KEN B

We are familiar with maps that outline all 50 states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire", exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories - the islands, atolls, and archipelagos - this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, author Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.

At midnight, in a secret medical clinic in Washington, D.C., two foreign doctors and their team are completing plastic surgery on an anonymous client who is changing the appearance of his face, among other things. After the procedure, the client begins to stir - and suddenly the operating room erupts in violence, and the clinic is ablaze.

A breakneck race against time…and an implacable enemy. An anonymous young woman murdered in a run-down hotel, all identifying characteristics dissolved by acid. A father publicly beheaded in the blistering heat of a Saudi Arabian public square. A notorious Syrian biotech expert found eyeless in a Damascus junkyard. Smoldering human remains on a remote mountainside in Afghanistan. A flawless plot to commit an appalling crime against humanity. One path links them all, and only one man can make the journey. Pilgrim.

Someone gives you a dangerous puzzle to solve, one that may kill you or someone else, and you're about to fail...and there is no other option. No one who can help. No one but the Bricklayer. The Bricklayer is the pulse-pounding novel introducing Steve Vail, one of the most charismatic new heroes to come along in thriller fiction in many years. He's an ex-FBI agent who's been fired for insubordination but is lured back to the Bureau to work a case that has become more unsolvable - and more deadly - by the hour.

Sir Maxwell Lustig, the self-made billionaire and mastermind of a global import/export empire with some suspicious dealings, has vanished with Lady Lustig - right under the noses of a crack surveillance team. With proof of Lustig's international arms trading within their grasp, James Bond and the newly reorganized Double-O section of the SIS must move quickly to find Lustig and expose his operation for what it is. Assisted by the shrewd and stunning Freddie Von Grüsse, Bond follows a maze from London to Spain, across the Middle East, all the way to Lustig's floating laboratory off the...

In a plush Virginia office, a rich, angry old man is furiously rewriting his will. With his death just hours away, Troy Phelan wants to send a message to his children, his ex-wives, and his minions—a message that will touch off a vicious legal battle and transform dozens of lives.

Two decades after the Civil War, first-generation Irish-American Zachary O'Hara, son of a legendary Marine and a force of a man in his own right, finds himself playing a critical role as the very existence of the Marine Corps is being decided. If he can help persuade the Secretary of the Navy that the Marines will be crucial to America's security in years to come, all the while hefting a heavy, secret weight in his heart, he'll save the Corps and make his career.

NYPD Detective Michael Bennett is about to take on the most sinister challenge of his career. The nation has fallen into mourning after the unexpected death of a beloved former first lady, and the most powerful people in the world gather in New York for her funeral. Then the inconceivable occurs. Billionaires, politicians, and superstars of every kind are suddenly trapped within one man's brilliant and cold-blooded scenario.

It exists at the fringes of Washington, D.C., has no power, and consists solely of four eccentric and downtrodden members whom society has forgotten. Their simple goal is to find the "truth" behind their country's actions.

In a village on the Suffolk coast, Frank Perry waits for his past to arrive. He believed it would never catch up with him, that he was safe. A decade before, he spied for the government on the Iranian chemical and biological weapons installations. He had privileged access and his information damaged their killing capacity for years. Now, Iran will have its revenge and has dispatched its most deadly assassin to fulfill the task.