Recommendations based on The Devil's Alternativeby Frederick Forsyth

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Day of the Jackal

    by Frederick Forsyth
    An assassin attempts to kill the president of France in a thrilling race against time.

    The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle 's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart : ... (Wikipedia)

  2. The Fourth Protocol

    by Frederick Forsyth
    A thrilling espionage story set in the Cold War, and a race against time to prevent a nuclear disaster.

    On New Year's Eve 1986, professional thief James Rawlings breaks into the apartment of a senior civil servant and inadvertently discovers stolen top secret documents. Despite being a notorious and ... (Wikipedia)

  3. The Odessa File

    by Frederick Forsyth
    The uncovering of a sinister Nazi plot, while searching for the truth of a young boy's death.

    In November 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter, follows an ambulance to the apartment of Salomon Tauber, a Holocaust survivor ... (Wikipedia)

  4. A Matter of Honor

    by Jeffrey Archer
    A young British naval officer is falsely accused of theft and must clear his name in a court-martial trial.

    In June 1966 disgraced British colonel Gerald Scott leaves a mysterious letter to his only son, Adam Scott. Adam's mother tells him that she had already asked his father to destroy the letter. Later, ... (Wikipedia)

  5. The Boys from Brazil

    by Ira Levin
    An international thriller involving a sinister plot to clone Hitler and create a Fourth Reich.

    Yakov Liebermann is a Nazi hunter (loosely based on Simon Wiesenthal ) who runs a center in Vienna that documents crimes against humanity, perpetrated during the Holocaust . The waning interest of ... (Wikipedia)

  6. The Bourne Identity

    by Robert Ludlum
    An amnesiac assassin must uncover his past and true identity in a deadly search for the truth.

    The preface of the novel consists of two real-life newspaper articles from 1975 about terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as " Carlos the Jackal ." The story opens with gunfire on a boat in the ... (Wikipedia)

  7. Eye of the Needle

    by Ken Follett
    A thrilling tale of espionage and wartime romance, set in the chaos of WWII.

    In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a stiletto , is working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. ... (Wikipedia)

  8. The Pelican Brief

    by John Grisham
    A law student's investigation into a political assassination, uncovering a deadly conspiracy.

    The story begins with the assassinations of two ideologically divergent Supreme Court Justices. Both murders are committed by Khamel, the most wanted hitman in the world. Justice Rosenberg, a ... (Wikipedia)

  9. The Aquitaine Progression

    by Robert Ludlum
    A lawyer uncovers a conspiracy involving a powerful pharmaceutical company and must go on the run to expose the truth.

    In Geneva, American lawyer Joel Converse meets a man he hasn’t seen in twenty years, a covert operative who dies violently at his feet, whispering words that hand Converse a staggering legacy of ... (Goodreads)

  10. The Icarus Agenda

    by Robert Ludlum
    A journalist's investigation of a political conspiracy uncovers dangerous secrets that threaten his life.

    Colorado Congressman Evan Kendrick is trying to live out his term quietly when a political mole reveals his deepest secret: Kendrick was the anonymous hero who freed the hostages held by Arab ... (Goodreads)

  11. For Your Eyes Only

    by Ian Fleming
    James Bond is sent on a mission to retrieve a lost communication device and avenge the murder of a fellow agent.

    Librarian's note: this entry relates to the collection of short stories under the title of "For Your Eyes Only." The individual stories can be found elsewhere. Now this sounds interesting: "Bond ... (Goodreads)

  12. Winter of the World

    by Ken Follett
    Epic saga of war, family, and love during the tumultuous times of the 20th century.

    The story follows characters from Germany , Britain , the United States and the Soviet Union , who become linked by events leading to World War II , and continues through the war and its immediate ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Be Careful What You Wish For

    by Jeffrey Archer
    A man's ambitious quest for power leads to consequences he never anticipated.

    Be Careful What You Wish For follows the Barrington-Clifton family during the years 1957 to 1964, when Emma Barrington Clifton seeks to take control of her family shipping business and must deal with ... (Wikipedia)

  14. The Runaway Jury

    by John Grisham
    A jury trial where the jury's decision is up for sale as two sides battle for a multi-million dollar verdict.

    Wendall Rohr and his team of tort lawyers have filed suit on behalf of plaintiff Celeste Wood, whose husband died of lung cancer , against the tobacco company Pynex. The trial is to be held in Biloxi ... (Wikipedia)

  15. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

    by John le Carré
    A retired spy is called back into action to uncover a mole in the British Secret Service.

    Control , chief of the Circus, suspects one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus to be a long-standing Soviet mole and assigns code names with the intention that should his agent ... (Wikipedia)

  16. 2001: A Space Odyssey

    by Arthur C. Clarke
    An interstellar journey of exploration, confronting humanity's place in the universe.

    A mysterious alien civilization uses a tool with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent ... (Wikipedia)

  17. The Cardinal of the Kremlin

    by Tom Clancy
    US and Soviet forces battle for control of a powerful satellite system.

    For thirty years, Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich "Misha" Filitov, a personal aide to the Soviet Minister of Defense and war hero, has been passing military, technical, and political intelligence to the ... (Wikipedia)

  18. The Eagle Has Landed

    by Jack Higgins
    A daring mission to kidnap Winston Churchill from his English home in World War II.

    In 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 ... (Goodreads)

  19. Pompeii

    by Robert Harris
    A thrilling historical fiction novel set in Pompeii, leading up to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

    Marcus Attilius Primus arrives in the Bay of Naples from Rome to take charge as aquarius ( hydraulic engineer ) of the Aqua Augusta , the aqueduct that supplies water to the towns in the region ... (Wikipedia)

  20. Debt of Honor

    by Tom Clancy
    Military thriller involving a terrorist plot to bring about a war between the U.S and Japan.

    Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamata has been plotting to bring back his country to a position of greatness for years, partly as revenge for the death of his family at the hands of American forces ... (Wikipedia)

  21. The Complete Sherlock Holmes

    by Arthur Conan Doyle
    Collection of mysteries solved by the brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes.

    A study in scarlet – The sign of four -- Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : A scandal in Bohemia ; The red-headed league ; A case of identity ; The Boscombe Valley mystery ; The five orange pips ; The ... (Goodreads)

  22. Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome

    by Robert Harris
    A fictionalized account of the life of Cicero, a Roman lawyer and orator, during the tumultuous period of Julius Caesar's rise to power.

    Part One – Senator – 79–70 BC The book opens with Tiro , the secretary of Marcus Tullius Cicero and the book's narrator, looking back in time over the thirty-six years he was with his master. They ... (Wikipedia)

  23. QB VII

    by Leon Uris
    A courtroom drama that explores the aftermath of a libel suit brought by a Polish doctor against an American author.

    A famous author, Abraham Cady, stands trial for libel. In his book The Holocaust , he named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of the Jadwiga concentration camp 's most sadistic inmate/doctors. ... (Wikipedia)

  24. Fall of Giants

    by Ken Follett
    Epic historical fiction recounting the tumultuous events of World War I and its aftermath.

    The novel begins with the thirteen-year-old Billy Williams, nicknamed 'Billy With Jesus', going to work his first day in the coal mine underneath the fictional Welsh town of Aberowen in 1911. Three ... (Wikipedia)

  25. 2010: Odyssey Two

    by Arthur C. Clarke
    A team of astronauts and scientists embark on a mission to explore Jupiter, encountering thrilling adventures along the way.

    The story is set nine years after the failure of the, Discovery One, mission to Jupiter . , A joint Soviet-American crew, , including Heywood Floyd from 2001 , on the Soviet spaceship Alexei Leonov ... (Wikipedia)

  26. Congo

    by Michael Crichton
    Exploring a mysterious African jungle in search of a lost civilization, with a ragtag expedition.

    The novel starts in 1979, with an abrupt end to an expedition sent by Earth Resource Technology Services Inc. in the dense rainforests of the Virunga region, in the heart of the Congo , when the team ... (Wikipedia)

  27. Eye of the Storm

    by Jack Higgins
    A former IRA gunman is blackmailed into assassinating a British cabinet minister. Fast-paced action and suspense ensue.

    Former allies in the IRA, Sean Dillon and Martin Brosnam have chosen different paths. Now Dillon is a terrorist for hire, a master of disguise employed by Saddam Hussein. Brosnan is the one man who ... (Goodreads)

  28. Exodus

    by Leon Uris
    The story of the birth of Israel, following the lives of Jewish refugees from WWII to the establishment of the state.

    In 1946 American foreign correspondent Mark Parker and American nurse Kitty Fremont reunite as old friends. Kitty is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus , where thousands ... (Wikipedia)

  29. The Fourth Estate

    by Jeffrey Archer
    A gripping tale of two powerful media moguls and their fight for control of Britain's largest newspaper. Full of twists and turns, it's a thrilling ride.

    Lubji Hoch, the son of an illiterate Czech Jewish peasant, escapes the Nazis, changes his name to Richard Armstrong, and becomes a decorated British Army officer. After the war he is posted to Berlin ... (Wikipedia)

  30. The Honourable Schoolboy

    by John le Carré
    A British agent's efforts to uncover a Soviet spy network in Southeast Asia.

    In 1974 George Smiley , the chief of the British secret intelligence service referred to as The Circus, is repairing the damage done to their operations by double agent Bill Haydon and looking for ... (Wikipedia)