Try some of these action-packed novels from the library:

▪ The Shell Game by Steve Alten In 2012, with centrist conservative David McKuin in the White House, the federal government plots to detonate a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city and blame Iran as a cover to take out that country's radical leadership. Standing in the plotters' way is Ace Futrell, an energy expert whose murdered wife was possibly targeted by U.S. intelligence. A nerve-wracking thriller about America's addiction to Middle Eastern sweet crude and the network of enablers who keep our dependent nation away from detox.

▪ The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry Cotton Malone, Berry's protagonist from The Templar Legacy, returns in another globe-hopping adventure. While Cotton is working at his bookstore, his ex-wife appears and tells him that their son has been kidnapped. The ransom demand is the Alexandria Link, a source that leads to the ancient library thought to have been destroyed centuries ago. The knowledge contained in the hidden archive could change the world. Forced back into the world of espionage he wanted to forget, Cotton takes his ex-wife along while trying to rescue his son and keep the truth of the link a secret.

▪ The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry The Knights Templar, a small, monastic, military order formed in the early 1100s to protect travelers to the Holy Land, eventually grew and became wealthy beyond imagination. In 1307, the French king, feeling jealous and greedy, killed off the Templars, and by 1311, the last master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. The whereabouts of the Templars' treasure – and their secrets – have been the subject of legend ever since. Now, a new thriller tries to follow in the steps of The Da Vinci Code.

▪ The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry The intercontinental adventures of extraordinarily resourceful bookseller Cotton Malone continue as he is sucked into the geopolitical maneuvers of an ambitious Central Asian woman who fancies herself the successor to Alexander the Great.

▪ Deep Storm by Lincoln Child Peter Crane, a naval physician, flies out to an oil rig to investigate what appears to be the first appearance of an incredibly virulent disease, but when he gets there, he discovers that the problem is even worse than he was led to believe. The disease is attacking the residents of a deep-water research facility, not the oil workers, and it could be linked to the facility's excavations of an ancient site that might hold the key to the fate of the lost city of Atlantis.

▪ Demolition Angel by Robert Crais On the heels of the bestselling and critically acclaimed L.A. Requiem, Crais returns to the City of Angels with the most ambitious novel of his career, a stand-alone thriller featuring a complex and engaging female protagonist. When Carol Starkey, a bomb squad technician, survives an explosion designed to kill her, she is pitted against a frighteningly brilliant mastermind for the modern age.

▪ Hostage by Robert Crais After his bestselling thriller Demolition Angel, Crais takes readers hostage with a clock-ticking thriller. The wrath of crime lord Sonny Benza falls on his brilliant accountant for leaving an incriminating money trail. It is up to Police Chief Jeff Talley to save the innocent hostages that are taken – and to protect his own family, who are now at risk.

▪ Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn Bestselling author Vince Flynn returns with his most explosive political thriller yet. A tour de force of action-packed suspense, Protect and Defend delivers an all-too-realistic and utterly compelling vision of nations navigating the minefield of international intrigue. A true heavyweight in the political thriller arena. Vince Flynn has created a flesh-and-blood hero for whom readers can cheer and a finger-blistering page-turner they won't dare put down. This is the eighth Mitch Rapp novel.

▪ Vertical Run by Joseph Garber The pulse-pounding national bestseller is now available in paperback. Dave Elliot is about to have a very bad day at the office. It begins when his company's president strolls into Dave's office and points a gun at him. Then he discovers that his colleagues, his friends and even his family want him dead. But Dave Elliot – a former soldier – won't be a victim. If he goes down, he's not going down alone.

▪ Whirlwind by Joseph Garber Jailed as the scapegoat for an intelligence blunder, vengeful CIA operative Charlie McKenzie tracks down a young Russian spy who is in possession of a top-secret technology, an endeavor that is compromised by his would-be assassin.

▪ Ripple Effect by Paul Garrison This fifth sea adventure from Garrison starts out calm enough, but then a stiff wind fills its sails, and it races to a thrilling finish. The plucky heroine, 15-year-old Morgan Page, in search of her missing father, sails single-handedly across the Pacific Ocean in a tiny stolen sailboat. Her father, Aiden, supposedly killed in the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, had actually used his supposed “death” as a ruse to escape from a federal investigation into his actions as the CFO of a private bank, one that is suspected of laundering money for arms dealers.

▪ Secret Justice by James Huston In the dead of night, a daring desert raid into Sudan by a Special Forces team led by Lt. Kent "Rat" Rathman ends with the apprehension of the world's most wanted criminal. But the methods necessary to achieve the goal are brutally unorthodox – and a Middle Eastern prisoner suffers and dies as a result.

▪ Turning Angel by Greg Iles When the body of Kate Townsend turns up near the Mississippi River, attorney Penn Cage tangles with the dark side of his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, to investigate the secret world of an elite nearby high school.

▪ The Grid by Philip Kerr In the heart of Los Angeles, the "smart" building nicknamed The Grid can talk to its occupants, forecast the weather and tell if any inhabitant has been taking drugs. On the eve of its opening, the key players gather to put the finishing touches on their masterpiece of architecture and computer science; then, something goes terribly wrong, and people begin to die. Now the creators must stop their creation – before it kills them all, one by one.

▪ The 6 Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly The follow-up to Reilly's The 7 Deadly Wonders manages to be even more over the top than its predecessor, no small feat in a series that whips up the sensationalism of H. Rider Haggard and Clive Cussler into an apotheosis of adventure that makes The Da Vinci Code seem Proustian by comparison. In Reilly's fanciful vision, Earth is in peril once more as a voracious Dark Star approaches. The only defense against Armageddon is an elaborate series of secret rituals involving six diamond pillars spaced around the globe.

▪ 7 Deadly Wonders by Matthew Reilly A prediction that promises ultimate power to whoever restores the Golden Capstone, an ancient Egyptian structure that protected people from global flooding before it was broken and scattered by Alexander the Great, prompts a brutal competition.

▪ Amazonia by James Rollins When the director of the CIA is handed a report confirming the death of an agent who disappeared into the Amazon jungle years before, it doesn't take him long to realize he's got a big problem. What happened down there? It's up to a specially selected scientific and military team to find out – no matter what, or who, it takes.

▪ Ice Hunt by James Rollins At an abandoned World War II-era Russian base beneath the Arctic ice, U.S. scientists find a treasure trove of biological and geological discoveries and a horrific scene of tragic experiments. As they struggle to determine the nature of the atrocities that occurred at the facility, the U.S. military finds itself pulled into a quickly escalating but entirely covert war for control of the top-secret station.

▪ Critical Space by Greg Rucka High-voltage, high-tech, covert action is offered in an intense psychosexual drama, as Atticus Kodiak is hired to be the bodyguard for the most dangerous woman in the world.

▪ Shooting at Midnight by Greg Rucka In his previous thrillers, Rucka created the explosive world of professional bodyguard Atticus Kodiak. Now he puts readers in the shoes of Kodiak's friend and lover, Bridgett Logan – an unforgettable portrait of a woman living life on her own terms.

▪ Labyrinth by Mark Sullivan The New York Times Notable novelist and Pulitzer-nominated journalist spins a crackling tale of thrills and sophisticated intrigue that takes readers from the peaks of the moon down into the very bowels of the earth.