Recommendations based on "Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Enigma"

Finalist for the 2022 ITW Thriller Award for Best First Novel "Damascus Station is simply marvelous storytelling.…[A] stand-out thriller and essential reading for fans of the genre." —Financial Times A CIA officer and his recruit arrive in war-ravaged Damascus to hunt for a killer in this page-turner that offers the "most authentic depiction of modern-day tradecraft in print." (Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr). CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.

"A blood-pumping, nerve-shredding thriller--elegant, edgy, ingenious. Craig Russell conjures not one but two unforgettable settings: Prague between the wars, pulsing with menace, and a Gothic mental asylum, as exciting a house of horrors as I've ever visited. You'll enter both with dread. You'll dwell in them with relish."--A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the WindowPrague, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a psychiatrist newly trained by Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The state-of-the-art facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle outside of Prague, though the site is infamous for concealing dark secrets going back many generations. The asylum houses the country's six most treacherous killers--known to the staff as The Woodcutter, The Clown, The Glass Collector, The Vegetarian, The Sciomancer, and The Demon--and Viktor hopes to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon known as The Devil Aspect. As he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, five men and one woman, Viktor must face the disturbing possibility that these six may share another dark truth.Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (dubbed Leather Apron in the newspapers), realizes that the killer is imitating the most notorious serial killer from a century earlier--London's Jack the Ripper. Smolak turns to the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind, though he worries that Leather Apron might have some connection to the six inmates in the asylum.Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this stylishly written, tightly coiled, richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to put down.

As a teenager Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo in the company of James Bond, but in her punk phase she'd got herself pregnant and by the time she reaches forty-six she's a grandmother, her dreams as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet every day. Then her son Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer in Switzerland, is forced to disappear before some characters cut from the same cloth as Blofeld persuade him to part with the secrets of his research. But they are not the only ones desperate to locate him. A team of security experts is hired by Ross's firm: headed by the enigmatic Bett, his staff have little in common apart from total professionalism and a thorough disregard for the law. Bett believes the key to Ross's whereabouts is his mother, and in one respect he is right, but even he is taken aback by the verve underlying her determination to secure her son's safety as she learns the black arts of quiet subterfuge and violent attack. The teenage dreams of fast cars, high-tech firepower and extreme action had always promised to be fun and games, but in real life it's likely someone is going to lose an eye...

As the most powerful men on earth gather in New York for a meeting of the UN, Detective Michael Bennett receives intelligence warning that there will be an assassination attempt on the US president. Even more shocking, the intelligence suggests that the Russian government could be behind the plot.Tensions between America and Russia are the highest they've been since the Cold War, but this would be an escalation no one could have expected.The details are shadowy, and Bennett finds false leads and unreliable sources at every turn. But he can’t afford to get this wrong. If the plotters succeed, the shockwaves will be felt across the globe.

Paul Shanahan, the owner of a yacht delivery business in Belgium, now lives a peaceful existence after a terrorist-active life. An old colleague's request for the secret transport of a large amount of gold is a welcome return to the fold, and a chance to get home to Boston. But it turns out to be the trickiest and deadliest business of all - haunted always by the betrayal of his lover.

Unafraid to walk both sides of the law to attain his goals, CIA operative Tommy Carmellini is sent to post guard duty at a farmhouse in West Virginia. When he arrives, he finds the guards shot dead and a ruthless team of American commandos killing everyone in sight. Carmellini escapes in a hail of bullets with what seems to be the sole survivor-a stunningly attractive translator, who then steals his car and abandons him after a deadly mountain car chase. But someone else survived the massacre-someone who holds the answers to a deadly conspiracy.Catapulted into a life and death struggle, Tommy must employ all his savvy and skill just to stay alive. But to find out who is hunting him and why, he'll need the help of retired Admiral Jake Grafton. Now they must learn to tell friend from foe as they fight their way through a poisonous wilderness of intrigue, all the way to a presidential convention in New York City-and to the surprising identity of someone standing on the verge of absolute power who has jeopardized the safety of the entire nation to prevent a dark secret from ever seeing the light of day...

Bruno Courrèges--provincial French police chief extraordinaire--is back in another delectable tale of mystery and suspense that unfolds in the gastronomically ravishing Dordogne. A veteran of the Resistance dies, and among his possessions are documents that connect him to a notorious train robbery. A former British spymaster's estate is burglarized, the latest in a spree of expert thefts. An academic's home is broken into just as she is finishing a revelatory book on France's nuclear weapons program. An antiques dealer is found brutally murdered, and his former lover, the number one suspect, is on the run. It's just another summer in St. Denis for Bruno, who must balance the constant barrage of demands on his time and expertise--including the complex affections of two powerful women, town politics (the mayor is having romantic problems of his own), his irrepressible puppy, Balzac, and nights entertaining friends and visitors with ever-sumptuous repasts--with a new focus on the mounting crime wave, whose seemingly unrelated events Bruno begins to suspect are linked. His search for clues to crimes old and new leads to stunning revelations about both his country's history and his own, and puts several more lives--including Bruno's--in deadly danger. In a thrilling denouement that proves the past is never really past, Bruno fights to secure the future of his beloved community and those he cares about most. As charming and compelling as its hero, The Resistance Man offers fresh joys for loyal readers and newcomers alike.

“Murder, teenage bullying, sleazy adults, and good police work add up to another fine entry by Jance.” —The Oklahoman Betrayal of Trust is the twentieth mystery by New York Times bestseller J.A. Jance to feature Seattle p.i. J. P. Beaumont—and it is another surefire winner from the author the Chattanooga Times calls, “One of the best—if not the best.” When Beau discovers a snuff film recorded on a smart phone—a horrific crime that has a devastating effect on two troubled teens—his investigation unleashes a firestorm that blazes all the way up through the halls of Washington state government. Betrayal of Trust is certain to win this phenomenal crime fiction master (“In the elite company of Sue Grafton and Patricia Cornwell”—Flint Journal) a wealth of new fans while enthralling the army of devoted readers already addicted to the potent Jance magic.

In this thrilling story from the world's #1 bestselling author, Dr. Dylan Reinhart and Detective Elizabeth Needham reunite to stop the most sinister plot against New York City since 9/11.   The murder of an Ivy League professor pulls Dr. Dylan Reinhart out of his ivory tower and onto the streets of New York, where he reunites with his old partner, Detective Elizabeth Needham. As the worst act of terror since 9/11 strikes the city, a name on the casualty list rocks Dylan's world. Is his secret past about to be brought to light? As the terrorist attack unfolds, Elizabeth Needham does something courageous that thrusts her into the media spotlight. She's a reluctant hero. And thanks to the attention, she also becomes a prime target for the ruthless murderer behind the attack. Dylan literally wrote the book on the psychology of murder, and he and Elizabeth have solved cases that have baffled conventional detectives. But the sociopath they're facing this time is the opposite of a textbook case. There's no time to study for the test he's about to give them. And if they fail, they die.   

The series that started it all! In this powerful follow-up to his action-packed thriller The Kill Clause, Gregg Hurwitz, the new maestro of pulse-pounding suspense, ratchets up the excitement with another sensational page-turner featuring Tim Rackley, a driven lawman motivated by honor, morality, and a deep sense of justice. Called back into the fold of the U.S. Marshals Service, Tim is tasked with retrieving Leah Henning, the daughter of a powerful Hollywood producer, from a mind-control cult. As Tim wends his way deep undercover into an insidious operation called The Program, he confronts a brand of mind-warping manipulation beyond his worst expectations. Tim becomes enmeshed with a diverse band of characters—from the charismatic, messianic leader T. D. Betters to a cult reject burnout to the intelligent yet highly vulnerable Leah herself—and finds himself caught in a shadowy landscape of lies, manipulation, and terror. At stake: innocent minds—maybe even his own.