Political thriller recommendations

[Doitsu]

I've just finished The Director by David Ignatius and was very disappointed by this poorly researched and not very well written novel. His description of computer topics will probably make even readers with limited computer skills laugh and the machine translated German phrases and dialogues will make most Germans either cringe or laugh. Also pretty much all major and minor characters were walking clichés.
I had expected more from Ignatius whose novel Body of Lies was turned into a very successful movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Does anybody have any recommendations for recently published well-written political thrillers?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

I've just finished The Director by David Ignatius and was very disappointed by this poorly researched and not very well written novel. His description of computer topics will probably make even readers with limited computer skills laugh

Sounds like his research into computers consisted of reading Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress."

I don't have any recommendations*, but I'd be interested in hearing some, too.

ApK

* Other than: I recommend you avoid "Digital Fortress."

[Lynx-lynx]

Robert Harris, The Fear Index wasn't too bad. It's cyber crime based and not too incredulous.

Set in Geneva, it gets into the hedge fund business, but also has glimpses in ordinary society in Geneva. For example, the investigating officer can no longer afford to live in Switzerland so travels in from bordering France daily. (from memory).

PS: It's £2.49 at UK Amazon, so maybe similar in Germany if that's where you are.

Edit
Gerald Seymour has written a number of contemporary political thrillers. For example:
The Corporal's Wife

Spoiler:

A suspenseful and thrilling novel about a small British team of men sent into Iran to smuggle out the feisty, independent Farideh. If they are caught, they will all be executed by the fundamentalist government - the Brits because they are effectively spies, and Farideh because her husband is regarded as a traitor and she has a dangerous mind of her own.

Farideh's husband is a corporal in the Revolutionary Guard, entrapped by MI6 and held in a safe house in Austria for interrogation. His lowly position would not normally make him a target, but his job as a driver to a top general means that he knows the location of secret nuclear sites and has overheard many unguarded conversations.

But he won't talk unless Farideh is brought out of Iran. The SAS say it's too dangerous, but the director of the operation doesn't want to lose his prize. He assembles a little team of three ex-soldiers and one student drop-out who knows the language and smuggles them into Tehran.

The journey back out is an epic of drama and suspense, culminating in a never-to-be-forgotten run for the border. Along the way, we meet many characters, both British and Iranian, who display courage, cowardice, hatred, and love.

The Outsiders

Spoiler:

Winnie Monks has never forgotten - or forgiven - the death of a young agent on her team at the hands of a former Russian Army Major turned gangster. Now, years later, she hears the Major is travelling to a villa on the Costa del Sol and she asks permission to send in a surveillance unit.

They find an empty property near the Major's. The Villa Paraiso. It's perfect to spy from - and as a base for Winnie's darker, less official, plans.

But it turns out that the property isn't deserted. The owners have invited a young British couple to 'house sit' while they are away.

For Jonno and Posie, just embarking on a relationship, this is supposed to be a carefree break in the sun. But when the Secret Service team arrives in paradise, everything changes.

A Deniable Death

Spoiler:

A page-turning thriller of life and death in the moral maze of the post-9/11 world from the international bestselling author and “best spy novelist ever” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

The rules are simple. Break up your shape. Hide your smell. Never show your silhouette. Check the surfaces of your kit. Space the movements of your team. Use the shadows. Danny “Badger” Baxter has a talent for surveillance. He’s always followed the rules. Until now, they’ve kept him alive.

But now Badger has a bigger job than photographing dissident Northern Irish Republicans in muddy Ulster fields, or Islamic extremists on rainswept Yorkshire moors. MI6 have a plan to assassinate the Engineer—a brilliant maker of Improvised Explosive Devices, the roadside bombs which account for 80% of Allied casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The spooks know he’s planning to leave his home in Iran. They just need to find out when and where he’s traveling.

So Badger finds himself on the wrong side of the Iranian border, burdened with a partner he loathes, lying under a merciless sun in a mosquito-infested marsh, observing the house. If things go wrong, as far as Her Majesty's Government is concerned, his part in the plot is completely deniable. With A Deniable Death, Gerald Seymour expertly explores the moral compromises of the secret world upon which we rely for our everyday security - and the amazing reserves of courage which ordinary people can find in extraordinary circumstances.

The Journeyman Tailor

Spoiler:

HEAR NOTHING. SEE NOTHING. KNOW NOTHING. This is the ruthless motto in the Provisional IRA's most active brigade. To collaborate with British Intelligence means certain death. But there is a rumour that an informer is operating within the Brigade. When identified he will be ruthelssly interrogated, tortured, then shot. The MI5 agents running the informer must protect their man at all costs: he is their most critical asset, and they must keep him in place, even if that means innocent people must die

(I've got these books but have yet to read them )

[JSWolf]

All of the Vince Flynn books are very good.
David Baldacci's Camel Club series is very good.

[BenG]

Robert Harris' The Ghost.(2997)

[Lynx-lynx]

@Ben G I saw that movie and it wasn't too bad!!

[Penforhire]

+1 for Baldacci's CC series

[Doitsu]

Thanks for the recommendations, keep them coming.

[Luffy]

I absolutely enjoyed reading The Camel Club series - I rated all of the books 4 or 5 stars. One of his other collections, the Will Robie series contain 3 books, of which the 1st and 3rd are beast.

Brad Thor's books are clean fun devoid of much swearing sex or sadistic violence.

Also The Kill Artist (Gabriel Allon #1) by Daniel Silva. The second book I couldn't complete, but the first one I've rated 4 stars.

If you don't mind wisecracking heroes, I also recommend Nelson Demille's John Corey series. Night Fall is the best book of the pack. One of the strongest 5 star ratings I've given to any book. Hope that helps.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Robert Harris, The Fear Index wasn't too bad. It's cyber crime based and not too incredulous.

Sounds interesting, I'll put it on my TBR list.

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Gerald Seymour has written a number of contemporary political thrillers. For example:
The Corporal's Wife

I've sampled The Corporal's Wife and didn't like the writing and the characters.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All of the Vince Flynn books are very good.
David Baldacci's Camel Club series is very good.

I've read both series and I liked them. Too bad that Vince Flynn passed away.

Originally Posted by Luffy

Brad Thor's books are clean fun devoid of much swearing sex or sadistic violence.

I've read one of them and IMHO his books aren't as good as Vince Flynn's books.

Originally Posted by Luffy

Also The Kill Artist (Gabriel Allon #1) by Daniel Silva. The second book I couldn't complete, but the first one I've rated 4 stars.

I liked the first one, too, and stopped reading the series after the second one.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you don't mind wisecracking heroes, I also recommend Nelson Demille's John Corey series. Night Fall is the best book of the pack. One of the strongest 5 star ratings I've given to any book. Hope that helps.

I've read all John Corey books and I actually enjoyed the wisecracking, however, the later books, though usually well researched and written, often have plots that are a bit too predictable.

[Lynx-lynx]

Adrian Magson's Harry Tate series:

Red Station (No 1)

Spoiler:

First in the brand-new Harry Tate thriller series - Having been made the scapegoat for a botched drugs intercept operation, MI5 officer Harry Tate is dispatched to 'Red Station', a remote outpost in the Balkans, ostensibly to avoid press scrutiny, but where in effect the security services send 'problem' agents they'd like to be rid of.

But the outpost is thrust into the international spotlight when troops begin massing in the area; and, as the situation becomes increasingly dangerous, Tate discovers the real, truly shocking, purpose behind 'Red Station' - and decides to fight back . . .

I've read the first and second in the series and enjoyed them.

Charles Cumming has a few books:
A Foreign Country

Spoiler:

Winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2012 for Best Thriller of the Year. Selected by the Sunday Times and the Guardian as Best Thriller. Perfect for fans of John le Carré, a gripping and suspenseful spy thriller from ‘the master of the modern spy thriller’ (Mail on Sunday) WITH AN EXCLUSIVE AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR.

Six weeks before she is due to become the first female head of MI6, Amelia Levene disappears without a trace.

Disgraced ex-agent Thomas Kell is brought in from the cold with orders to find her – quickly and quietly. The mission offers Kell a way back into the secret world, the only life he’s ever known.

Tracking her through France and North Africa, Kell embarks on a dangerous voyage, shadowed by foreign intelligence services. This far from home soil, the rules of the game are entirely different – and the consequences worse than anyone imagines…

The Trinity Six

Spoiler:

The most closely-guarded secret of the Cold War is about to be exposed – the identity of a SIXTH member of the infamous Cambridge spy ring. And people are killing for it…

London, 1992. Late one night, Edward Crane, 76, is declared dead at a London hospital. An obituary describes him only as a 'resourceful career diplomat'. But Crane was much more than that – and the circumstances surrounding his death are far from what they seem.

Fifteen years later, academic Sam Gaddis needs money. When a journalist friend asks for his help researching a possible sixth member of the notorious Trinity spy ring, Gaddis knows that she's onto a story that could turn his fortunes around. But within hours the journalist is dead, apparently from a heart attack.

Taking over her investigation, Gaddis trails a man who claims to know the truth about Edward Crane. Europe still echoes with decades of deadly disinformation on both sides of the Iron Curtain. And as Gaddis follows a series of leads across the continent, he approaches a shocking revelation – one which will rock the foundations of politics from London to Moscow…

And there are others. I've read A Foreign Country and it was okay.

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by Rin1221

- RIN1221 has been banned for deceptive, promotional spamming - MODERATOR

Was an amazing author. Vince Flynn died in 2013.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Charles Cumming has a few books:
A Foreign Country

I've just finished A Foreign Country and wouldn't recommend it. It felt a bit like "John le Carré light." It started out great and then fizzled out. I liked the main protagonist and his back story, which was apparently inspired by actual events, and the detailed tradecraft descriptions, but the main plot of the story was too unbelievable and most of the antagonists acted like cartoon characters.

[Lin2412]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All of the Vince Flynn books are very good.
David Baldacci's Camel Club series is very good.

Political Thrillers are a thing! I feel like I've just discovered a precious ruby. Hahaha. I'm looking for a great genre besides my plan on reading the classics. I want to start on these series and see if it could be a new favorite.
I'm leaning on to the synopsis of A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming