Cracking the Nut (Novel)

A North Korean ICBM crashes into the Sea of Japan. A veteran CIA officer is murdered in Ho Chi Minh City, and a package of forged documents goes missing. The pieces are there, but assembling the puzzle will cost Jack Ryan, Jr. and his fellow Campus agents precious time. Time they don’t have. The challenge facing President Jack Ryan is an old one with a terrifying new twist. The international stalemate with North Korea continues into its seventh decade. A young, untested dictator is determined to prove his strength by breaking the deadlock. Like his father before him, he hangs his plans on the country’s nuclear ambitions. Until now, that program was impeded by a lack of resources. However, there has been a dramatic change in the nation’s economic fortune. A rich deposit of valuable minerals have been found in the Hermit Kingdom. Coupled with their nuclear capabilities, the money from this find will make North Korea a dangerous force on the world stage. There’s just one more step needed to complete this perfect plan…the elimination of the president of the United States. ISBN:2147483647 Author:Mark Greaney

Vince Flynn’s intensely suspenseful #1 New York Times bestseller puts the young, hungry, and lethal superagent of American Assassin in the crosshairs even as he kills with impunity. In the year since the CIA trained and then unleashed him, Mitch Rapp has dismantled, kill by untraceable kill, the network of monsters behind the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack. The hunt leads to Paris, where a deadly trap is sprung as the bullet leaves Rapp’s silenced pistol—followed by the discovery of nine bodies, including Libya’s oil minister, in one of the city’s finest hotels. Washington wants no part of the international crisis, and Rapp is deemed a liability by Stan Hurley, one of his handlers. But as he slips outside their control to operate on his own, it will soon become clear that nothing is more dangerous than a wounded and cornered Mitch Rapp. ISBN:2147483647 Author:Vince Flynn

The final novel in the Cousins’ War series, the basis for the critically acclaimed Starz miniseries, The White Queen, by #1 New York Times bestselling author and "the queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory tells the fascinating story of Margaret Pole, cousin to the "White Princess,” Elizabeth of York, and lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon. Regarded as yet another threat to the volatile King Henry VII’s claim to the throne, Margaret Pole, cousin to Elizabeth of York (known as the White Princess) and daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, is married off to a steady and kind Lancaster supporter—Sir Richard Pole. For his loyalty, Sir Richard is entrusted with the governorship of Wales, but Margaret’s contented daily life is changed forever with the arrival of Arthur, the young Prince of Wales, and his beautiful bride, Katherine of Aragon. Margaret soon becomes a trusted advisor and friend to the honeymooning couple, hiding her own royal connections in service to the Tudors. After the sudden death of Prince Arthur, Katherine leaves for London a widow, and fulfills her deathbed promise to her husband by marrying his brother, Henry VIII. Margaret’s world is turned upside down by the surprising summons to court, where she becomes the chief lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine. But this charmed life of the wealthiest and "holiest” woman in England lasts only until the rise of Anne Boleyn, and the dramatic deterioration of the Tudor court. Margaret has to choose whether her allegiance is to the increasingly tyrannical king, or to her beloved queen; to the religion she loves or the theology which serves the new masters. Caught between the old world and the new, Margaret Pole has to find her own way as she carries the knowledge of an old curse on all the Tudors." " ISBN:2147483647 Author:Philippa Gregory

Sonchai Jitpleecheep--John Burdett's inimitable Royal Thai Police detective with the hard-bitten demeanor and the Buddhist soul--is summoned to the most shocking and intriguing crime scene of his career. Solving the murder could mean a promotion, but Sonchai, reeling from a personal tragedy, is more interested in Tietsin, an exiled Tibetan lama based in Kathmandu who has become his guru. There are, however, obstacles in Sonchai's path to nirvana. Police Colonel Vikorn has just named Sonchai his consigliere (he's been studying "The Godfather" on DVD): to troubleshoot, babysit, defuse, procure, reconnoiter--do whatever needs to be done in Vikorn's ongoing battle with Army General Zinna for control of Bangkok's network of illegal enterprises. And though Tietsin is enlightened and (eerily) charismatic, he also has forty million dollars' worth of heroin for sale. If Sonchai truly wants to be an initiate into Tietsin's "apocalyptic Buddhism," he has to pull off a deal that will bring Vikorn and Zinna to the same side of the table. Further complicating the challenge is Tara: a Tantric practitioner who captivates Sonchai with her remarkable otherworldly techniques. Here is Sonchai put to the extreme test--as a cop, as a Buddhist, as an impossibly earthbound man--in John Burdett's most wildly inventive, darkly comic, and wickedly entertaining novel yet" ISBN:2147483647 Author:John Burdett

Top secret data has been stolen from the CIA, and the only man who knows its hiding place is dead. CIA operative Mitch Rapp must race to find the classified information in this blistering novel that picks up where The Last Man left off in Vince Flynn’s New York Times bestselling series. Joseph “Rick” Rickman, former boy wonder at the CIA, stole a massive amount of top secret and hugely compromising intel concerning classified operations all over the world, offering it (and himself) to the Pakistani secret forces. Only his plans went awry when CIA director Irene Kennedy sent Mitch Rapp to hunt him down. It turns out that killing Rickman didn’t solve anything—in fact, the nightmare is only intensifying. Rickman stored the potentially devastating data (CIA assets, operatives, agents) somewhere only he knew, and somehow, from beyond the grave, he still poses a mortal threat to America. Now it’s a deadly race as both the Pakistanis and the Americans search for Rickman’s accomplices and the information they are slowly leaking to the world. Will Rapp outrun and outthink his enemies, or will the Pakistanis find it first and hold America hostage to their dream of becoming the world’s new nuclear superpower? ISBN:2147483647 Author:Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills