A cruise ship loses power in the North Atlantic. A satellite launches in the South Pacific. Professor Malcolm Clare—celebrated aviator, entrepreneur, and aerospace engineer—disappears from Stanford University and wakes up aboard an unknown jet, minutes before the aircraft plunges into the high seas. An extortionist code-named “Viking” has seized control of a private warfare technology, pitting a U.S. defense corporation against terrorist conspirators in a bidding war. His leverage: a threat to destroy the luxury liner and its 3,000 passengers. Stanford doctoral student Austin Hardy, probing the disappearance of his professor, seeks out Malcolm Clare’s daughter Victoria, an icy brunette with a secret that sweeps them to Saint Petersburg. Helped by a team of graduates on campus, they must devise Trojan horses, outfox an assassin, escape murder in Bruges, and sidestep treachery in order to unravel Viking’s scheme. Failure would ensure economic armageddon in the United States. When it comes to a good techno-thriller, I’m looking for a number of key elements. Sabotage by Matt Cook does a pretty good job of ticking almost all the boxes on my extensive checklist. There are a plethora of far-flung locales, some believable tech (nothing ever feels massively outlandish or overblown) and some…

For millennia it has lain there undiscovered. Now the time has come… Research scientist Evelyn Edwards always knew the Antarctic held deep secrets but the discovery of a 40,000 year old body buried under the ice caps surpasses even her wildest expectations. But just as her team begins extracting the body the dream turns into a horrific nightmare as they are targeted for death by someone who wants to keep this secret buried. Evelyn barely escapes with her life… On the run, alone and desperate, she turns to her ex-husband Matt Adams, a former member of an elite government unit, for help. Soon, they find themselves caught up in a frantic race against time, which takes them from Area 51 to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, as they try to uncover the biggest conspiracy of all time before it’s too late for everyone… If mankind thought it knew its origins, the time has come to think again because its every belief is about to be challenged… I enjoy including the occasional thriller in my reading, especially when I’m looking for a break from fantasy or horror. There are a couple of things that make an effective thriller for me….

Please note that Instinct is the second Chess Team novel by Jeremy Robinson. This novel may contain minor spoilers if you haven’t read Pulse. When the President of the United States falls victim to a weaponized amd contagious strain of a genetic disease – one that kills its victims without warning or symptom – Special Forces commander Jack ‘King’ Sigler is on the case. He and his team of highly trained operators have been assigned to protect a CDC detective as she journeys to the source of the new strain: Vietnam’s Annamite Mountains.  Surrounded by old landmines, harsh jungle terrain, and more than one military force not happy about the return of American boots to the Ho Chi Minh trail, the fight for survival becomes a grueling battle. Pursued by the VLPA Death Volunteers, Vietnam’s Special Forces unit, the team’s flight through a maze of archaic ruins reveals an ancient secret that may stop the disease from sweeping the globe – even as it threatens both the mission and their lives.  Before we begin I have a question. Have you ever seen the movie Crank starring Jason Statham? It is a non-stop assault on the senses as Jason rampages across…

His former CIA colleagues want him dead and Interpol want to arrest him, but all Hawker wants to do is find a way out. Government agent Danielle Laidlaw may be his only solution. She needs a pilot for her secret mission to find the lost Mayan city of Tulan Zuyu. In return for Hawker’s services, she promises a way home that doesn’t involve a body bag. But, as an unseen enemy stalks the rainforests, leaving battered corpses in its wake, they are about to discover that they’re not the only people looking Tulan Zuyu and the secrets it may hold. When the seasons change, my attitude towards books tends to shift slightly. During the months that we laughably call the great British Summer I enjoy a bit of what I like to call beach reading. What is beach reading you may ask? Well, I suppose the best way to describe it is books, that tend to fall into the category thriller, that don’t require much in the way of emotional investment. Now that is not to say that they are bad books, far from it. They offer the literary equivalent of a summer blockbuster, or a thrill ride. You enjoy…