Books like 'The Matarese Countdown'
Readers who enjoyed The Matarese Countdown by Robert Ludlum also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical action / adventure 20th century thriller espionage suspense conspiracies crime politics political-intrigue
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Red Winter by Marc Cameron
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn this previously untold adventure, a young Jack Ryan goes behind the Iron Curtain to seek the truth about a potential Soviet defector in the most shocking entry in Tom Clancy's #1 New York Times bestselling series. 1985A top secret F117 aircraft crashes into the Nevada desert...Categorized as:
conspiracies espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
In Danger's Path by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDesperate to find someone to unite the warring interests of General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, and OSS chief Donovan, FDR puts Fleming Pickering in charge of the OSS's Pacific operations...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Charm School by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsRead by James NaughtonSomething very strange -- and sinister -- is going on in the Russian woods at Borodino. In a place called Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, young KGB agents are being taught by American POW's how to be model citizens of the USA. The Soviet goal -- to infiltrate the United States undetected...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Retreat, Hell! by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is the fall of 1950. The Marines have made a pivotal breakthrough at Inchon, but a roller coaster awaits them. While Douglas MacArthur chomps at the bit, intent on surging across the 38th parallel, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering works desperately to mediate the escalating battle between MacArthur and President Harry Truman...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
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Black Cross by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is January 1944 — and as Allied troops prepare for D-day, Nazi scientists develop a toxic nerve gas that will repel and wipe out any invasion force. To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"In wartime," Winston Churchill wrote, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."For Britain's counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable-a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
Snow Wolf by Glenn Meade
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the heart of the Cold War, they sent him to plot the ultimate assassination. Now they want him dead...It is 1953. Joseph Stalin, the world's most tyrannical dictator, is teetering on the edge of insanity, and about to plunge the world into nuclear chaos. Only one man and one woman can penetrate the Iron Curtain and stop this madman, before it's too late.But someone inside the Kremlin knows...Categorized as:
espionage crime thriller suspense political-intrigue fiction historical-fiction mystery -
The Company by Robert Littell
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Barnes & Noble ReviewSince the publication of his 1973 debut thriller, The Defection of A. J. Lewinter, Robert Littell has evolved into one of the most credible, consistently interesting espionage novelists of the modern era...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille, Brian Murray
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHe is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity--and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson...Categorized as:
crime political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Shibumi by Trevanian, Gisela Stege
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsNicholai Hel is the world’s most wanted man. Born in Shanghai during the chaos of World War I, he is the son of an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father and is the protégé of a Japanese Go master. Hel survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world’s most artful lover and its most accomplished—and well-paid—assassin...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins, Maria Luisa Bocchino
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn November of 1943, an elite team of Nazi paratroopers descends on British soil with a diabolical goal: to abduct Winston Churchill and cripple the Allied war effort. The mission, ordered by Hitler himself and planned by Heinrich Himmler, is led by ace agent Kurt Steiner and aided on the ground by IRA gunman Liam Devlin...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Mightier Than the Sword by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsA bomb goes off, but how many passengers on the MV Buckingham have lost their lives? You will find out only if you read the opening chapter of Mightier than the Sword... -
The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
Blood and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIf you enjoyed W. E. B. Griffin's Honor Bound, you should segue with pleasure into this involving sequel. Set in Buenos Aires in 1943, it follows the adventures of three American soldiers as they think and fight their way through a complex story about Nazi sympathizers, dedicated supporters of the Allied cause, and other people just trying to stay alive...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
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London Match by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWith treason epidemic in London Central, a cloud of suspicion passes over each senior agent, and each falls helplessly into Moscow Centre's brilliant, complex trap. As LONDON MATCH rushes toward its amazing climax, the ultimate, decisive confrontation is about to take place--between Samson and the British KGB agent who, from the very beginning, has held Samson's entire life in delicate balance...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Gun Street Girl by Adrian McKinty
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBelfast, 1985, amidst the “Troubles”: Detective Sean Duffy, a Catholic cop in the Protestant RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), struggles with burn-out as he investigates a brutal double murder and suicide. Did Michael Kelly really shoot his parents at point blank and then jump off a nearby cliff? A suicide note points to this conclusion, but Duffy suspects even more sinister circumstances...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century 21st-century -
The Kaiser's Web by Steve Berry
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTwo candidates are vying to become Chancellor of Germany. One is a patriot having served for the past sixteen years, the other a usurper, stoking the flames of nationalistic hate. Both harbor secrets, but only one knows the truth about the other... -
Black Order by James Rollins
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsLibrarian's note: This is an Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN10: 0752876457 ISBN13: 9780752876450.A sinister fire in a Copenhagen bookstore ignites a relentless hunt across four continents. Arson and murder reveal an insidious plot to steal a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
Todo lo peor by César Pérez Gellida
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSigue la Guerra fría, sigue en pie el muro que divide Alemania en dos partes. Todo lo peor sucederá en estas circunstancias.Un asesino comienza a matar. Sus víctimas son homosexuales y sus crímenes parecen tener un componente religioso... -
While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEnglish girl Sheila Matthews’ innocent holiday to Poland becomes a nightmare when the German Army invade in the summer of 1939. Working for the Polish underground as a double-agent, she plays a dangerous game, and is soon suspected by the Germans. Forced to flee to the forest and hunted by a ruthless German officer, she must rely on the dashing Captain Adam Wisniewski to help her home...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel, Charles W. Bailey II
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Gentleman Jim" Scott was a brilliant magnetic general. Like a lot of people, he believed the President was ruining the country. Unlike anyone else, he had the power to do something about it, something unprecedented and terrifying. Colonel "Jiggs" Casey was the Marine who accidentally stumbled onto the plot...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Assassination Option by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJames Cronley’s first successful mission for the new Central Intelligence Directorate has drawn all kinds of attention, some welcome, some not, including from the Soviets, his own Pentagon, and a seething J. Edgar Hoover...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Dark Star by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe acclaimed author of Night Soldiers offers a dramatic and exciting spy thriller of Eastern Europe on the brink of World War II. In the back alleys and glittering salons of Europe, there is a thin line between survival and betrayal, as Soviet NKVD agents and the Nazi Gestapo confront each other in a brilliant duel of espionage. Like watching Casablanca for the first time.--Time...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Mr Einstein's Secretary by Matthew Reilly
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA SECRETARY LIKE NO OTHERIN AN EPIC SPANNING 40 YEARSAll Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein.But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life - as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy...Categorized as:
crime espionage suspense thriller political-intrigue fiction historical-fiction historical -
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The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsAs compelling and disturbing as when it was first published in the midst of the Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate continues to enthrall readers with its electrifying action and shocking climax....Sgt. Raymond Shaw is a hero of the first order. He's an ex-prisoner of war who saved the life of his entire outfit, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the stepson of an influential senator..Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
The Tightrope Walker by Dorothy Gilman
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“They’re going to kill me soon…”When the quiet and shy Amelia Jones reads these words, her life changes irrevocably. She’s just become the new owner of the Ebbtide Shop, a musty antique store filled with merry-go-round horses and hurdy-gurdies, and it is while fixing one of these barrel organs that the scrawled and threatening note falls out...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult amateur-sleuth -
Spy Sinker by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSpy Sinker is a 1990 spy novel by Len Deighton. It is the final novel in the second of three trilogies about Bernard Samson, a middle-aged and somewhat jaded intelligence officer working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Spy Sinker is part of the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy, being preceded by Spy Hook and Spy Line...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Top Secret by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the #1 New York Times�bestselling author, a brand-new series about the Cold War—and a different breed of warrior. In the first weeks after World War II, a squeaky-clean new second lieutenant named James D. Cronley Jr. is spotted and recruited for a new enterprise that will eventually be transformed into something called the CIA...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Polish Officer by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSeptember 1939. As Warsaw falls to Hitler's Wehrmacht, Captain Alexander de Milja is recruited by the intelligence service of the Polish underground. His mission: to transport the national gold reserve to safety, hidden on a refugee train to Bucharest...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Avenger by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAttorney Calvin Dexter hangs his shingle in a quiet New Jersey town, has a reasonably successful practice, and takes the hills strong while triathalon training. But Dexter is no ordinary man.The summer before he goes to college, Ricky Colenso travels to Bosnia to volunteer as an aid worker. A few weeks later, he disappears and is never heard from again...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The 14th Colony by Steve Berry
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhat happens if both the president and vice-president-elect die before taking the oath of office? The answer is far from certain—in fact, what follows would be nothing short of total political chaos...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
Berlin Game by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsWhen a valuable agent behind the Iron Curtain signals he wants out, it's up to Bernard Samson, once active in the field but now anchored to a London desk, to undertake the crucial rescue. But soon, Samson is confronted with evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Deceiver by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAs an intrepid and inventive field agent, McCready's independent style has often driven him beyond the rules. He has not been afraid to press the CIA to the explosion point - or to play cat-and-mouse with the KGB. He has successfully tricked Qaddafi and the IRA and once even set himself up as governor of a remote Caribbean island torn between Fidel Castor and the Colombian drug trade...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Wrecker by Clive Cussler, Justin Scott
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is 1907, a year of financial panic and labor unrest. Train wrecks, fires, and explosions sabotage the Southern Pacific Railroad's Cascades express line and, desperate, the railroad hires the fabled Van Dorn Detective Agency...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
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Mexico Set by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA lot of people had plans for Bernard Samson…When they spotted Erich Stinnes in Mexico City, it was obvious that Bernard Samson was the right man to ‘enrol’ him. With his domestic life a shambles and his career heading towards disaster, Bernard needed to prove his reliability. and he knew Stinnes already - Bernard had been interrogated by him in East Berlin...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Spandau Phoenix by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Spandau Diary—what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped and sexually tormented to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in the new conflict now about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Vulcan's Forge by Jack Du Brul
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt begins deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, where a nuclear bomb strikes at the fiery hot heart of the earth. Churning, spewing boiling lava, a volcano rises with unnatural speed from the ocean floor -- the source of a new mineral that promises clean, limitless nuclear power...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Last Nazi by Andrew Turpin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe buried contents of a Nazi train. An aging SS mass-murderer. And the wartime secrets of a U.S. presidential hopeful’s Jewish family, hidden for seven decades. War crimes investigator and ex-CIA officer Joe Johnson is more than intrigued when he learns of a link between the contents of a Nazi train, hidden by Hitler's Third Reich, a ruthless blackmail plot, and financing for a U.S...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Funeral in Berlin by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFUNERAL IN BERLIN is a spellbinding tale of espionage and its counter in which double and triple crosses are common. Berlin with its infamous wall symbolized the Cold War as did no other place. It was like theatre, but is war for real."Len Deighton has always been fascinated with the Cold War in a way that could be called scholarly..Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Spy Hook by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratings'A master of fictional espionage' Daily Mail'In Deighton's best books - like this one - the narrative glides forward on rollers, and the scenes and characters fit perfectly into place. The result is marvellous' IndependentMillions of pounds have gone missing, and the Department have sent agent Bernard Samson to Washington to track them down...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Agent in Place by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis sophisticated narrative of spy/counterspy is set in Washington, where the Russians have planted an "agent in place." For nine years he has worked himself quietly into the fabric of government and society. Dedicated and patient, he has everyone's respect...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century 21st-century -
The Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"As soon as he began publishing fiction more than three decades ago, Charles McCarry was recognized as a spy novelist of uncommon gifts" wrote Charles Trueheart in The Washington Post. Tears of Autumn, McCarry’s riveting novel of espionage and foreign affairs, was a major bestseller upon its first publication in 1975...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
Hart's War by John Katzenbach
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSecond Lieutenant Tommy Hart, a navigator whose B-25 was shot out of the sky in 1942, is burdened with guilt as the only surviving member of his crew. Now he is just another POW at the fiercely guarded Stalag Luft 13 in Bavaria...Categorized as:
crime political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsKenneth Strang sets out for Sicily and Greece on a seemingly innocent, though fascinating, magazine assignment. But even before his ship sails from New York, the atmosphere becomes charged with sinister omens.In the course of the voyage one mysterious event follows another...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century -
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Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie by Brian Freemantle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDisavowed spy Charlie Muffin wages war against his former employers Charlie Muffin has come back to England. The ex-spy, a veteran of twenty-five years’ service to the Crown, was last seen in Berlin, where an attempt on his life by his own organization led to international embarrassment. They had expected Charlie—a disheveled, middle-aged survivor of every double cross in the book—to die easily...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Double Agent by William Christie
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom a modern master of the classic espionage novel comes William Christie's The Double Agent, featuring Alexsi Smirnoff - a Russian/German double agent loyal only to himself - in a desperate bid to protect himself, again becomes a double agent, this time for the English...Categorized as:
espionage thriller suspense political-intrigue historical-fiction fiction mystery ww2 -
The Thief by Clive Cussler, Justin Scott
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsOn the ocean liner Mauretania, two European scientists with a dramatic new invention are barely rescued from abduction by the Van Dorn Detective Agency's intrepid chief investigator, Isaac Bell. Unfortunately, they are not so lucky the second time. The thugs attack again-and this time one of the scientists dies...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Jackdaws by Ken Follett
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsD-Day is approaching. They don’t know where or when, but the Germans know it'll be soon, and for Felicity “Flick” Clairet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain’s most effective operatives in Northern France...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century 21st-century -
The Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsNote: Alternate-Cover for this ISBN can be found here.In a remote corner of Zangara, a small republic in Africa, lies Crystal Mountain. At certain times of the day the mountain emits a strange glow. Only Sir James Manson knows why. The mountain contains ten billion dollars worth of the world's most valuable mineral, platinum. Now the only question is, how to get hold of it. Sir James knows how...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Icon by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom the master of the novel of international intrigue comes a riveting new book as timely and unsettling as tomorrow's headlines.It is summer 1999 in Russia, a country on the threshold of anarchy. An interim president sits powerless in Moscow as his nation is wracked by famine and inflation, crime and corruption, and seething hordes of the unemployed roam the streets...Categorized as:
conspiracies crime espionage political-intrigue politics suspense thriller 20th-century
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