10 Best Mystery Action & Adventure Books

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND Julia Devaux loves big cities, chic cafes, old movies, and charming men. But after seeing a mafia don whack one of his minions, she is relocated under the Witness Protection Program to a small isolated town in the middle of nowhere. Simpson, Idaho doesn’t have chic cafes or cult movie theaters or even sidewalks. And it definitely doesn’t have charming men. However, it does have Sam Cooper, former Navy SEAL and war hero, now horse breeder, who makes her feel safe and excited at the same time. True, he doesn’t have charming conversation, but conversation isn’t what Cooper does best. WHO WAS SHE? The gorgeous new second-grade school teacher who just showed up one day in Simpson is a miracle in Cooper’s eyes. Beautiful and smart and kind, she has the town of Simpson wrapped around her little finger. His heart, too, though he doesn’t have the words to tell her that. But when killers come for her, Cooper doesn’t need words to show what he feels. He’s willing to lay down his life for her. This book was originally published by Ellora’s Cave and is a lightly re- edited version.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jack Reacher is back! The “utterly addictive” ( The New York Times ) series continues as acclaimed author Lee Child teams up with his brother, Andrew Child, fellow thriller writer extraordinaire. ” One of the many great things about Jack Reacher is that he’s larger than life while remaining relatable and believable. The Sentinel shows that two Childs are even better than one.”–James Patterson As always, Reacher has no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. One morning he ends up in a town near Pleasantville, Tennessee. But there’s nothing pleasant about the place. In broad daylight Reacher spots a hapless soul walking into an ambush. “It was four against one” . . . so Reacher intervenes, with his own trademark brand of conflict resolution. The man he saves is Rusty Rutherford, an unassuming IT manager, recently fired after a cyberattack locked up the town’s data, records, information . . . and secrets. Rutherford wants to stay put, look innocent, and clear his name. Reacher is intrigued. There’s more to the story. The bad guys who jumped Rutherford are part of something serious and deadly, involving a conspiracy, a cover-up, and murder–all centered on a mousy little guy in a coffee-stained shirt who has no idea what he’s up against. Rule one: if you don’t know the trouble you’re in, keep Reacher by your side.

FBI Agent Atlee Pine’s search for her sister Mercy clashes with military investigator John Puller’s high-stakes case, leading them both deep into a global conspiracy — from which neither of them will escape unscathed. For many long years, Atlee Pine was tormented by uncertainty after her twin sister, Mercy, was abducted at the age of six and never seen again. Now, just as Atlee is pressured to end her investigation into Mercy’s disappearance, she finally gets her most promising breakthrough yet: the identity of her sister’s kidnapper, Ito Vincenzo. With time running out, Atlee and her assistant Carol Blum race to Vincenzo’s last known location in Trenton, New Jersey — and unknowingly stumble straight into John Puller’s case, blowing his arrest during a drug ring investigation involving a military installation. Stunningly, Pine and Puller’s joint investigation uncovers a connection between Vincenzo’s family and a breathtaking scheme that strikes at the very heart of global democracy. Peeling back the layers of deceit, lies and cover- ups, Atlee finally discovers the truth about what happened to Mercy. And that truth will shock Pine to her very core.

A detective and FBI agent join forces on what seems like an open-and-shut case — but a new rash of killings sends them on a pulse-pounding race against time in this intense thriller. Michael and Megan Fitzgerald are siblings who share a terrifying past. Both adopted, and now grown — Michael is a long-haul truck driver, Megan a college student majoring in psychology — they trust each other before anyone else. They’ve had to. Their parents are public intellectuals, an Ivy League clinical psychologist and a renowned psychiatrist, and they brought up their adopted children in a rarefied, experimental environment. It sheltered them from the world’s harsh realities, but it also forced secrets upon them, secrets they keep at all costs. In Los Angeles, Detective Garrett Dobbs and FBI Agent Jessica Gimble have joined forces to work a murder that seems like a dead cinch. Their chief suspect is quickly identified and apprehended –but then there’s another killing just like the one they’ve been investigating. And another. And not just in Los Angeles — the spree spreads across the country. The Fitzgerald family comes to the investigators’ attention, but Dobbs and Gimble are at a loss — if one of the four is involved, which Fitzgerald might it be? From coastal California to upstate New York, Dobbs and Gimble race against time and across state lines to stop an ingenious and deeply deranged killer — one whose dark and twisted appetites put them outside the range of logic or experience.

An Amazon Charts, Washington Post , and Wall Street Journal bestselling series. An American operative in Russia is on the run for his life in a thriller of heart-stopping betrayal and international intrigue by the New York Times bestselling author of The Eighth Sister. Betrayed by his own country and tried for treason, former spy Charles Jenkins survived an undercover Russian operation gone wrong. Exonerated, bitter, and safe, the retired family man is through with duplicitous spy games. Then he learns of a woman isolated in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison. If it’s Paulina Ponomayova, the agent who sacrificed her life to save his, Jenkins can’t leave her behind. But there’s no guarantee it’s her. Or proof Paulina is still alive. To find out, Jenkins must return to Russia. Next move: blackmail Viktor Federov, a former Russian officer with his own ax to grind, into helping him infiltrate Lefortovo. The enemy who once pursued Jenkins across three continents is now the only man Jenkins can trust. Every step of the way–from Moscow to Scandinavia to the open ocean–they’re hunted by a brutal Russian agent on a killer quest of his own. Out of loyalty to Paulina–dead or alive–Jenkins is putting everyone’s life on the line for a new mission that could be his last.

It is up to Juan Cabrillo and the crew of his ship, the Oregon , to stop a terrorist plot to release a deadly chemical weapon across the globe in the explosive new novel in Clive Cussler’s #1 New York Times bestselling series. While interrupting an attack on a Kuwaiti oil tanker, Juan Cabrillo and his team discover something even more dangerous: a ruthless billionaire’s dying wish has allowed a paralyzing chemical to end up in the hands of a terrorist group. When an Oregon crew member falls victim to the poison, Juan Cabrillo will stop at nothing to find an antidote before it is too late. He and his team must connect an ancient mystery with a cunning modern enemy in order to save millions of innocent lives, including their own.