Books with category Political Thriller
Displaying 5 books

This Great Hemisphere

From the award-winning and bestselling author of Black Buck, This Great Hemisphere is a speculative novel about a young woman—invisible by birth and relegated to second-class citizenship—who sets off on a mission to find her older brother, whom she had presumed dead but who is now the primary suspect in a high-profile political murder.

Despite the odds, Sweetmint, a young invisible woman, has done everything right her entire life—school, university, and now a highly sought-after apprenticeship with the Northwestern Hemisphere’s premier inventor, a non-invisible man belonging to the Dominant Population who is as eccentric as he is enigmatic. But the world she has fought so hard to build after the disappearance of her older brother comes crashing down when authorities claim that not only is he well and alive, he’s also the main suspect in the murder of the Chief Executive of the Northwestern Hemisphere.

A manhunt ensues, and Sweetmint, armed with courage, intellect, and unwavering love for her brother, sets off on a mission to find him before it’s too late. With five days until the hemisphere’s big election, Sweetmint must dodge a relentless law officer who’s determined to maintain order and an ambitious politician with sights set on becoming the next Chief Executive by any means necessary.

With the captivating worldbuilding of N. K. Jemisin’s novels and blazing defiance of Naomi Alderman’s work, This Great Hemisphere is a novel that brilliantly illustrates the degree to which reality can be shaped by non-truths and vicious manipulations, while shining a light on our ability to surprise ourselves when we stop giving in to the narratives others have written for us.

The Demon of Unrest

2024

by Erik Larson

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile, brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston—Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, inflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

Betrayal of Justice

2017

by Mark M. Bello

This very topical, controversial, and prophetic novel is set in Washington D.C. and Dearborn, Michigan. In Washington D.C., a newly-elected president promises, in his inaugural speech, to “make America pure again.” In Dearborn, Michigan, a young Muslim woman, Arya Khan, watches President John’s acceptance speech in horror while a a few miles away, a white supremacist, Keith Blackwell, watches the same speech with pure joy. Inspired by the new president's rhetoric, Blackwell fire bombs a local mosque.

The Dearborn Police promise to investigate, but Arya fears that these cops are indifferent to the Muslim community and will not vigorously investigate. She takes matters into her own hands and conducts her own 'private investigation'. Arya identifies a suspect, follows him, and witnesses his brutal murder. She calls 9-1-1 and rushes to render aid, but when the police arrive, all evidence points to Arya as the murderer; she’s arrested, jailed and formally charged.

When the news story reaches the president, he seeks to deport Arya's immigrant parents. Zachary Blake (the central character of Bello’s debut legal thriller, Betrayal of Faith) returns as the trial lawyer for the family and drama plays out in both criminal and immigration courtrooms. But as the Dearborn Police seek to complete their investigation, an organization of white supremacists tries to thwart any attempt to tie their group to the murder and mayhem.

Can Zachary Blake and his crack private investigator, Micah Love, save Aria from a murder charge and her parents from deportation? Can this innocent family expect justice in this new, "pure" America, an America that has lost its way?

Betrayal of Justice is the second installment of the Zachary Blake Betrayal Legal Thriller Series by attorney/author Mark M. Bello. Fans of John Grisham and Scott Turow will enjoy comparisons to current events, as well as Bello's ability to captivate readers in an intriguing courtroom drama. This is a legal and political thriller with intriguing characters, nonstop action and a plot that is anything but predictable.

All the King's Men

All the King's Men is a 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty". The novel tells the story of charismatic populist governor Willie Stark and his political machinations in the Depression-era Deep South. It is commonly thought to have been loosely inspired by the real-life story of U.S. Senator Huey P. Long, who was assassinated in 1935.

Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men in 1947. The novel has received critical acclaim and remained perennially popular since its first publication. It was rated the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library, and it was chosen as one of Time magazine's 100 best novels since 1923.

All the King's Men portrays the dramatic and theatrical political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, a cynical populist in the 1930s American South.

The Feast of the Goat

Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved ailing dictator whom Dominicans call the Goat, controls his inner circle with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution already underway that will have bloody consequences of its own.

In this masterpiece of Latin American and world literature, and one of the finest political novels ever written, Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime and the birth of a terrible democracy, giving voice to the historical Trujillo and the victims, both innocent and complicit, drawn into his deadly orbit.

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