were conducted to produce a horrifying sickness.
The dig is attacked shortly after the scroll is unearthed, and an ancient society of murderous zealots is responsible for the bloodshed. Thus far, they have only been mentioned as a myth since before the time of the pharaohs.
Zahra’s brother is recruited at gunpoint to help find the clandestine location and replicate the virus — the plague — and release it upon the world.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2022.
The Cleopatra Cipher by L.D. Goffigan
The secrets of a powerful queen. A priceless treasure. A race against time...
Former FBI profiler turned professor Adrian West is in Rome for academic conference when she learns that her friend and colleague, Doctor Sebastian Rossi, has been abducted.
Her former partner, Nick Harper, believes that his disappearance is linked to stolen artifacts related to one of the most famous queens in history—Cleopatra.
When another of his colleagues is found murdered, and Adrian framed for the crime, it's a race against time from the streets of Rome and Cairo to the ancient temples of Egypt.
Adrian must prove her innocence, find Sebastian before it's too late, and stop a shadowy secret society from using the secrets of an ancient queen to cause the loss of countless lives...
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2022.
The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance. Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.
Sara Ewes, Devine’s coworker and former girlfriend, has been found hanging in a storage room of his office building—presumably a suicide, at least for now—prompting the NYPD to come calling on him. If that wasn’t enough, before the day is out, Devine receives another ominous visit, a confrontation that threatens to dredge up grim secrets from his past in the army unless he participates in a clandestine investigation into his firm. This treacherous role will take him from the impossibly glittering lives he once saw only through a train window, to the darkest corners of the country’s economic halls of power . . . where something rotten lurks. And apart from this high-stakes conspiracy, there’s a killer out there with their own agenda, and Devine is the bull’s-eye.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2022.
The Gatekeeper by James Byrne
A highly trained team of mercenaries launches a well-planned, coordinated attack on a well-guarded military contractor - but they didn't count on one thing, the right man being in the wrong place at the right time.
Desmond Aloysius Limerick (“Dez” to all) is a retired mercenary, and enthusiastic amateur musician, currently in Southern California, enjoying the sun and sitting in on the occasional gig, when the hotel he's at falls under attack. A skilled team attempts to kidnap the Chief legal counsel of Triton Expeditors, a major military contractor – in fact, Petra Alexandris is the daughter of the CEO – but their meticulously-planned, seamlessly executed scheme runs into the figurative 'spanner-in-the-works,' Dez himself.
After foiling the attack, and with nothing better to do, Dez agrees to help Alexandris with another problem she’s having – someone has embezzled more than a billion dollars from her company and left very few tracks behind. But Dez is a gatekeeper – one who opens doors and keeps them open – and this is just a door of another kind. And the door he opens leads to a dangerous conspiracy involving media manipulation, militias, an armed coup, and an attempt to fracture the United States themselves. There’s only one obstacle between the conspirators and success – and that is Dez, The Gatekeeper.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2022.
The Ark Files by Luke Richardson
Professional treasure hunter EDEN BLACK is no stranger to action. After all, the artifacts she spends her life returning to their rightful owners aren't always easy to access.
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When Eden's father dies in a plane crash, her life's turned upside down. Grief turns to fear when she learns that it wasn't an accident. Everyone involved in an archaeological dig twenty years ago has met with a similar untimely end. Everyone that is, but Eden who was ten at the time.
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When her father's house is raided and burned to the ground, Eden's forced into action. To learn the truth about her father's death and save herself from sharing his fate, Eden must uncover the manuscript and expose its secrets once and for all.
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But this time the world is watching, and not everyone is on her side.
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2022.
The Vatican Secret by David Leadbeater
The deepest secrets are kept in the darkest places.
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When ex-MI5 operative Joe Mason is sent to Rome to guard an elderly professor and his daughter, he thinks he’s in for an easy ride.
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But on their first day in the Vatican secret archives, a masked assassin gains entry, shoots Joe’s client in cold blood and steals an ancient manuscript. Giving chase, Joe can’t imagine what could lie within those pages that would make someone willing to kill.
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The search for answers leads Joe and his comrades in a race against time, across continents and into treacherous mountains.
Only they have a hope of rescuing the Vatican Book of Secrets before a centuries-old enemy can succeed in bringing Rome – and the world as we know it – crashing down…
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2022.​
Her Name Is Knight by Yasmin Angoe
​Stolen from her Ghanaian village as a child, Nena Knight has plenty of motives to kill. Now an elite assassin for a powerful business syndicate called the Tribe, she gets plenty of chances.
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But while on assignment in Miami, Nena ends up saving a life, not taking one. She emerges from the experience a changed woman, finally hopeful for a life beyond rage and revenge. Tasked with killing a man she’s come to respect, Nena struggles to reconcile her loyalty to the Tribe with her new purpose.
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Meanwhile, she learns a new Tribe council member is the same man who razed her village, murdered her family, and sold her into captivity. Nena can’t resist the temptation of vengeance—and she doesn’t want to.
Before she can reclaim her life, she must leverage everything she was and everything she is to take him down and end the cycle of bloodshed for good.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2021.
The Arthurian Relic by Andrew Clawson
A mythical king. A long-lost manuscript. A relic worth killing for.
Harry Fox hunts artifacts for the Italian mob. When a forgotten manuscript suggests Great Britain's most famous king may not be fiction, Harry plunges headlong on a dangerous path to uncover the truth. Little does he know a shadowy alliance with ties to three of mankind’s most powerful organizations follows his every move, desperate to stop him before he can uncover the truth behind the legend.
Surrounded by enemies and able to trust no one, Harry barrels across the globe and discovers the myth of King Arthur is far more real than anyone ever imagined. Can Harry survive to reveal the true story of this legendary man, or will the ancient forces chasing him add his name to their long list of victims?
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2021.
The Vivaldi Cipher by Gary McAvoy
Nearly three hundred years later, the confession of a dying Mafia Don alerts a Venetian priest to a wealth of forged paintings in the Vatican Museum, and the key to their identities lies hidden in a puzzling piece of music. Father Michael Dominic, prefect of the Secret Archives, investigates, and is mystified when he finds a cipher in an old composition from Vivaldi. Desperate to stop this centuries-long conspiracy, he calls on fellow sleuth Hana Sinclair and Dr. Livia Gallo, a music cryptologist, to help him crack the code and learn the truth.
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But the Camorra, a centuries-old Italian Mafia clan, won’t stand by while some interfering priest ruins their most lucrative operation. Along with a French commando and two valiant Swiss Guards, Dominic explores the dark canals and grand palazzos of Venice to uncover the evidence he needs to stop the sinister plot. Can he unearth it in time, or will the Church’s most valuable artworks fall prey to this massive conspiracy?
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2021.
The Lost Page by Joe Edd Morris
An unforgettable story of two courageous couples who risk everything for truth.
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Amid a revolution, archaeologist Christopher Jordan and ancient manuscript expert Kathryn Ferguson travel to Syria in search of the original scroll of Marks' Gospel.
Paralleling their quest is the story of the evangelist's escape with the scroll from the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., his struggles to complete the manuscript and his journeys and efforts with the daughter of Peter the Apostle to protect and save it for the ages.
For both couples, time is running out and enemies are closing in.
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Richly evocative and fiercely moving, this historical thriller explores the hard questions: Did Mark intentionally omit the resurrection story, leaving it shrouded in mystery? Or did it become detached and lost forever?
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2021.
Hell's Gate by Ernest Dempsey
On any given day, the experts at Atlanta’s International Archaeological Agency crisscross the globe to rescue ancient relics long feared lost to time, war, or thieves.
IAA agents have recovered billions’ worth of missing antiquities, have wiped out entire networks of smugglers, and have even solved a murder at the Vatican. Their successes have made headlines from Tokyo to Turin to Tulsa.
But some mysteries require deeper investigation—enigmas so puzzling that they’ve defied the explanations of history, science, and faith for millennia. Enter the IAA’s top two researchers, Alex Simms and Tara Watson, among the brightest, most dogged investigators ever to unearth a secret.
This husband-and-wife duo has played a key role in every major success at the agency, but they’ve never been tested like this before. Their first assignment? To track down and stop a resurgent order of neo-Nazis who believe a cache of ancient stones holds the key to a new, eternal German Reich. Alex and Tara—whose “weapons” normally include computers, lab equipment, and reference books—are about to face an entirely new brand of war: in the real world, against real criminals…with real guns.
They’ll need every bit of skill, luck, and maybe a miracle to stop these madmen who are hell-bent on opening Hell’s Gate.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2020.
Old Bones by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Nora Kelly, a young curator at the Santa Fe Institute of Archaeology, is approached by historian Clive Benton with a once-in-a-lifetime proposal: to lead a team in search of the so-called "Lost Camp" of the tragic Donner Party. This was a group of pioneers who earned a terrible place in American history when they became snow-bound in the California mountains in 1847, their fate unknown until the first skeletonized survivors stumbled out of the wilderness, raving about starvation, murder-and cannibalism.
Benton tells Kelly he has stumbled upon an amazing find: the long-sought diary of one of the victims, which has an enigmatic description of the Lost Camp. Nora agrees to lead an expedition to locate and excavate it-to reveal its long-buried secrets.
Once in the mountains, however, they learn that discovering the camp is only the first step in a mounting journey of fear. For as they uncover old bones, they expose the real truth of what happened, one that is far more shocking and bizarre than mere cannibalism. And when those ancient horrors lead to present-day violence on a grand scale, rookie FBI agent Corrie Swanson is assigned the case...only to find that her first investigation might very well be her last.
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2019.
The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk
To find a Russian mole in the White House, an FBI agent must question everything. . . and trust no one.
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No one is more surprised than FBI Agent Peter Sutherland when he’s tapped to work in the White House Situation Room. When Peter was a boy, his father was suspected of selling secrets to the Russians—a breach that cost him his career, his reputation, and eventually his life. Now Peter’s job is monitoring an emergency line for a call that has not—and might never—come. ​Until tonight.
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At 1:05 A.M. the phone rings. A terrified young woman named Rose tells Peter that two people have just been murdered and that the killer might still be in the house with her. One of the victims gave her this phone number with urgent instructions: “Tell them OSPREY was right. It’s happening...”
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The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making, involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Anyone in the White House could be the traitor. Anyone could be corrupted. To save the nation, Peter must take the rules into his own hands, question everything, and trust no one.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2019.
The Terminal List by Jack Carr
On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s entire team was killed in a catastrophic ambush.
But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government.
Now, with no family and free from the military’s command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he’s learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates.
With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2018.
Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz
Who is Orphan X?
The Nowhere Man is a legendary figure spoken about only in whispers. It’s said that when he’s reached by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them. But he’s not merely a legend.
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Evan Smoak was an orphan raised in a secret government programme.
When he lost faith in it, he got out and now uses his training to help the desperate and deserving who've nowhere left to run - if you can find him.
But no one can escape their past for ever. Someone is on Evan's trail. Someone with the same skills and training. And who knows the weaknesses of the boy who became Orphan X . . .
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2016.
The Drifter by Nick Petrie
Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls his “white static,” the buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming in nature, sleeping under the stars.
But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man’s widow with some home repairs. Under her dilapidated porch, he finds more than he bargained for: the largest, ugliest, meanest dog he’s ever encountered...and a Samsonite suitcase stuffed with cash and explosives.
As Ash begins to investigate this unexpected discovery, he finds himself at the center of a plot that is far larger than he could have imagined...and it may lead straight back to the world he thought he’d left for good.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2016.
Expedition Indigo by Stacy Allen
Riley Cooper is offered the chance of a lifetime: to find the Crux Fidelis, the coronation cross of Charlemagne.
Under Water Sea Adventures members believe they have found the remains of the Indigo, a heavily laden cargo ship commissioned by Charlemagne and presumed lost on its maiden voyage off the coast of Southern Italy in the early 800s.
If Riley can find the cross, it will prove Charlemagne's coronation as the First Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day had not been a spontaneous act but rather a desperate political maneuver by a pope in need of protection.
When Riley joins UWSA off the coast of Sorrento, Italy, tensions and tempers fly as a competing team arrives in search of the treasure, and an approaching hurricane gains strength and heads straight toward the dive site.
And when one of the crew is murdered, Riley must find the strength to fight back and keep the treasure out of the other team's hands.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2014.
American Assassin by Vince Flynn
Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world…and then tragedy struck. Terrorists attacked innocent American citizens, and Rapp’s girlfriend was among the murdered. Two hundred and seventy souls perished on that cold December night, and thousands of family and friends were left searching for comfort. Mitch Rapp was one of them, but he was not interested in comfort. Now he wants retribution.
Two decades of cutthroat partisan politics have left the CIA and the country in an increasingly vulnerable position. Cold War veteran CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield knows he must prepare his people for the next war. America must confront Islamic terrorism with full force. Stansfield directs his protégée, Irene Kennedy, and his old Cold War colleague, Stan Hurley, to form a new group of clandestine operatives who will work outside the normal chain of command—men who do not exist.
What type of man is willing to kill for his country without putting on a uniform? Six months of intense training have prepared him to take the war to the enemy’s doorstep, and he does so with brutal efficiency. Rapp starts in Istanbul, where he assassinates the Turkish arms dealer who sold the explosives used in the terrorist attack. Rapp then moves on to Hamburg with his team and across Europe, leaving a trail of bodies. All roads lead to Beirut, though, and what Rapp doesn't know is that the enemy is aware of his existence and has prepared a trap. The hunter is about to become the hunted, and Rapp will need every ounce of skill and cunning if he is to survive the war-ravaged city and its various terrorist factions.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2010.
The Hunter by Tom Wood
Victor is an assassin, a man with no past and no surname.
His world is one of paranoia and obsessive attention to detail; his morality lies either dead or dying. No one knows what truly motivates the hunter.
No one gets close enough to ask.
When a Paris job goes spectacularly wrong, Victor finds himself running for his life across four continents, pursued by a kill squad and investigated by secret services from more than one country.
With meticulous style, Victor plans his escape . . . and takes the fight to his would-be killers.
In this first novel in the explosive Victor the Assassin series, it's not about right and wrong - only about who lives and who dies.
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​Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2010.
The Gray Man by Mark Greaney
To those who lurk in the shadows, he’s known as the Gray Man.
He is a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible and then fading away. And he always hits his target. Always.
But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world.
Forces like money. And power.
And there are men who hold these as the only currency worth fighting for.
And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness.
But Court Gentry is going to prove that, for him, there’s no gray area between killing for a living and killing to stay alive....
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2009.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue.... It's about the disappearance 40 years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden...and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.
It's about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance...and about Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old, pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age, who assists Blomkvist with the investigation.
This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism - and an unexpected connection between themselves.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2005.
Seven Deadly Wonders by Matthew Reilly
An ancient secret...a team of heroes...the adventure of a lifetime.
A legend of the ancient world decrees that every 4,500 years, a terrible solar event will wreak worldwide destruction...but whoever sets the Golden Capstone atop the Great Pyramid at Giza will avert disaster and gain the ultimate prize: a millennium of world dominance.
Now the Sun is turning once again and nation will battle nation to retrieve the missing Capstone...but a group of small nations, led by super-soldier Jack West Jr., bands together to prevent any one country from attaining this frightening power. Thus the greatest treasure hunt of all time begins—an adrenaline-fueled race on a global battlefield.
From the Colossus of Rhodes to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Great Egyptian Pyramid itself, unlock the thrills of Seven Deadly Wonders.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2005.
Hard Landing by Stephen Leather
Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line.
Working for an elite undercover squad he has lied, cheated and conned in order to bring Britain's most wanted criminals to justice.
But when a powerful drugs baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd is given his most dangerous assignment yet.
He has to go undercover in a top security prison, a world where one wrong move will mean certain death.
As Shepherd gambles everything to move in on his quarry, he soon realises that the man he is hunting is even more dangerous than the police realise. And that he is capable of striking outside the prison walls and hitting Shepherd where it hurts most.
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2004.
Sandstorm by James Rollins
A freak explosion in the British museum in London ignites a perilous race for an earth-shaking power source buried deep beneath the sands of history.
Painter Crowe is an agent for Sigma Force, a covert arm of the Defense Department tasked with keeping dangerous scientific discoveries out of enemy hands.
When an ancient artifact points the way toward the legendary "Atlantis of the Sands," Painter must travel across the world in search of the lost city-and a destructive power beyond imagining.
But Painter has competition.
A band of ruthless mercenaries, led by a former friend and ally, are also intent on claiming the prize, and they will destroy anyone who gets in their way.
Ancient history collides with cutting-edge science-with the safety of the world at stake!
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Tags - Action & Adventure Books, Thriller, Published 2004.
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