Here are 74 books that Persuader fans have personally recommended if you like
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During my career in law enforcement, I worked in narcotics, violent crimes, criminal intelligence, hostage rescue, SWAT, and internal affairs, to name just a few. I am the recipient of many awards and commendations for heroism. The Sinister is the ninth novel in the best-selling Bruno Johnson Crime series, following The Disposables, The Replacements, The Squandered, The Vanquished, The Innocents, The Reckless, The Heartless, and The Ruthless. I live in the Los Angeles area with my wife, Mary.
I struggled to put this book on a crime novel list, but this is one of my favorite books of all time. At its heart, it’s a spy novel. It makes the list because the main character hunts bad agents–the internal affairs of the CIA.
The book opens with a murder crime scene in New York. If you haven’t heard about this book, it’s a true phenomenon. Many times, during book signings, I’ve been asked by readers if I knew of this book and how much they absolutely loved it. More importantly, though, they wanted me to tell them when the sequel was coming out. This book came out in 2014, and the sequel came out this year, ten years later. It garners 95k reviews on Amazon, which alone tells you all you need to know.
The astonishing story of one man's breakneck race against time to save America from oblivion. _______________ A FATHER PUBLICLY BEHEADED. Killed in the blistering heat of a Saudi Arabian public square. A YOUNG WOMAN DISCOVERED. All of her identifying characteristics dissolved by acid.
A SYRIAN BIOTECH EXPERT FOUND EYELESS. Dumped in a Damascus junkyard.
SMOULDERING HUMAN REMAINS. Abandoned on a remote mountainside in Afghanistan.
PILGRIM. The codename for a man who doesn't exist. A man who must return from obscurity. The only man who can uncover a flawless plot to commit an appalling crime against humanity. _____________
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.
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…
In the early 70s I was a pop singer/recording artist in Paris with a dinner show at a restaurant/discotheque/bar called Jacky’s Far West Saloon. Located in the trendy Montparnasse area, it was popular with the US embassy personnel. As such, it was also a magnet for spooks looking to score contacts with the Americans. I witnessed a lot of intrigue there, some of it major, most of it minor, and developed a passion for international espionage. I also developed a passion for international finance and went on to author or co-author ten books and over a hundred journal articles on the subject.
I like the Jack Ryan concept, a spy whose dad is the president. I like the campus one-for-all-all-for-one esprit de corps.
The starting point is nothing new – a diabolic plan to start a civil war. The Balkan venue is what makes it interesting. Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Turks, Chechens, Syrians, Russians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Muslim fanatics – what a mix! The reason this particular book is special is because I read it twice.
I have a Serbian colleague, which made the story more relevant to me, personally. We often discuss world events. The first time I read the book I did not know him. The second time I read it was after we had met and discussed extensively. I saw things in a different light and enjoyed it much more the second time.
A stunning thriller in the internationally bestselling series that inspired the smash-hit Amazon Prime TV Show JACK RYAN
Jack Ryan Jr is in an assassin's sights . . .
Sent to the Balkans on an analytical mission, Jack Ryan Jr visits Sarajevo to meet Aida, the girl his mother saved in the war. He finds a selfless, attractive woman helping refugees in a restless country where a new war is brewing.
Coming to her aid, Jack is soon tangling with the Serbian mafia while dodging assassins from the mysterious Iron Syndicate. Alone and defying recall orders, he believes this is…
In the early 70s I was a pop singer/recording artist in Paris with a dinner show at a restaurant/discotheque/bar called Jacky’s Far West Saloon. Located in the trendy Montparnasse area, it was popular with the US embassy personnel. As such, it was also a magnet for spooks looking to score contacts with the Americans. I witnessed a lot of intrigue there, some of it major, most of it minor, and developed a passion for international espionage. I also developed a passion for international finance and went on to author or co-author ten books and over a hundred journal articles on the subject.
The reason I recommend this book is because it is so different from most spy thrillers.
The hero, Kit Carradine, is not a spy. He is a writer living a boring life in London. His father was a spy, however. He gets recruited to do a small job for the Service. When he agrees, his life is changed. Kit is different from the Jack Reachers and Ryans.
He is a professionally naive, and often in over his head, which provides readers a fresh and accessible vantage to the typical genre tropes.
'Recommended. I read it one breathless sitting' Ian Rankin
A gripping new standalone spy thriller, recalling the classic film Casablanca, from the winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year and 'the master of the modern spy thriller' (Mail on Sunday).
A SIMPLE TASK Successful novelist Kit Carradine has grown restless. So when British Intelligence invites him to enter the secret world of espionage, he willingly takes a leap into the unknown.
A GLOBAL THREAT Kit finds himself in Morocco on the trail of Lara Bartok - a leading figure in Resurrection, a revolutionary…
I’ve always been drawn to stories of good versus evil and watching a hero overcome a great struggle to beat a villain and win the day. I feel it’s innate in humans to want to hear such tales ever since the days gathered around the campfires thousands of years ago, and when it’s done well, it can be a story that inspires you in your own life. Hopefully, these novels can do the same for you!
The atmosphere is a crucial element for me in a good thriller, and this book is one of the more underrated and forgotten Jack Reacher stories from Lee Child. The sense of dread builds slowly and slowly, with some very unpleasant villains in the shadows and some vulnerable lead characters waiting for them to appear.
The action is maybe more sparse than in other Reacher books, but when it happens, it’s just as shocking for the reader as it is for the characters. Hopefully, with the TV show now running on full steam, they’ll consider adapting this for a future season.
Jack Reacher takes aim at the White House in the sixth novel in Lee Child's #1 New York Times bestselling series.
DON'T MISS REACHER ON PRIME VIDEO!
Skilled, cautious, and anonymous, Jack Reacher is perfect for the job: to assassinate the vice president of the United States. Theoretically, of course. A female Secret Service agent wants Reacher to find the holes in her system, and fast-because a covert group already has the vice president in their sights. They've planned well. There's just one thing they didn't plan on: Reacher.
I’ve always been enamored with the World War II era. It was a time that seems virtually non-existent today, where almost everyone in my country was on the same page. There seemed to be a collective commitment to the struggle. An agreement that this was indeed good versus evil. Of course, I’m sure its nostalgic allure is much greater for those of us who didn’t actually have to live through it. But the strength, perseverance, and everyday heroism it brought out in soldiers and civilians alike, deserves to be chronicled and remembered forever.
In addition to being an intriguing mystery about a serial killer, this is a fascinating portrait of Germany before, during, and after World War II. What is the landscape of a defeated country really like? How can cigarette butts literally become economic currency? The reader learns truly remarkable things about what people will do to simply survive. Plus, the narrative itself flips tradition on its head by telling you about victims after they are dead, rather than before they are killed. Atmospheric and compelling, this story pulls you in and won’t let you go.
Set in a devastated Berlin one month after the close of the Second World War, Berlin has been acclaimed as "ambitious . . . filled with brilliantly drawn characters, mesmerizingly readable, and disturbingly convincing" by the Sunday Telegraph. An electrifying thriller in the tradition of Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst, Berlin is a page-turner and an intimate portrait of Germany before, during, and after the war. It is 1945 in the American sector of occupied Berlin, and a German boy has discovered the body of a beautiful young woman in a subway station. Blonde and blue-eyed, she has been sexually…
Riley Masterson has moved to Greenbrier, SC, anxious to escape the chaos that has overwhelmed her life.
Questioned in a murder in Alabama, she has spent eighteen months under suspicion by a sheriff’s office, unable to make an arrest. But things in gentrifying Greenbrier are not as they seem. As…
I read my first crime thriller at the age of 12, and since then I’ve always had a passion to write my own stories. Although I’ve never worked as a police officer, I spent close to 10 years working as an IT consultant to multiple police forces in Australia before retiring to write full-time. The time spent working closely with law enforcement gave me a ‘feel’ for how police forces operate and helped me gravitate towards the police procedural genre. A book that moved at the pace of most police investigations would never sell and I love the challenge of making the stories authentic but still moving at a pace to keep the reader captivated.
The Jack Reacher character is arguably the best-known protagonist in the mystery thriller genre. In most novels I’ve ever read, the main character has a character arc where the protagonist learns from his adventures, trials, and tribulations and becomes a better person (or in some cases the opposite). Whatever the trajectory, the character changes over time, but in Lee Childs’ books, the Jack Reacher character never changes. Reacher is your quintessential flat line – nothing phases him and nothing ever changes him. He's a drifter, who walks the USA with a toothbrush in one pocket and an ATM card in the other. Reacher likes to stay out of trouble, but he’s not afraid to confront it either when it finds him. It's very hard not to like Jack Reacher and it's even harder not to like Lee Childs books (he's written 27 so far). I always read a Jack Reacher…
A heartland city thrown into terror. But within hours the cops have it solved. A slam-dunk case. Apart from one thing. The accused gunman refuses to talk except for a single phrase:
Get Jack Reacher for me.
Reacher lives off the grid. He's not looking for trouble. But sometimes trouble looks for him. What could connect the noble Reacher to this psychopathic killer?
_________
Although the Jack Reacher can be read in any order, One Shot is the 9th in the series.
And be sure not to miss Reacher's newest adventure, no.27, No Plan B! ***OUT…
I am a retired police officer who worked the streets and conducted criminal investigations for over thirty-one years in a busy city with Detroit as a neighbor. I handled everything from narcotics to arson and murder. Having lived the life, I truly enjoy a well-written crime novel, especially those inspired by real events. That is what I also write. I prefer crime stories where the protagonist is truer to life and doesn’t possess superpowers.
I've read a few of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels and I have to say this was probably my favorite. I found Reacher’s humor a little drier in this one, and there was a lot less of Child's sometimes painfully slow narrative.
I liked the characters and the plot moved well, with a couple of cool twists to keep you guessing right until the end. For me, it was a fun read!
"Consistently pulse-raising. . .an exhilarating ride. . .Personal wrests back the sheer gusto of the earlier novels; it's the best Reacher adventure in some considerable time." (Independent)
Jack Reacher walks alone.
Once a go-to hard man in the US military police, now he's a drifter of no fixed abode. But the army tracks him down. Because someone has taken a long-range shot at the French president.
Only one man could have done it. And Reacher is the one man who can find him.
This new heartstopping, nailbiting book in Lee Child's number-one bestselling series takes Reacher across the Atlantic to…
I have been an avid reader all my life and have been fortunate (or unfortunate) to have a life full of a variety of experiences. Wonderful stuff to draw on when you’re writing, including a unique near-death experience. When I stumbled on a book idea with a topic I’d never heard of before, I was fascinated with the idea of writing “something new under the sun.” I also am thrilled to write books that give others as much joy as reading has given me over the years. A little action, a little passion, and a bunch of plot twists bring other worlds to life for me.
I picked this book because it is the 1st Jack Reacher novel, but they are all great. They speak to me because they depict a very unusual guy. A tough guy with a brain and a strong sense of right and wrong. A vagrant who fixes problems wherever he goes.
I have been accused of having a white-knight syndrome all my life, so I find this character riveting. Action, plot twists usually a touch of romance. These are all things that speak to me and Jack Reacher novels are full of them.
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He's just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he's arrested for murder. Not much of a welcome. All Reacher knows is that he didn't kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn't stand a chance of convincing anyone. Not in Margrave, Georgia. Not a chance in hell.
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, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the…
My expertise with the topic is that I served for over 22 months in the army, where I learned many things people do not learn in normal life. I belong to several Vietnam veteran organizations, and I am the first president of the Lehigh Northampton Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Randy was a military policeman with the 615th MP Company in Vietnam in 1967, The 615th patrolled the entire Long Binh complex, which was approximately 50 miles around, with over 30,000 men stationed on the post. His letters offered the reader an honest appraisal of the life of a Military Policeman 10,000 miles from home.
I boarded the plane to Vietnam at exactly midnight on January 1st, 1967. I was a 19 year old soldier with pen and paper in hand. I began to write. “Letters from Long Binh gives the reader an honest appraisal of the everyday life of an MP in Vietnam. Sometimes poignant,sometimes humorous, but always gripping, the book is written with a deep sense of respect for his fellow brothers-in-arms in a war-torn country.”
