All the Old Knives

Steinhauer, Olen (Get this book)

Two American spies—one retired, one active—dance around what really happened five years earlier during a mission gone horribly wrong. In this masterfully plotted and suspenseful stand-alone, Steinhauer pieces together the details of an event the CIA refers to only as Flughafen (after the German word for airport). Four Islamist extremists, members of the Aslim Taslam group, hijacked a plane at the Vienna airport, and, despite the presence of a low-level operative onboard—a pure coincidence—the takeover ended in tragedy. It's an understatement to say that nothing is as it seems, but even readers well-versed in espionage fiction will be pleasantly surprised by Steinhauer's plot twists and double backs. --Kirkus

Almost Famous Women: Stories

Bergman, Megan Mayhew (Get this book)
In her second story collection, Bergman tells the forgotten tales of women hovering on the edges of history. From Allegra Byron, the poet's illegitimate daughter, to Dolly Wilde, Oscar's niece, this book collects notable women whose lives have been forgotten. Though some stories seem to reveal more about their fictional narrators than about the women themselves, this gives the collection a unified feel and helps readers see how little the public has understood about these women and their genius. Only "The Lottery, Redux," a spinoff of the Shirley Jackson ta l e, seems obviously symbolic and mars this otherwise original and surprising collection. A collection of stories as beautiful and strange as the women who inspired them. --Kirkus

Mightier Than the Sword

Jeffrey Archer (Get this book)
The fifth of Archer's Clifton Chronicles begins with a bang before heading on to only slightly less explosive ground as Archer examines his fictional clan's financial, political and personal contretemps in the 1960s. Emma Barrington Clifton's family company, Barrington Shipping, has launched the luxury liner MV Buckingham, but her arch enemy, Don Pedro Martinez, an Argentinian gangster and Nazi sympathizer, hires the Irish Republican Army to sabotage its maiden voyage. The conclusion's a turbo-charged cliffhanger that'll have fans screaming Arrrcherr! --Kirkus