The Patriot

"In an adrenaline-charged tour de force, Navy SEAL turned covert Homeland Security operative Scot Harvath must race to locate an ancient secret that has the power to stop militant Islam dead in its tracks." "June 632 A.D.: Deep within the Uranah Valley of Mount Arafat in Mecca, the prophet Mohammed shares with his closest companions a final and startling revelation. Within days, he is assassinated." "September 1789: U.S. minister to France Thomas Jefferson, charged with forging a truce with the violent Muslim pirates of the Barbary Coast, makes a shocking discovery - one that could forever impact the world's relationship with Islam." "Present day: When a car bomb explodes outside a Parisian cafe, Scot Harvath is thrust back into the life he has tried so desperately to leave behind." "Saving the intended victim of the attack, Harvath becomes party to an amazing and perilous race to uncover a secret so powerful that militant Islam could be defeated once and for all without firing another shot, dropping another bomb, or launching another covert action. But as desperate as the American government is to have the information brought to light, there are powerful forces aligned against it - men who are just as determined that Mohammed's mysterious final revelation remain hidden forever."--BOOK JACKET.

Story of a young Chinese revolutionist and his experiences in Japan and China.

As the winter cold settles over Upper and Lower Canada, sparks still fly between the provinces. But while the fate of the colony is debated in the British parliament, a more pressing danger threatens the fledgling state: American militia is raiding across the border, intent on annexing the Canadian provinces by any means necessary. Following a battle along the border, a high-ranking American officer is wounded and captured. Brought back to Toronto, he is scheduled to be tried and executed in order to send a message to the encroaching Americans. The American colonel has a penchant for showmanship, and trouble always follows closely in his wake. But the American colonel’s boasts of escape and revenge are cut short when he is poisoned in his cell. All fingers point to Billy McNair, a young Canadian militia officer and the same man who saved the American colonel from dying from his wounds on the battlefield. Into this turmoil steps Marc Edwards, a decorated army officer who has traded his military uniform for a lawyer’s robes. Marc is convinced that the accused is innocent, and so, with the aid of Constable Cobb, he sets forth to track down the killer. But the investigation is nowhere near straightforward. Spies are everywhere, spreading lies and half-truths, and everyone has an agenda, some personal and some political. With time running out and the ever-present threat of attack from a foreign army looming, Marc must rely on his every skill to secure a future not only for his friend, but for his entire country.

Steve Berry's New York Times bestseller, The Patriot Threat, finds Cotton Malone racing to stop a rogue ex-KGB agent plotting revenge against the United States. The 16th Amendment to the Constitution is why Americans pay income taxes. But what if there were problems associated with that amendment? Secrets that call into question decades of tax collecting? In fact, there is a surprising truth to this hidden possibility. Cotton Malone, once a member of an elite intelligence division within the Justice Department known as the Magellan Billet, is now retired and owns an old bookshop in Denmark. But when his former-boss, Stephanie Nelle, asks him to track a rogue North Korean who may have acquired some top secret Treasury Department files—the kind that could bring the United States to its knees—Malone is vaulted into a harrowing twenty-four hour chase that begins on the canals in Venice and ends in the remote highlands of Croatia. With appearances by Franklin Roosevelt, Andrew Mellon, a curious painting that still hangs in the National Gallery of Art, and some eye-opening revelations from the $1 bill, this riveting, non-stop adventure is trademark Steve Berry—90% historical fact, 10% exciting speculation—a provocative thriller posing a dangerous question: What if the Federal income tax is illegal?

Another brilliant example of Evan Connell's art, The Patriot deals with an American boy who grew to maturity with World War II. He had learned his father's patriotism, and then, through the impact of firsthand experience, formulated his own. Melvin Isaacs, aged seventeen, became a Navy Air Force cadet in 1942. His course of training as a flyer was an education in fear and death, even though it had its wonderfully comic times and a sense of comradeship that was new to him. Perhaps it was in the air—for Melvin loved to fly—that the first feelings of aloneness stirred his mind. Melvin, who queried the whys and wherefores of his regimented training life, became, despite all efforts to conform, a maverick. This portion of the novel is a touching and true mixture of human comedy and tragedy, and it also embodies scenes of flight and danger that are unmatched for pure vividness and sensate realism. The story of Melvin after the war is a continuation of the absurdities that can pursue a man so constituted that he must think for himself. And here the implications of the novel become clear. It is partly the age–old story of a father and son in conflict, of an older generation's notions that are insupportable to the younger, a human dilemma that has no possible resolution. It is also the story of Melvin's final rejection of war, of his unshakeable conviction that a man today must think and act for the good of the planet, Stephen Decatur's slogan notwithstanding. With too many excellences to catalogue and extol, the novel has a total effect of a new voice telling a new story of this old familiar world.

Japan and China are thrown close to the brink of war when a Japanese warship is attacked. Meanwhile top Covert-One operative Jon Smith is sent to recover mysterious material from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactor. Smith vanishes, and CIA agent Randi Russell goes on an unsanctioned mission to find him. She discovers that the missing samples may be evidence that Japan, led by Chief of Staff Masao Takahashi, has been developing next-generation weapons systems in preparation for a conflict with China. The Covert-One team must prevent Takahashi from sparking a war, or the world will be dragged into a battle certain to kill tens of millions of people and leave much of the planet uninhabitable.

This is a gripping, page-turning memoir of a US-trained Iranian fighter pilot who flew in the Shah of Iran’s and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s air force. Sharifirad was shot down in the Iraqi-Iranian war in the early 1990s. Saved by a group of local Kurds, he returned to Iran where he became a national hero. A movie, called Eagles, based on his rescue, was made in Iran in 1984. Sharifirad’s story was also published in Iran in a book called Crash on the Fortieth Mission. Shortly after his return to Iran, the Ayatollah sent him to Pakistan as military attaché. When he returned toTeheran, he was accused of being a CIA spy and was imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured. Sharifirad served a prison term and upon his release, despite constant surveillance, managed to smuggle his family out of the country. Eventually, he too managed a harrowing escape from Iran via Turkey to Canada, where he now lives with his family in Vancouver. The book also provides an absorbing historical and cultural backdrop to Iran.

When John Furlong and his family emigrated from Ireland in 1974, the customs officer greeted them with "Welcome to Canada. Make us better," an imperative that has defined Furlong's life ever since. A passionate athlete with a track record of community service, he was roped into acting as spokesperson for Vancouver's incipient Olympic bid movement back in 1996, and then spent the next fourteen years living and breathing the Olympics. Furlong and his organizing team, including some 25,000 volunteers, orchestrated a remarkable Winter Games. Patriot Hearts is the story of how they did it.