Retired master sniper Bob Lee Swagger is rocking on the porch of his Idaho ranch home, not suspecting he is about to be drawn back into the game, in Game of Snipers by Stephen Hunter. A car turns into his driveway with a woman asking for his help in getting a legendary jihadist, Juba the Sniper, who killed her soldier son in Iraq. Swagger reluctantly agrees to help when Juba is discovered to be in the U.S., preparing for a hit. The book is a cut above similar books of the genre. The author, after all, is a Pulitzer Prize winner, albeit not for his fiction writing.
Chocolate houses, where the sweet/bitter drink was served, were all the rage in 17th century London, where The Chocolate Makers Wife by Karen Brooks is set. Rosamund escapes abuse and poverty when a nobleman who sees her resemblance to his dead daughter marries her. Lord Blithman, Rosamunds husband, opens a chocolate house and she masters that business. All it not as it seems, however. Blithman has a plan afoot in which Rosamund is just his pawn.
In The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney, five years earlier Abbie supposedly either drowned or was killed by her husband. There was never enough evidence to charge her husband. Now Abbieor at least a version of herhas mysteriously returned and is living with her Silicon Valley genius husband and their autistic son. She has no memory of what happened five years ago, and is allowed only incomplete memories of her life with her husband before that time.
Antonio Mendez was the real-life person on which Ben Afflecks character in the movie Argo was based. Now Mendez and his wife Jonna have written The Moscow Rules. The subtitle helps explain the book: The Secret CIA Tactics Which Helped America Win the Cold War. There was actually a list of guidelines known as the Moscow Rules for CIA agents to follow when in the Soviet Union. The Mendezes share the history of spy activity in the USSR, move on to their own fascinating experiences as spies there in the 1970s and 1980s, and look briefly at the state of affairs in todays Russia under Putin. Their account includes a look at some of the technological achievements which helped spies, and how disguises were managed.
