All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer (2015, Minotaur Books; 303 pages) This is a fantastic spy novel, a complex story of betrayal that portrays the paranoia weaved in the world of espionage. It is somehow a classic spy novel which has not been written by John Le Carré! The author, Olen Steinhauer is a New York Times bestselling author of nine previous novels. He lives both in New York and Budapest, Hungary. The plot goes like this: Six years ago in Vienna, terrorists took more than a hundred hostages, and the rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA's Vienna station was witness to this tragedy, with agents assimilating facts from the ground and also from an agent on the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how? This is also a story about love and passion between CIA case officers, and of course, about betrayal. The novel is intimate, cerebral and shocking. It is a great summer read. Read a great article about the book here. Find this title in our catalog: All The Old Knives Recommended by: Maite
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City of Tiny Lights by Patrick Neate (2006, Riverhead Trade; 336 pages) A contemporary murder mystery set in the heart of London, this is the story of Tommy Akhtar, a London P.I. of Ugandan-Indian heritage with a fondness for Wild Turkey, Benson & Hedges, and the game of cricket. Akhtar is one-of-a-kind, his voice a rollicking blend of erudite thought delivered in delightfully crude slang. He's a hard-drinking veteran of the Mujahideen, a devoted son, sometime private investigator and sometime idol to the thug-lites of the ethnic motley of West London. Hired by a bewitching prostitute, he's to track down the whereabouts of her missing friend, last seen meeting a client in a local dive. But as the search heats up, Tommy's case takes a turn for the sinister, as he's drawn into a murder investigation and the dark side of both the establishment and those who plan to overthrow it. This is a literary mystery that introduces a thoroughly original British detective, and a side of London that the mystery world has never seen. Find this title in our catalog: City of Tiny Lights Recommended by: Greg |