In Up Country, Nelson DeMille cannily revives the army career of Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, the cynical, hardworking Criminal Investigation Division man who was forcibly retired after solving the high-profile killing in The General's Daughter. Brenner's called back to investigate the murder of a young army lieutenant by his captain. The catch is, the crime took place during the heat of the Tet Offensive, and the only living witness was a North Vietnamese soldier who described the incident in a 30-year-old letter that has only recently come to light. Soon Brenner, a Vietnam vet, is on an ostensible nostalgia tour of his old stomping grounds. The trip immediately turns dangerous as he heads "up country" to search for the letter writer, accompanied by a gorgeous American businesswoman, who's hiding more than even the smartest CID officer could imagine.

That DeMille has written a sequel to The General's Daughter comes as no surprise; after all, that's arguably his best-known novel because of the hit film version starring John Travolta. Nor is it surprising that he's set this sequel in Vietnam; returning hero Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, Ret., served two stints there during the war, and DeMille himself not only saw action in Nam but returned in 1997 for an extended visit. What is curious, and relatively unfortunate, is that the long narrative focuses so much on travelogue instead of intrigue and action; it's as if DeMille, a wickedly fine thriller writer, has been possessed by the soul of James Michener. Still, the overarching story line captivates, as Brenner agrees to return to Vietnam to track down a Vietnamese witness to a 30-year-old unprosecuted crime, in which a U.S. Army captain murdered an army lieutenant and plundered some treasure. Joined by beautiful Susan Weber, who says she's an American expat businesswoman doing a favor for the U.S. government, Brenner travels to the little village where the witness may still live; along the way, the pair flirt, sightsee, visit a nude beach, sightsee, have sex, sightsee, and talk a lot. The sightseeing carries serious emotional impact as Brenner processes his wartime past and Vietnam's present, and it carries serious risk, as Colonel Mang of the secret police tracks Brenner's and Susan's movements. There's some violence as the two Americans elude Mang and his minions, and a melodramatic finale as Brenner realizes just who the murderous captain now is, and some dramatic suspense as Brenner peels away layers of Susan's identity covers. And then there's blasted, resilient Vietnam, which DeMille captures expertly, in all its anguished pride.

Razio Yamata is one of Japan's most influential industrialists, and part of a relatively small group of authority who wield tremendous authority in the Pacific Rim's economic powerhouse. He has devised a plan to cripple the American greatness, humble the U.S. military, and elevate Japan to a position of dominance on the world stage. Yamata's motivation lies in his desire to pay off a Debt 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.

Clancy's latest novel traces the financial, political, military, and personal machinations that drive America into the next major global war.... a shocker climax so plausible you'll wonder why it hasn't yet happened.

War is declared between Japan and the United States. Japan attempts to destroy the heart of the U.S. financial structure and cripple its navy. Clancy creates a highly energized chain of events; courageous, patriotic characters; and an atmosphere of chaos, suspicion and revenge.

Clancy plunges hero Jack Ryan into nonstop high adventure, as two seemingly unrelated occurrences being a chain of events that will stun the world. 4 cassettes. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Called out of retirement to serve as National Security Advisor to the president, Jack Ryan, with the help of CIA officers John Clark and Domingo Chavez, must prepare the untested president to meet the challenges of a new world order.

Hobbits and wizards and Sauron--oh, my! Mild-mannered Oxford scholar John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had little inkling when he published The Hobbit; Or, There and Back Again in 1937 that, once hobbits were unleashed upon the world, there would be no turning back. Hobbits are, of course, small, furry creatures who love nothing better than a leisurely life quite free from adventure.

But in that first novel and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo and their elfish friends get swept up into a mighty conflict with the dragon Smaug, the dark lord Sauron (who owes much to proud Satan in Paradise Lost), the monstrous Gollum, the Cracks of Doom, and the awful power of the magical Ring. The four books' characters--good and evil--are recognizably human, and the realism is deepened by the magnificent detail of the vast parallel world Tolkien devised, inspired partly by his influential Anglo-Saxon scholarship and his Christian beliefs. (He disapproved of the relative sparseness of detail in the comparable allegorical fantasy his friend C.S. Lewis dreamed up in The Chronicles of Narnia, though he knew Lewis had spun a page-turning yarn.)

It has been estimated that one-tenth of all paperbacks sold can trace their ancestry to J.R.R. Tolkien. But even if we had never gotten Robert Jordan's The Path of Daggers and the whole fantasy genre Tolkien inadvertently created by bringing the hobbits so richly to life, Tolkien's epic about the Ring would have left our world enhanced by enchantment.

As a new age dawns in England's twelfth century, the building of a mighty Gothic cathedral sets the stage for a story of intrigue and revenge.

Ken Follett, internationally-acclaimed master of split-second suspense, author of six #1 bestsellers, reaches beyond the expected to achieve his most brilliant and remarkable novel. The epic story of the building of a cathedral in 12th century England and the lives of the people entwined with it and each other is a sensuous, enduring narrative, and a gripping tale of faith, ambition, bloodshed and betrayal.

The Pillars Of The Earth faithfully (re-)creates the world of 12th Century England by creating a society full of the minor characters surrounding the titantic struggle between Henry II and Archbishop Thomas Beckett.

The story is an epic - spanning almost 2 full generations of monastic, court, and village life. At the center of the story is the effort to build a magnificent cathedral in the modest town of Kingsbridge - a generation-long effort requiring faith, wealth, medieval engineering brilliance, determination, and luck.

From the bestselling author of The Day of the Jackal, international master of intrigue Frederick Forsyth, comes a thriller that brilliantly blends fact with fiction for one of this summer's--or any season's--most explosive reads!

From the behind-the-scenes decision-making of the Allies to the secret meetings of Saddam Hussein's war cabinet, from the brave American fliers running their dangerous missions over Iraq to the heroic young spy planted deep in the heart of Baghdad, Forsyth's incomparable storytelling skill keeps the suspense at a breakneck pace. Somewhere in Baghdad is the mysterious "Jericho," the traitor who is willing--for a price--to reveal what is going on in the high councils of the Iraqi dictator. But Saddam's ultimate weapon has been kept secret even from his most trusted advisers, and the nightmare scenario that haunts General Schwarzkopf and his colleagues is suddenly imminent, unless somehow, the spy can locate that weapon--The Fist of God--in time.

Peopled with vivid characters, brilliantly displaying Forsyth's incomparable, knowledge of intelligence operations and tradecraft, moving back and forth between Washington and London, Baghdad and Kuwait, desert vastnesses and city bazaars, this breathtaking novel is an utterly convincing story of what may actually have happened behind the headlines.

Why was Saddam Hussein so confident in the face of U.S. and UN military might? Did he perhaps have a secret weapon to unleash on the armies defending Kuwait? Espionage-master Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal) raises such questions in his intriguing new novel, in which Saddam (who appears throughout at meetings of his Cabinet) does not seem to mind if thousands of his people are killed in battle. He's banking on the American and British traditional abhorrence of casualties. British brothers Mike and Terry Martin are experts in spying, and since Mike can easily pass for an Arab, he goes undercover, first into Kuwait, and then, in a particularly bold move, into Baghdad itself. Terry handles the organization of an elaborate mission to find Saddam's secret weapon, dubbed the fist of God. The information about the weapon comes to them from Jericho, a highly connected source in Saddam's inner circle. Meanwhile, a dowdy Viennese bank secretary is wined and dined by an Israeli spy posing as an Arabic student in order to get at her boss' vital information and cash. As usual, Forsyth's research is impeccable; his characters, though thinly drawn (Mike Martin is something of a superman), are winning; his cameos of world leaders such as Bush, Thatcher, Schwarzkopf, Gorbachev, and Saddam himself help put the behind-the-scenes war in context; and Forsyth's ending, despite the obvious coalition victory, still offers a spectacular surprise.

John le Carré's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him -- and his hero, British Secret Service Agent George Smiley -- unprecedented worldwide acclaim.

A modern masterpiece, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy begins George Smiley's chess match of wills and wits with Karla, his Soviet equivalent, as he's assigned to identify and destroy the double agent -- a mole -- who has burrowed his way into the top echelons of British Intelligence Headquarters.

British Secret Service agent George Smiley has a world-class problem: he has discovered a mole--a Soviet double agent who has managed to burrow his way up to the highest level of British Intelligence. Now Smiley must use a lifetime's worth of espionage skills to ferret out a spy who's gotten too close for comfort. **MASS MARKET PAPER** --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

John Le Carre's internationally famous hero, British Secret Service Agent George Smiley, has a world-class problem. He has discovered a mole--a Soviet double agent who has managed to burrow his way up to the highest level of British Intelligence. Under the direction of Karla, Smiley's equivelent in the Soviet Union, the agent has already blown some of the most vital secret operations and most productive networks. Now-how can Smiley use a lifetime's worth of espionage skills to ferret out a spy who posseses them as well?

A reckless newspaper columnist exposes mobster coddling and official corruption in Depression-era St. Paul. Chicago wasn't the only jazz-age crime capital and Al Capone wasn't the only crimelord. St.Paul, Minnesota, was as wide open and rotten in the Twenties and early Thirties as any place in the country. St. Paul was where John Dillinger went when things got too hot farther south. It was never too hot in St. Paul.

Thayer's fact- based thriller pits a gas-ravaged WW I veteran against the entrenched rot. Grover Mudd writes for the St. Paul Frontier News, a daily on its last legs. Furious that the city in which he grew up has succumbed to rule by the unruly, Mudd uses his column (``Grover's Corner'') to twist the noses and bloody the eyes of the mobsters who operate openly. Alone at first against the gangsters, Mudd is eventually joined by one of J. Edgar Hoover's first and best agents, by an honest top-level cop, and, finally, by his own editor. The criminals are as mean and relentless as the Minnesota winters.

Mudd's only comforts are his black lady-friend and an alcoholic buddy at the paper. And there's a gorgeous, opium- smoking, gangster girlfriend drifting in and out of the scene. Also drifting: Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker's boys, and a legendary midwestern madam. This entertaining and well-researched book has its own history. After 40 publisher rejections, Thayer took matters into his own hands and published it himself, selling Saint Mudd out of his car trunk at the Twin Cities parking lot where he worked. Some four years--and 10,000 copies--later, Viking bought the book and will issue it now for national distribution. Good for them.

It's 1951, and the last place in America any sane man wishes to visit is Thebes State Penal Farm (Colored) in Thebes, Mississippi. Up a dark river, surrounded by swamps and impenetrable woods, it's the Old South at its most brutal -- a place of violence, racial terror, and even more horrific rumors. Of the few who make the journey, black or white, even fewer return.

But in that year, two men travel to Thebes. The first is Sam Vincent, the former prosecuting attorney of Polk County, Arkansas, who has agreed to investigate a disappearance. Before Sam leaves on this dangerous trip, he confesses his fears to Earl Swagger -- a sergeant with the Arkansas State Police. Earl pledges that if Sam is not back by a certain time, he will come looking for him. Sam brings his knowledge of the law and his sense of the rational to Thebes, but Earl brings his guns.

Both Sam and Earl are challenged to the limits of their strength by this prison and struggle with deep questions: What does a man do when confronted with such evil? Can it be remedied? Or must it just be destroyed?

Pale Horse Coming is a stunning story of violence and retribution, written with the same high velocity of Hunter's classic thrillers.

Medal of Honor winner Earl Swagger returns in a hard-hitting sequel to Stephen Hunter's best-selling Hot Springs, this time compelled by duty and friendship to follow his best friend, former Arkansas prosecutor Sam Vincent, to the most dangerous place in Mississippi. Sam has gone to Thebes, a prison for violent African American criminals, on a mission for a client. What he finds there is not only a travesty of justice, but a place where the inhumanity of the jailers is matched by the horrific secret research being carried out on helpless prisoners. Captured and tortured himself, Earl manages to escape, but in short order he's back, along with a hand-picked posse of aging sharpshooters who are eager to prove they've still got what it takes. They're also as intent as Earl is on unmasking the conspiracy and destroying the real criminals. Bloody, bullet-ridden, and brilliantly paced, this is Hunter at his explosive best.

Set in a world where two kinds of magic exist, one female and the other male, the Wheel of Time series features as its hero Rand, who begins the first volume as a simple shepherd. A visitor soon sends Rand on an epic journey to unite the people of his planet against the Dark One, who threatens vast destruction. Rand's quest takes him through a dazzling array of meticulously detailed alien cultures and such unforgettable characters as the mysterious and lovely Egwene, the sorceress Moiraine, and Moiraine's companion, Lan.

During the Third Age, the Age of Prophecy, the world and time hang in the balance, in peril of falling under the Shadow.

Jordan's entire series as a whole, is an achievement in literature rarely surpassed. While books 3 through 5 sometimes seem slow, the build-up in books 1 and 2 are exciting, and well thought out. The intricate way in which characters only briefly touched on in earlier books are brought back into the forefront later during the series is splendid. I have rarely read a book, or series of books where I have actually cared about the characters as much as I do these. I highly recommend this series to anyone looking for high adventure, intricate romances, and devious political plottings.

Robert Littell, long known as one of the best writers of fiction about the Cold War, is not as well known as John le Carré or the great Charles McCarry, but nevertheless has a devoted following among serious aficionados of the literary spy novel. His latest book, which runs close to 900 pages and covers the years 1950 to 1995, is an ambitious one that is destined to become the definitive novel about the CIA.

The historical events of that crucial period are well known to most of us. The end of World War II and the division of Germany into sectors by the Allies laid the groundwork for the Cold War and the rise of the OSS, a wartime branch of the American government, into one of the most powerful tools of intelligence.

The involvement of that agency in the defection of Burgess and MacLean from Britain to the Soviet Union; the Suez Canal crisis, which ended Britain's role as a superpower; the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the arming of rebels in Afghanistan to repel the encroaching Soviet forces; the Gulf War--all are well documented here.

In the meantime, we have become involved not only with Littell's fictional characters, but also with some of the real people who inhabited that world: William F. Buckley Jr., G. Gordon Liddy, William Casey--and we are privy to conversations in both the Kennedy and Reagan Oval Offices.

We also know by the end of this exciting story that the fight is not always the good fight. Compromises are made, mistakes happen, and pragmatism wins out over idealism. We do not live in a perfect world, but it's the only one we have and it is that way because of the events in this book. Don't let its size deter you. This is nothing less than a stunning historical document.