69 books like Whisper

This is the first in a long-running series about two very different police officers in Baltimore. Cole builds two characters who are fire and ice, both wounded and broken by their pasts and unable to accept the future is anything but bleak. The investigations are fast-paced and clever, often touching on difficult subjects with a deft hand of a skilled writer. The romance is a very slow burn, but the growing attraction between these two men is worth the wait. These books are savage at times, but also lyrical and beautifully written. The characters, the city, the murders, they make everything so very real. Again, we learn what it’s like to be a gay man in a hetero-normative world and how difficult it is to succeed.

I stumbled over this book and soon found myself hooked. It’s a romance, yes, but the research into conflict and its effects put it up there on my list of thrillers. It’s not strictly speaking a thriller, it’s more of a military action story and romance, but the characters are wonderful. The way they react to the war zone conflict, the effect it has on the unit and the reporter embedded with them, it has a wonderful ring of truth. And that’s what I’m always looking for in a good romance, the ring of truth. You have to really feel the RPGs coming in, and Garrett does an amazing job of making you really feel it.

It would be remiss of me, not to mention Sloane in my list. Hugely popular, and rightly so, Sloane chooses to tackle some difficult subjects in her books. The protagonist is often deeply traumatised and trying to unlock (no pun intended) a mystery. In the process, they fall in love. In this book, Nolan’s career is being destroyed and Dallas’s entire life is ripped apart by the lies of those who should have cared. They are well-written, fast-paced romances. I like them because, again, you have the sense that the characters face events we face and have to make decisions we make. Yes, the men are usually big and beautiful, but it’s romance, that’s its job, but there’s something special about these romantic thrillers that means I remember the stories and the characters, sometimes wondering how they’re getting on—always a good sign for a good book.

I love a well-written historical thriller with a flair for romance and this one is great. I know how hard it is to write a good historical thriller. I’ve done many for the medieval period, but this one specialises in the Roman period. A notoriously difficult period to write about for fiction. I couldn’t find anything wrong in there. The dynamic between the protagonists is very well handled and the action is superb. The politics and thriller aspects are deftly handled, never bogging down the action. Thoroughly enjoyable trip to ancient Rome.

In a book that was published before its time, Vince Flynn fictionalizes what some knew to be true many years ago: that the members of the Saudi royal family financed those who had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. Now that the curtains have been opened on these pieces of intelligence, this book is even more of a great read. Enemy of the State is written by perhaps one of the best spycraft authors of our time, and chronicles a former Special Operator who has been sent to Saudi Arabia to uncover the evidence of one of the greatest betrayals in history. Finding himself double-crossed and in a foreign land, he must fight and escape both the Saudi and American intelligence agencies & their networks to stay alive and bring the truth to the world.

Taking the story from the endgame of the Cold War to the dawn of the War on Terror is this extraordinary book on the rise of Islamist terrorism and the CIA’s efforts to defeat it prior to 9/11. Coll’s research, based on interviews with a vast range of senior officials, is dazzling, yet it never overwhelms a narrative that combines human interest and geopolitical sweep seamlessly. No less impressive is his accomplishment in documenting not just the U.S. and Afghan perspectives but the Saudi and Pakistani as well, all in the same painstaking detail. If this whets the appetite for more of the same, Coll’s Directorate S resumes his account of the intelligence wars in Afghanistan, providing necessary background to understanding the failure of the U.S. occupation there.

Again, another title that really grabbed me. I absolutely adored this book about former pararescue jumper Orion Star who lives in Alaska and his romance with the CIA profiler he met while on a mission overseas.

Jenny decides she wants to climb Denali! The tallest mountain in North America doesn’t always play nice so Orion must rescue her. I loved every minute of this story, especially all the details the author includes about climbing this mountain as if she’d done it herself. Who knows—maybe she did. 

Long before Edward Snowden there was Phillip Agee. A former CIA officer, Agee turned whistleblower, publishing this unauthorized account of his life undercover and exposing many of the “Company’s” operations in the process. Agee worked for the CIA in Ecuador, Uruguay, and Mexico. He claimed the turning point came in Uruguay where he listened to the beating of a political prisoner (whose name he had provided to the police) while the police chief turned up the volume of a soccer game on the radio. His matter-of-fact diary included a controversial appendix of agent and officer names and cryptonyms. Incensed at the endangerment of its assets, the CIA sued and pursued Agee, who fled the country and spent the rest of his life denouncing the tactics of his former employer.

This is a great book about former CIA Director Richard Helms and the agency he directed.  Helms was the quintessential CIA man, and Powers tells the story of his 30-year career in spying in this beautifully written book, which somehow captures both Helms’ elusiveness and his essence.

When asked about my favorite author and influences, Vince Flynn is right at the top. 

Flynn and his character Mitch Rapp aren’t afraid to take on anyone in order to wreak justice, even if the trail leads them to the oval office itself. This is what I love about the book, series, and character, that urgent, calculated versus reckless pursuit of justice.

Act of Treason, like the rest of the Mitch Rapp series, is fast-paced, irreverent at times, and hard-hitting as CIA Agent Rapp faces down anyone, foreign or domestic, to complete his mission. I enjoy Flynn’s writing style and the emotional twists he makes Rapp and the readers endure.