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Not many people know that I was so timid as a child; I used to burst into tears if I had to ask for something in a store. Now, I am known for my “out there” presentation style and mastery of words. Since 1982, I have been working with individuals and groups to help them get better at persuading, solving conflicts, and having inspiring relationships. So, how can you be a nice, caring person and still be persuasive, even with the most skeptical of people? These books helped me do this.
I love this book because his techniques are so practical and easy to use.
I re-read his book when I was in the middle of a difficult business negotiation over Zoom and email and followed his directions step by step. This led to a positive outcome for both of us.
He makes sure that you are very clear on what is essential for you, enables you to figure out the sometimes hidden motivations of the other person, and guides you through on what to say and do next. I will go through it again the next time I am preparing a negotiation.
A former FBI hostage negotiator offers a new, field-tested approach to negotiating - effective in any situation.
'Riveting' Adam Grant 'Stupendous' The Week 'Brilliant' Guardian ____________________________ After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a kidnapping negotiator brought him face-to-face with bank robbers, gang leaders and terrorists. Never Split the Difference takes you inside his world of high-stakes negotiations, revealing the nine key principles that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed when it mattered the most - when people's lives were at stake.
I’ve been fascinated by thrillers since I was first allowed to read them. My childhood bookcase was full of Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean, and every Nevil Shute novel. Later, these were joined by many others, not least John Le Carré. Banking gave me an insight into the murky world of money, bringing with it real-life stories as compelling as those I love reading about. My obsession with the genre is not only with elegant, complex plots but also with what motivates the characters to take the extraordinary risks they do in such challenging environments. The five thrillers I’ve chosen are my absolute favorites. I hope you enjoy them.
I loved the seamless interweaving of narratives, the central quest to secure an asset for the CIA against the hostile backdrop of Damascus, the love story between two truly star-crossed lovers, and the complex survival story of those battling the vicious Assad regime.
I loved the unforgettable tension and pace that was maintained throughout the book and the insight it gave into what it is to be a spy working in the most difficult environment.
CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad's recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy.
But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad's spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared…
I am a psychiatrist and former American diplomat, who served overseas in Europe, Russia, Mexico, and India. My regional diplomatic travels took me to over 70 countries over several decades. I have always loved spy thrillers because they highlight the intrigue, drama, psychology, and history of different cultures, which brings out the humanity, courage, and tragedy of the characters therein. Good spy thrillers also capture a sense of place, culture, and history, and possess an authenticity that gives them a broader, universal appeal.
A wonderful book! James Church is former intelligence officer, and in Bamboo and Blood, he weaves a tale of murder and missile deals, set in the context of North Korea's famine.
With its evocation of cold, snow, and death, Inspector O encounters a giggling Israeli agent; a solitary, lonely North Korean general; a former colleague from a failed mission; a bevy of North Korean diplomats; and a Swiss counterintelligence officer. The tale ends with Inspector O's caveat to the Israeli agent: "Belief is easy. It's doubting that causes difficulties."
Inspector O survives the famine, and another winter, as does North Korea. This novel by Church, like his debut spy thriller/mystery, A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Novel, is one to be savored.
It's the late 1990s, and a younger Inspector is working in Pyongyang as the North's nuclear missile program - and international relations are heating up. In Pakistan, the wife of a North Korean diplomat is found dead under suspicious circumstances. Inspector is assigned to the investigation with strict instructions to stay away from anything to do with the missile program. That proves impossible, though, when realizes the woman's death provides him an entry point into a larger conspiracy,Once again, James Church opens a window onto a society where nothing is quite as it seems. The story serves as the reader's…
I am a psychiatrist and former American diplomat, who served overseas in Europe, Russia, Mexico, and India. My regional diplomatic travels took me to over 70 countries over several decades. I have always loved spy thrillers because they highlight the intrigue, drama, psychology, and history of different cultures, which brings out the humanity, courage, and tragedy of the characters therein. Good spy thrillers also capture a sense of place, culture, and history, and possess an authenticity that gives them a broader, universal appeal.
I loved this work! And its realism truly frightened me.
James Lawler, a legendary CIA officer, has followed his brilliant debut novel (Living Lies: A Novel of the Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program) with a very frightening and all-too-contemporary thriller about bioweapons. This is not science fiction, and the fields of bioweapons and neuro weapons - think ‘Havana Syndrome’ or lethal viruses such as COVID and EBOLA - have been extensively studied by America’s adversaries.
Jim has told a gripping, taut, and exciting tale of Russia’s and North Korea’s collaboration in the development of such bioweapons. The characters are fascinating and believable, as is the plot line. Lawler’s novel combines espionage, mystery, and science fiction – or not! – in a terrifying, real-world, 21st-century mystery thriller.
"In the Twinkling of an Eye" is a story about espionage, family love, and loyalty, focused on a Russian-North Korean conspiracy to develop a devastating biological weapon for assassination, terror and genocide, as written by a senior CIA operations officer whose career was devoted to battling the spread of weapons of mass destruction. This is the second book in the thrilling Guild Series!
In 1986, a Ukrainian teenager loses his father and his own left eye to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but he escapes and becomes a top-notch genetics engineer at Moscow State University. There, he is seduced into joining…
I love a well-written historical fiction novel that immerses me in the time period and introduces a female character I can relate to. We may live in different times, but women in all eras feel love, attempt and fail, find strength, perform heroic deeds, suffer mishaps, and experience life. Escaping into their stories makes me question what I would have done in their shoes as well as think about how my own story is still being written. As a historical fiction author, I seek to create those relationships between my characters and readers.
Berlin, 1989. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker - a high level East German counterintelligence officer - who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker.…
My book recommendations reflect my experience as a former US government physician-diplomat, based overseas in Russia, Mexico, Europe, and South Asia, where I was involved in working closely with law enforcement and diplomatic negotiators in several highly sensitive, delicate, and dangerous hostage situations, both as a consultant and in providing medical support/care coordination to released hostages. I always found this work to be exhilarating and demanding, and it left me with the highest respect for law enforcement, diplomatic, and mental health professionals who work in this space. As a result, I’ve had additional formal training in hostage negotiation, negotiation psychology, and medical/psychological support to victims.
Picco’s book is a striking tale of his role as a UN diplomat in the 1980s and 1990s, where he worked tirelessly behind the scenes to negotiate and free numerous hostages held by Islamic terrorist groups in Lebanon.
He describes his meetings with key Israeli, Syrian, American, and Iranian interlocutors in extremely risky, high-stakes hostage negotiations; he was thought to have been one of the few Westerners to have ever met the late Imad Mugnihyah, leader of Islamic Jihad—and lived to tell the tale.
Picco is a true hero, and the released Lebanon hostages owed their lives to his compassion, courage, unbelievable endurance, and remarkable diplomatic gifts.
Can an unarmed man triumph in a land of terror and violence?
Man Without a Gun is the true story of a single UN diplomat's astonishing high-wire struggle for peace in the Middle East. UN secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar called the author "more of a soldier than a diplomat." And, indeed, his life is the stuff of John le Carré thrillers. But Man Without a Gun is more than a thriller: It is a real-life voyage through the maze of the secretive Middle East, the inside account of the political maneuverings that continue to dominate today's headlines, and the…
My book recommendations reflect my experience as a former US government physician-diplomat, based overseas in Russia, Mexico, Europe, and South Asia, where I was involved in working closely with law enforcement and diplomatic negotiators in several highly sensitive, delicate, and dangerous hostage situations, both as a consultant and in providing medical support/care coordination to released hostages. I always found this work to be exhilarating and demanding, and it left me with the highest respect for law enforcement, diplomatic, and mental health professionals who work in this space. As a result, I’ve had additional formal training in hostage negotiation, negotiation psychology, and medical/psychological support to victims.
This book is an incredible story of the behind-the-scenes efforts to locate and free the 276 young Nigerian [Chibok] schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014, a kidnapping which attracted worldwide media attention.
It’s a story of 2 tales: first, of the incredible courage and Christian faith of those young girls, which in many cases, sustained them, keeping them alive physically, psychologically, and spiritually as they underwent immense hardships and tortures. Second, it’s a tale of two other heroes, a Nigerian lawyer, Zanna Mustapha, and a Swiss diplomat, Pascal Holiger, who worked tirelessly over many years to free many of the hostages.
A gripping read about Nigeria, Christian faith, hostage negotiation, terrorism, and redemption.
What happens after you click tweet?. . . The heart-stopping and definitive account of the rescue mission to free hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls, and their heroic survival, after their 2014 kidnapping spurred a global social media campaign that prompted the intervention of seven militaries, showing us the blinding possibilities-for good and ill-of activism in our interconnected world.
In the spring of 2014, American celebrities and their Twitter followers unwittingly helped turn a group of teenagers into a central prize in the global War on Terror by retweeting #BringBackOurGirls, a call for the release of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls who'd been kidnapped…
My book recommendations reflect my experience as a former US government physician-diplomat, based overseas in Russia, Mexico, Europe, and South Asia, where I was involved in working closely with law enforcement and diplomatic negotiators in several highly sensitive, delicate, and dangerous hostage situations, both as a consultant and in providing medical support/care coordination to released hostages. I always found this work to be exhilarating and demanding, and it left me with the highest respect for law enforcement, diplomatic, and mental health professionals who work in this space. As a result, I’ve had additional formal training in hostage negotiation, negotiation psychology, and medical/psychological support to victims.
Noesner’s book is a must-read for any professional hostage negotiator.
At the FBI, Noesner was one of the founders of the discipline in the 1980s, and he worked tirelessly as a student, and later, master of the craft of crisis negotiation. The book is a deeply human and personal tale, and Noesner describes his many successes but also his failures – including Waco – where his patient, careful approach was overtaken by other events, subsequently resulting in tragedy and a loss of life.
Noesner’s humility, dedication, and empathy shine throughout this superb book.
An enraged man abducts his estranged wife and child, holes up in a secluded mountain cabin, threatening to kill them both. A right wing survivalist amasses a cache of weapons and resists calls to surrender. A drug trafficker barricades himself and his family in a railroad car, and begins shooting. A cult leader in Waco, Texas faces the FBI in an armed stand-off that leaves many dead in a fiery blaze. A sniper, claiming to be God, terrorizes the DC metropolitan area. For most of us, these are events we hear about on…
I’ve always loved fairytales. What little girl with a growing romantic heart doesn’t? By the time I was eight, I told people I was Cinderella because of all the work I did at home. An exaggeration, even for the oldest child, but still. My first prom dress, during a year I won’t mention, was reminiscent of Cinderella’s blue ballgown. As I became a writer myself, I noticed my stories held themes I learned from fairytales. Love, loyalty, courage, and a dose of magic. I simply add space or aliens to the mix.
Can you tell Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite fairytales to read in all its retellings? This one is set in our modern world. It takes a look at the ugly side of bullying in high school, a murder mystery, ghosts, money extortion, lots of people keeping secrets, and through all of this, two people have to learn to see into each other’s hearts.
A fresh twist on a classic story, Bellamy and the Brute proves true love really is blind.
When Bellamy McGuire is offered a summer job babysitting for the wealthy Baldwin family, she's reluctant to accept. After all, everyone in town knows about the mysterious happenings at the mansion on the hill―including the sudden disappearance of the Baldwin's eldest son, Tate. The former football star and golden boy of Wellhollow Springs became a hermit at the age of sixteen, and no one has seen or heard from him since. Rumors abound as to why, with whisperings about a strange illness―one that…
As a writer or horror and suspense books myself, I’ve always sought out exceptional works in the genre that are able to scare me and keep me on the edge of my seat. As a student of the horror film genre as well, a number of the books recommended on my list were made into thrilling movies as well, including Phantoms, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Tommyknockers.
Phantomsis an exceptional book. When two sisters discover that their hometown of Snowfield, CA is deserted, the reader is instantly pulled into the mystery. Koontz’s powerful description of finding homes deserted without warning, with dinner still on the table in some cases, is uncanny and unsettling. A masterful storyteller, Koontz adds special touches to increase a sense of the supernatural – voices coming from drain pipes, streetlights shattering, and even random bursts of music being heard over loudspeakers by the handful of survivors. The terror reaches a cosmic scale when Dr. Timothy Flyte recognizes the source of the supernatural events as humanity’s “ancient enemy” – a cunning being of massive size that has been feeding on mankind for centuries. I highly recommend this book if you need to stay awake all night!
"Phantoms is gruesome and unrelenting...It's well realized, intelligent, and humane."-Stephen King
They found the town silent, apparently abandoned. Then they found the first body, strangely swollen and still warm. One hundred fifty were dead, 350 missing. But the terror had only begun in the tiny mountain town of Snowfield, California.
At first they thought it was the work of a maniac. Or terrorists. Or toxic contamination. Or a bizarre new disease.
But then they found the truth. And they saw it in the flesh. And it was worse than anything any of them had ever imagined...
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