100 Best Political Thriller Books of All Time

When presidential candidate Josh Alexander's motorcade is ambushed by a group of terrorists, the nation is thrown into turmoil. Two weeks following the attack, Alexander is carried to victory by a sympathy vote, but his assailants have not been found. On the surface it appears to be the work of al-Qaeda, despite the tremendous job that the U.S. and her allies have done eliminating terrorist cells within the heart of America. While the FBI and the rest of the government begin scouring the world for jihadists, CIA director Irene Kennedy and Special Agent Skip McMahon are presented with classified information so toxic that they consider destroying it altogether, as it contains intelligence pointing to some of the most powerful players in Washington.

Enter Mitch Rapp, the one man reckless enough to follow the evidence to its explosive conclusion. His journey takes him through the shadowy world of contract killers, into the darkest corners of the globe, and eventually back to Washington, where the fragile pillars of power are shaken to their core.

In "Protect and Defend, " the action begins in the heart of Iran, where billions of dollars are being spent on the development of a nuclear program. No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel launches one of the most creative and daring espionage operations ever conceived. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in the middle of Iran's second largest city. An outraged Iranian government publicly blames both Israel and the United States for the attack and demands retribution. Privately, Iran's bombastic president wants much more. He wants America and Israel to pay for their aggression with blood.

Enter Mitch Rapp, America's top counterterrorism operative. Used to employing deception, Rapp sees an opportunity where others see only Iranian reprisals that could leave thousands of Americans dead. Rapp convinces President Josh Alexander to sign off on a risky operation that will further embarrass the Iranian government and push their country to the brink of revolution. As part of the plan, CIA director Irene Kennedy is dispatched to the region for a clandestine meeting with Azad Ashani, her Iranian counterpart.

But Rapp isn't the only one hatching plans. Iran's President Amatullah has recruited Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mukhtar to do his dirty work. For decades Mukhtar has acted as a surrogate for Iran, blazing a trail of death and destruction across the Middle East and beyond. When Kennedy's meeting with Ashani goes disastrously wrong, Rapp and Mukhtar are set on a collision course that threatens to engulf the entire region in war. With the clock ticking, Rapp is given twenty-four hours, no questions asked, to do whatever it takes to stop Mukhtar, and avert an unthinkable catastrophe.

CIA superagent Mitch Rapp is back in action in Vince Flynn's high-velocity New York Times bestseller.

Meanwhile, three of the al Qaeda terrorists are still at large, and Rapp has been unofficially ordered to find them by any means necessary. No one knows the personal, physical, and emotional sacrifices required of the job better than Rapp. When he sees Nash cracking under the pressure of the mission and the memories of the horrors he witnessed during the terrorist attack, he makes a call he hopes will save his friend, assuage the naysayers on Capitol Hill, and get him one step closer to the enemy before it's too late. Once again, Rapp proves himself to be a hero unafraid "to walk the fine line between the moral high ground and violence" (The Salt Lake Tribune) for our country's safety, for the sake of freedom, for the pursuit of honor.

September 1789: U.S. minister to France Thomas Jefferson, charged with forging a truce with the violent Muslim pirates of the Barbary Coast, makes a shocking discovery - one that could forever impact the world's relationship with Islam.

Present day: When a car bomb explodes outside a Parisian cafŽ, Navy Seal turned covert Homeland Security Operative Scot Harvath is thrust back into the life he has tried so desperately to leave behind.

Saving the intended victim of the attack, Harvath becomes party to an amazing and perilous race to uncover a secret so powerful that militant Islam could be defeated once and for all without firing another shot, dropping another bomb, or launching another covert action. But there are powerful men who are determined that Mohammed's mysterious final revelation continue to remain hidden forever.

Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "quite possibly the next coming of Robert Ludlum," Brad Thor takes listeners across the globe on a heart-pounding chase where the stakes are higher than they have ever been before.

It begins with a hit gone wrong. Robie is dispatched to eliminate a target unusually close to home in Washington, D.C. But something about this mission doesn't seem right to Robie, and he does the unthinkable. He refuses to kill. Now, Robie becomes a target himself and must escape from his own people.

Fleeing the scene, Robie crosses paths with a wayward teenage girl, a fourteen-year-old runaway from a foster home. But she isn't an ordinary runaway -- her parents were murdered, and her own life is in danger. Against all of his professional habits, Robie rescues her and finds he can't walk away. He needs to help her.

Even worse, the more Robie learns about the girl, the more he's convinced she is at the center of a vast cover-up, one that may explain her parents' deaths and stretch to unimaginable levels of power.

Now, Robie may have to step out of the shadows in order to save this girl's life... and perhaps his own.

But too many groups have invested too much blood. Shunned by their erstwhile Soviet sponsors, increasingly isolated by the realignment of the Mideast, these terrorists have one more desperate card to play, requiring a degree of ruthlessness never before seen. With one terrible act, the world is plunged into an instant nuclear crisis -- and the floundering President is plunged into the ultimate nightmare. Forces collide. Shots are exchanged. What had seemed to be an isolated and horrible incident appears to each side as the incendiary mischief of the other. With the world poised on the brink of nuclear war, Ryan and his FBI counterpart, Dan Murray, frantically seek a solution before the chiefs of state lose control of themselves -- and the world.

By his impulsive act, he has gained both the gratitude of a nation and then enmity of hits most dangerous men -- men who do not sit on their hate. And in the weeks and months to come, it is Jack Ryan, and his family, who will become the targets of that hate.

Master of suspense and #1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor returns with his most riveting international thriller yet.

In a dangerous assignment that the United States government will deny any knowledge of, Scot Harvath must secretly infiltrate Kabul's notorious Policharki Prison and free the man the kidnappers demand as ransom - al-Qaeda mastermind, Mustafa Khan.

But when Harvath arrives, he quickly learns that there is more to the kidnapping than anyone dares to admit. And as the subterfuge is laid bare, Harvath must examine his own career of hunting down and killing terrorists, and ask himself if he has what it takes to help one of the world's worst go free.

Brimming with the kind of ripped-from-the-headlines authenticity Brad Thor's internationally bestselling novels are known for, The Apostle doubles down on the blockbuster success of The Last Patriot and reaffirms Thor's status as the master of the political thriller.

With that shrill cry, three Muslim terrorists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, creating a critical oil shortage that threatens the stability of the USSR.

To offer the effects of this disaster, members of the Politburo and the KGB devise a brilliant plan of diplomatic trickery - a sequence of events designed to pit the NATO allies against each other - a distraction calculated to enable the Soviets to seize all the oil in the Persian Gulf.

But as this spellbinding story of international intrigue and global politics nears its climax, the Soviets are faced with another prospect, one they hadn't planned on: a full-scale conflict in which nobody can win.

President John Patrick Ryan

But how do you run a government with out a government? Where do you begin? Ryan knows that the eyes of the world are on him now - and many of them are unfriendly. In Beijing, in Tehran and even in Washington, there are those eager to take advantage. Soon they will make their moves; soon they will present Jack Ryan with a crisis so even he could not imagine it.'

Each must use all his craft to arrive at the truth, but Filitov gets there first -- and that's when all hell breaks loose. Because Filitov, code-named Cardinal, is America's highest agent in the Kremlin, and he is about to be betrayed to the KGB. His rescue could spell the difference between peace and war, and it is up to Jack Ryan to accomplish it -- if he can -- as, in a breathtaking sequence of hunter and hunted, Filitov's life, and Ryan's and that of the world itself literally hang in the balance.

A highly skilled assassin, Robie is the man the U.S. government calls on to eliminate the worst of the worst-enemies of the state, monsters committed to harming untold numbers of innocent victims.

No one else can match Robie's talents as a hitman...no one, except Jessica Reel. A fellow assassin, equally professional and dangerous, Reel is every bit as lethal as Robie. And now, she's gone rogue, turning her gun sights on other members of their agency.

To stop one of their own, the government looks again to Will Robie. His mission: bring in Reel, dead or alive. Only a killer can catch another killer, they tell him.

But as Robie pursues Reel, he quickly finds that there is more to her betrayal than meets the eye. Her attacks on the agency conceal a larger threat, a threat that could send shockwaves through the U.S. government and around the world.

Together, Robie and Reel's talents as assassins are unmatched. But there are some in power who don't trust the pair. They doubt their willingness to follow orders. And they will do anything to see that the two assassins succeed, but that they do not survive.

As they prepare for their mission, Reel faces a personal crisis that could well lead old enemies right to her doorstep, resurrecting the ghosts of her earlier life and bringing stark danger to all those close to her. And all the while, Robie and Reel are stalked by a new adversary: an unknown and unlikely assassin, a woman who has trained her entire life to kill, and who has her own list of targets--a list that includes Will Robie and Jessica Reel.

He has devised a plan to cripple the American greatness, humble the US military, and elevate Japan to a position of dominance on the world stage.

Yamata's motivation lies in his desire to pay off aDebt of Honor to his parents and to the country he feels is responsible for their deaths—America. All he needs is a catalyst to set his plan in motion.

When the faulty gas tank on one Tennessee family's car leads to their fiery death, an opportunistic U. S. congressman uses the occasion to rush a new trade law through the system. The law is designed to squeeze Japan economically. Instead, it provides Yamata with the leverage he needs to put his plan into action.

As Yamata's plan begins to unfold, it becomes clear to the world that someone is launching a fully-integrated operation against the United States. There's only one man to find out who the culprit is—Jack Ryan, the new President's National Security Advisor.

Do you know what we do with traitors, Gabriel? Many things have changed in Russia since the fall of Communism. But the punishment for betrayal remains the same. Promise me one thing, Gabriel. Promise me I won't end up in an unmarked grave.

In the days to come, Gabriel and his team of operatives will find themselves in a deadly duel of nerve and wits with one of the world's most ruthless men: the murderous Russian oligarch and arms dealer Ivan Kharkov. It will take him from a quiet mews in London, to the shores of Lake Como, to the glittering streets of Geneva and Zurich, and, finally, to a heart-stopping climax in the snowbound birch forests of Russia. Faced with the prospect of losing the one thing he holds most dear, Gabriel will be tested in ways he never imagined possible. And his life will never be the same.

When the king’s own nephew is discovered funding ISIS, the president suspects that the Saudis never intended to live up to their agreement. He decides that the royalty needs to be sent a message and that Mitch Rapp is just the man to deliver it. The catch? America can’t be seen moving against an ally. Rapp will be on his own. Forced to make a decision that will change his life forever, Rapp quits the CIA and assembles a group of independent contractors to help him complete the mission.

They’ve barely begun unraveling the connections between the Saudi government and ISIS when the brilliant new head of the intelligence directorate discovers their efforts. With Rapp getting too close, he threatens to go public with the details of the post-9/11 agreement between the two countries.

Facing an international incident that could end his political career, the President orders America’s intelligence agencies to join the Saudis’ effort to hunt the former CIA man down.

Rapp, supported only by a team of mercenaries with dubious allegiances, finds himself at the center of the most elaborate manhunt in history. It’s only a matter of time before he’s caught or killed. Will it be enough to turn the tables on the Saudis and clear his name?

Gabriel Allon, art restorer and spy, has been widely acclaimed as one of the most fascinating characters in the genre and now he is about to face the greatest challenge of his life.

Allon reluctantly agrees to get involved, but once he begins to investigate he concludes that Donati has every right to be concerned, as, following the trail from the heart of the Vatican to the valleys of Switzerland and beyond, he slowly unravels a conspiracy of lies and deception. An extraordinary enemy walks among them, with but one goal: the most spectacular assassination ever attempted.

At the same time, the Pentagon is readying an operation to rescue a key group of prisoners in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. One man, they find, knows the terrain around the camp better than anyone else they have: a certain former Navy SEAL named John Kelly.

Kelly has his own mission. The Pentagon wants him for theirs. Attempting to juggle the two, Kelly (now code-named Mr. Clark) finds himself confronted by a vast array of enemies, both at home and abroad - men so skillful that the slightest misstep means death. And the fate of dozens of people, including Kelly himself, rests on his making sure that misstep never happens.

Men aren't born dangerous. They grow dangerous. And the most dangerous of all, Kelly learns, are the ones you least expect...
As Clancy takes us through the twists and turns of Without Remorse, he blends the exceptional realism and authenticity that are his hallmarks with intricate plotting, knife-edge suspense and a remarkable cast of characters.

When the five candidates being considered to head this mysterious agency suddenly go missing, covert counter-terrorism operative, Scot Harvath is summoned to Washington and set loose on the most dangerous chase ever to play out on American soil. But as the candidates begin turning up murdered, the chase becomes an all-too-public spectacle with every indicator suggesting that the plot has its roots in a shadowy American cabal founded in the 1700’s.

With the United States on the verge of collapse, Harvath must untangle a web of conspiracy centuries in the making and head off the greatest threat America has ever seen.

This is thriller writing at its absolute best where the stakes have never been higher, nor the line between good and evil so hard to discern.

Fifty years later, the world is about to be shocked again. New York Times best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg takes you on his most exciting and heart-pounding ride yet—as a new democratic Iraq rises, so, too, a new evil, and White House advisors Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy find themselves facing a terrifying threat triggered by an ancient mystery.

“Rosenberg has become one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking novelists of our day. Regardless of your political views, you've got to read this stuff.” —Rush Limbaugh, New York Times best-selling author

It is not the grim, gray Moscow of Soviet times but a new Moscow, awash in oil wealth and choked with bulletproof Bentleys. A Moscow where power resides once more behind the walls of the Kremlin and where critics of the ruling class are ruthlessly silenced. A Moscow where a new generation of Stalinists is plotting to reclaim an empire lost and to challenge the global dominance of its old enemy, the United States.

One such man is Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB colonel who built a global investment empire on the rubble of the Soviet Union. Hidden within that empire, however, is a more lucrative and deadly business. Kharkov is an arms dealer—and he is about to deliver Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to al-Qaeda. Unless Allon can learn the time and place of the delivery, the world will see the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11—and the clock is ticking fast.

Born in the shadows and kept from heads of state, there are some missions so deadly, so sensitive, that they simply don’t exist.

When one such mission goes horribly wrong, a wave of dramatic terrorist attacks is set in motion. Their goal: the complete and total collapse of the United States.

With the CIA’s intelligence abilities hobbled, former Navy SEAL Team 6 member turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath launches an audacious plan to infiltrate the terrorists’ network and prevent one of the biggest threats the United States has ever faced.

Simultaneously, a foreign wet work team has been sent to California. Their target: one of Hollywood’s most famous filmmakers.

While working on a secret documentary project, movie producer Larry Salomon has unknowingly exposed one of the world’s wealthiest and most politically connected powerbrokers—a man with a radical anti-American agenda poised to plunge the nation into deadly, irreversible chaos.

As the plots rocket to their pulse-pounding conclusion and the identities of the perpetrators are laid stunningly bare, Harvath will be left with only one means to save America. Unable to trust anyone, he will be forced to go Full Black.

Intense and frighteningly realistic, FULL BLACK is, hands down, Brad Thor’s most riveting thriller to date.

The story features a vivid and fascinating supporting cast, including the magus-like Ari Shamron, a beautiful French Jewish model who is seeking retribution for her family's death in the Holocaust, and a marvelously comic down-at-the-heels London art dealer. Set these colorful and varied characters against a brilliant background of political intrigue and vengeance at the highest levels and a manhunt that covers three continents, and the result is a smart and electrically exciting global thriller.

Army Special Agent John Puller is the best there is. A combat veteran, Puller is the man the U.S. Army relies on to investigate the toughest crimes facing the nation. Now he has a new case-but this time, the crime is personal: His aunt has been found dead in Paradise, Florida.

A picture-perfect town on Florida's Gulf Coast, Paradise thrives on the wealthy tourists and retirees drawn to its gorgeous weather and beaches. The local police have ruled his aunt's death an unfortunate, tragic accident. But just before she died, she mailed a letter to Puller's father, telling him that beneath its beautiful veneer, Paradise is not all it seems to be.

What Puller finds convinces him that his aunt's death was no accident . . . and that the palm trees and sandy beaches of Paradise may hide a conspiracy so shocking that some will go to unthinkable lengths to make sure the truth is never revealed.

The hair-raising suspense of The General's Daughter... the wry wit of The Gold Coast...this is vintage Nelson DeMille at the peak of his originality and the height of his powers.