Top 25 Police fiction (4.90 to 4.17) 6/23/05
Explore the top 25 police fiction books rated 4.90 to 4.17 (6/23/05). Discover gripping crime thrillers, detective novels, and must-read mysteries in this curated list of the best cop stories.
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Death of a Red Heroine
by Qiu Xiaolong
Qiu Xiaolong's Anthony Award-winning debut introduces Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police. A young “national model worker,” renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done.
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A Loyal Character Dancer
by Qiu Xiaolong
The second book in the Inspector Chen investigations Inspector Chen’s mentor in the Shanghai Police Bureau has assigned him to escort US Marshal Catherine Rohn. Her mission is to bring Wen, the wife of a witness in an important criminal trial, to the United States. Inspector Rohn is already en route when Chen learns that Wen has unaccountably vanished from her village in Fujian. Or is this just what he is supposed to believe? Chen resents his role; he would rather investigate the triad killing in Shanghai’s beautiful Bund Park. Li insists that saving face with Inspector Rohn takes priority. So Chen Cao, the ambitious son of a father who imbued him with Confucian precepts, must tread warily as he tries once again to be a good cop, a good man and also a loyal Party member.
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Flynn's World
by Gregory Mcdonald
Boston police inspector Francis Xavier Flynn (''one of the smartest, gentlest, most sarcastic cops you will ever meet'U--"The New York Times") has had no sleep after a marathon bout of detective work. It's a typical plateful for Flynn in this outrageous novel from the prodigious pen of McDonald.
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Last Man Standing
by David Baldacci
The sole survivor of a devastating ambush, FBI Hostage Rescue Team agent Web London would do anything to find out what really happened that night--and a ten year old boy may be the unexpected key in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller. Web London was trained to penetrate hostile ground and come out alive. Then ten seconds in a dark alley cost him everything: his friends, his fellow agents, his reputation. Among his super-elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team, Web was the sole survivor of a high-tech, devastating ambush. Now Web is trying to put his life back together and understand what really happened. To get answers, he'll need the help of psychiatrist Claire Daniels and the one other human being who lived through the attack--a ten-year-old boy. But when his search leads him back to that bloodstained alley, Web suddenly realizes he is about to face his assassin again. And this time, one of them will become the Last Man Standing.
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Orchid Blues
by Stuart Woods
Stuart Woods brings back small-town police chief Holly Barker—and her extraordinary Doberman, Daisy—for another exhilarating adventure in this New York Times bestseller. When Holly Barker’s wedding festivities are shattered by a brutal robbery, she vows to find the culprits. With nothing to go on but the inexplicable killing of an innocent bystander, Holly discovers evidence that leads her into the midst of a clan whose members are as mysterious as they are zealous. Holly’s father, Ham, a retired army master sergeant, is her ticket into their strange world. What he finds there boggles the mind and sucks them all—Holly, Ham, and Daisy—into a whirlpool of crazed criminality from which even the FBI can’t save them...
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The Day of the Jackal
by Frederick Forsyth
The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man. One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. And as the minutes count down to the final act of execution, it seems that there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal.
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When Red is Black
by Xiaolong Qiu
Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau is taking a vacation, in part because he is annoyed at his boss, the Party Secretary, but also because he has been made an offer he can't refuse by a triad-connected businessman. So Detective Yu, Chen's partner, is forced to take charge of a new murder investigation. But it is only when Inspector Chen returns that the culprit is apprehended. And then Chen discovers how the triad has played him.
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Slicky Boys
by Martin Lim#n
The second Sergeant George Sueño investigation, follow-up to the New York Times Notable Jade Lady Burning The Slicky Boys rule the back alleys of 1970s Seoul. They can kill a man in a thousand gruesome ways. And you’ll never even see them coming. In order to combat the poverty facing South Korea, they sneak onto well-stocked American military compounds to steal, murder anyone in their way, and vanish. US Army Sergeant George Sueño and his partner, Ernie Bascom, take on the perilous mission of infiltrating this underground criminal syndicate when an innocent favor for an Itaewon bar girl leads to murder.
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The General
by Patrick A. Davis
Air Force colonel Charlie Jensen's investigation into the brutal murder of a general reveals a conspiracy stemming from the Vietnam War and presents him with a serious moral dilemma.
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The Dragon Man
by Garry Disher
Detective Inspector Hal Challis and his crew, searching for a serial killer operating in a beachside town outside Melbourne, Australia, feel a new sense of urgency when the daughter of one of the police sergeants is abducted.
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Orchid Beach
by Stuart Woods
A Woman's Best Friend--and Most Lethal Weapon New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods delivers a riveting thriller that introduces an exciting addition to the pantheon of fictional sleuths. Forced into early retirement at thirty-seven, smart, attractive, and fiercely independent Major Holly Barker trades in her bars as a military cop for the badge of deputy chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida. But below the sunny surface of this sleepy, well-to-do island town lies an evil that escalates into the cold-blooded murder of one of Holly's new colleagues. An outsider, Holly has little to go on for answers and no one to help her--except Daisy, a Doberman of exceptional intelligence and loyalty that becomes her companion and protector. The closer she gets to the truth, the more Holly knows that it'll take one smart dog with guts to sniff out this killer--before he can catch her first.
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Men in Blue
by W.E.B. Griffin
W.E.B. Griffin's bestselling series, THE CORPS and BROTHERHOOD OF WAR, have captured the pride and glory of the military community. Now he reveals a city police force with the same unique blend of realism, drama, and action. Here are the brave men and women behind the badge as you've never seen them before--their hopes and fears, their courage and heroism, sparked by a single, shocking event: the killing of a cop in the line of duty.
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Special Operations
by W.E.B. Griffin
In this exciting new series, W.E.B. Griffin reveals a city police force with all the authentic detail and drama that made THE CORPS and BROTHERHOOD OF WAR phenomenal bestsellers. Here is an explosive novel of the men and women behind the badge--a unique brotherhood of courage, loyalty, and trust. Facing a desperate public, a hostile press, and reluctant witnesses, they must stop a new reign of violence--a terrifying spree of kidnapping and rape that has plunged the entire city in fear...
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The Victim
by W. E. B. Griffin
When officer Matt Payne discovers the body of Tony "the Zee" DeZego and his barely breathing girlfriend, debutante Penny Detweiler, on the roof of a parking garage, he begins a murder investigation that shakes the city's foundations
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The Witness
by W. E. B. Griffin
Follows the story of Matt Payne, a police officer confronting threats from terrorists
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The Assassin
by W. E. B. Griffin
A single, perfectly typed bomb threat is the police department's only clue to a political assassin's next hit. By the author of the "Brotherhood of War" and "The Corps" series. Original.
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The Murderers
by W.E.B. Griffin
A Philadelphia narcotics cop is shot dead in his home. A bar owner's wife and partner are gunned down during an attempted robbery. And in a beautiful mansion, a young woman dies of a heroin overdose. At first the crimes seem unconnected. But these four deaths are about to trigger a massive convergence of corruption, cops, and the mob that could tear the Philadelphia Police Department apart from the inside out. All the way to the top...
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The Investigators
by W.E.B. Griffin
A brutal crime...A group of urban terrorists...An investigation of dirty cops...The leads in these supposedly unconnected cases have become tangled in some very ugly--and dangerous--knots. Now Special Operations detective Matt Payne and his colleagues find themselves fearing not only for their jobs, but also for their very lives...
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Blood Orchid
by Stuart Woods
“Savvy, sexy”* police chief Holly Barker gets introduced to the cutthroat world of Florida real estate in this New York Times bestselling thriller from Stuart Woods. Blood Orchid: the name of Ed Shine’s favorite flower—and his latest real-estate venture. New to town, the dapper developer makes the acquaintance of Holly, her father Ham, and her wily Doberman, Daisy. It’s just as Holly’s trying to get her life back together after the shattering loss of someone very close to her. But before she can settle back into her routine, bullets crash into the home of a friend and a floater is found bobbing in the Intercoastal Waterway. Joining forces with a handsome FBI agent, Holly tracks the clues straight back to their source, only to find a scam more lucrative and more dangerous than any this idyllic town—or Holly—has ever seen...
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Hour Game
by David Baldacci
Mystery surrounding a government investigation into serial murders.
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Final Justice
by W.E.B. Griffin
Just as with his remarkable military novels, millions of readers have been captured by the rich characters and vivid realism of W. E. B. Griffin’s police dramas. “Griffin has the knack,” writes The Philadelphia Inquirer. He “sets his novel before you in short, fierce, stop-for-nothing scenes. Before you know it, you’ve gobbled it up.” Now, in Final Justice, Detective Matt Payne of the Philadelphia police department—newly promoted to sergeant and assigned to Homicide—finds himself in the middle of three major assignments. The first case, a fatal shooting at a fast-food restaurant, seems simple, but rapidly becomes complicated. The second, a rape that tumbled into murder, begins complicated and only gets more so, as it becomes apparent that the crime may be part of a disturbing, and escalating, pattern. The third is the most bizarre, as Payne becomes involved with a local figure who long ago fled the country, leaving behind the mummified body of his girlfriend in a trunk. Ever since, the murderer has been sending taunting postcards from his safe haven—but all that may be about to change. Weaving in and around this already hectic schedule are the visit to Philadelphia of the self-absorbed star of a series of improbable police movies, who wants Payne to show him “the real stuff,” and the appearance in Payne’s life of two very different women. Either one of them alone would be enough to set his head spinning, but together . . . this might be the most complicating thing of all. Filled with color and detail and plots as real as the headlines, this is a riveting novel of the men and women who put their lives on the line, from the cop on the beat to the commissioner himself. It’s a story of fears, dangers, courage, loyalty, and genuine heroism: storytelling at its best.
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An Animated Death In Burbank
by Michael Joens
Each novel in this compelling new series about Los Angeles cops will deal with a unique and fascinating Los Angeles milieu. In her first outing, Detective Sandra Cameron finds out that drawing cartoons can be deadly, especially when you are as orignial and unorthodox as cartoonist extraordinaire, Patrick Stewart. When the talented but deceased Mr. Stewart is found lying next to a note reading, "That's All, Folks," most people assume he committed suicide. Detective Sandra Cameron and her colleague Detective Sergeant Tom Rigby suspect Mr. Parker met a much darker demise, one that included some unasked-for assistance. They are even more suspicious after a beautiful dead girl, another cartoon-industry insider, is found floating in her tub. The two cops decide to combine forces, and their relationship teeters on the somewhat fluid boundary between their professional and personal lives. Tom has just been betrayed by an ex-wife, and he is distressed by his feelings for Sandra. She, on the other hand, has her own very comfortable life. She has to ask herself whether romance on the job is ever a good idea--does she really need a man in her life? What she has in her life is a cold-blooded murder, and as Tom and Sandra struggle with their personal demons, including the ongoing unsolved case involving Sandra's brother, a devilish killer is concocting some chilling scenarios.
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Thai Horse
by William Diehl
"It's enough to make Ludlum seem humdrum." ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTION Christian Hatcher, the licensed killer they call the Shadow Warrior, is out of jail and looking for the betrayer that got him there. With his body wasted and his spirit nearly crushed, Hatcher returns to Hong Kong and Bangkok--deadly stops on the heroine pipeline--and comes closer to a solution that he fears to discover . . . . "Diehl knows how to tell a story, and his novel moves." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
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Jade Lady Burning
by Martin LimĂłn
A Korean prostitute has been horrifically murdered in Seoul, and an army corporal is accused of the crime, as an Army Criminal Investigation Division sergeant investigates the case.