Books from United States

At an elite Vermont college, a tight-knit group of classics students becomes consumed by beauty, intellectual obsession, and the darker side of ancient philosophy. When their pursuit of an extraordinary experience leads to murder, their carefully constructed world begins to unravel. An atmospheric psychological novel about guilt, privilege, and the dangerous allure of belonging.

In the sweltering American South, twelve-year-old Harriet Dufresnes becomes determined to solve the mysterious murder of her older brother, Robin, who was killed when she was still a baby. Driven by grief, imagination, and a fierce sense of justice, she ventures into a world of family secrets, dangerous people, and unsettling discoveries. A dark Southern Gothic novel about childhood, vengeance, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of loss.

Kate Moore appears to have built a comfortable new life in Luxembourg. After her husband accepts a lucrative job abroad, she leaves Washington, D.C., behind and settles into the routines of expatriate life: school drop-offs, coffee mornings, and weekend trips around Europe. But Kate is hiding a dangerous secret about her past, and the ordinary life she has constructed is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. When Kate begins to suspect that another American couple in Luxembourg are not who they claim to be, her suspicions grow. Her husband is also behaving strangely, and his work for an undisclosed banking client raises questions she cannot ignore. As she investigates the people around her, Kate discovers that the lives of the expatriates in her seemingly peaceful community are far more complicated than they appear. Moving between the polished world of international professionals and the shadowy realm of espionage, Pavone builds a suspenseful story of deception, double-crossing, and hidden identities. The novel explores how people reinvent themselves when they move abroad, whether it is possible to escape one’s past, and how secrets can undermine even the closest relationships. The Expats won both the Edgar Award and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel in 2013.

Set in the politically charged atmosphere of an American university on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, The Laughter follows Dr. Oliver Harding, an aging white professor of English who considers himself a progressive, liberal intellectual. His carefully constructed worldview begins to unravel when he becomes infatuated with Ruhaba Khan, a younger Pakistani Muslim law professor whose confidence, intelligence, and political activism both attract and unsettle him. When Ruhaba’s teenage nephew, Adil, arrives from France, Oliver uses his growing relationship with the boy as a way to get closer to his aunt. At the same time, campus protests over diversity and representation challenge the university’s established power structures, forcing Oliver to confront questions about privilege, race, and his own supposedly liberal beliefs. As his obsession intensifies, his behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, and the gap between how he sees himself and how others might see him grows more dangerous. Told through Oliver’s unreliable perspective, the novel gradually reveals the prejudices and insecurities concealed beneath his intellectual sophistication. With dark humour and psychological suspense, Jha examines how people rationalise their own behaviour, how racial and cultural differences can become objects of both fascination and hostility, and how easily a sense of entitlement can disguise itself as virtue. The Laughter is a provocative exploration of power, misogyny, identity, and the contradictions of contemporary American liberalism.

When Ikemefuna, a young Nigerian dancer, boards a plane from Lagos to Texas, she imagines a new life filled with opportunity, freedom, and the promise of a happy marriage. Instead, she finds herself trapped in the home of her new husband’s parents, where her movements are controlled, her independence stripped away, and the pressure to produce a male heir grows increasingly intense. Her husband, Nna, initially struggles to reconcile his self-proclaimed feminist beliefs with his family’s expectations. As secrets emerge and the household becomes increasingly suffocating, the boundaries between victim and perpetrator, tradition and cruelty, begin to blur. Ikemefuna’s apparent obedience conceals something far more complicated, and the family’s carefully maintained facade begins to unravel. Blending domestic thriller, psychological horror, and Nigerian diasporic fiction, House Woman explores patriarchal power, forced marriage, intergenerational trauma, and the devastating consequences of silencing women. It also questions whether moving to another country necessarily brings freedom when oppressive social structures travel with you.

What if the recognition you’ve spent your entire life chasing turned out to be a trap? At twenty-six, Michael Wang is a talented Chinese American software engineer working at General Motors in San Francisco. Despite graduating from Princeton and developing groundbreaking self-driving car technology, he feels overlooked, trapped beneath the invisible barriers that limit his advancement. Lonely and resentful, he longs for someone to recognise his potential. Then he meets Vivian, an enigmatic woman connected to a Beijing technology startup that promises Michael everything he believes he deserves: professional recognition, wealth, and the freedom to realise his ambitions. He accepts the offer and travels to China, only for Vivian to disappear shortly after his arrival. Michael soon discovers that his new employers have recruited him for something far more dangerous than technological innovation. Caught in a web of corporate espionage and international intelligence, Michael becomes a pawn in the growing rivalry between the United States and China. As his situation deteriorates, he must confront uncomfortable questions about identity, loyalty, and the price of belonging. Hansen Shi’s debut thriller combines high-stakes espionage with a sharp examination of the myth of meritocracy and the vulnerabilities created by alienation. It asks how far someone might go to prove their worth—and what they might sacrifice along the way.

When Hemisphere Airlines Flight 777, one of the world’s most advanced passenger jets, vanishes over the North Pole, its disappearance triggers an international crisis. Sabotaged and forced down onto the frozen Arctic ice, the aircraft leaves its surviving passengers stranded in one of the planet’s most unforgiving environments. But the crash conceals a secret far more dangerous than the disaster itself: a revolutionary military technology capable of shifting the global balance of power. Among the survivors are CIA operative Kasey Sheridan and Brett Sharpe, a former fighter pilot now working as the plane’s first officer. As they struggle to keep the injured alive and escape the freezing wilderness, American, Russian, and Chinese intelligence forces race towards the wreckage. Each government is determined to secure the secret technology, regardless of the human cost. With temperatures falling and enemy forces closing in, Sheridan and Sharpe must navigate a deadly landscape where survival and international security are inseparable. Cold Zero combines Arctic survival suspense with high-stakes espionage, exploring technological warfare, geopolitical rivalry, and the catastrophic consequences of a conflict between nuclear powers.

American journalist Danielle “Dani” Moreau arrives in Accra, Ghana, hoping to revive her career by investigating corruption in the country’s oil industry. Still reeling from a personal tragedy, she expects to uncover a conventional political scandal. Instead, an encounter with James Aidoo, the idealistic son of a prominent Ghanaian politician, draws her into a far more dangerous story. Dani discovers a covert struggle between American and Chinese intelligence agencies over control of the underwater fibre-optic cables that carry the world’s digital communications. As she investigates, she encounters double agents, corrupt officials, and operatives with violent pasts. What begins as a journalistic investigation becomes a fight for survival, with the consequences reaching far beyond Ghana’s borders. Set against the bustling streets and political complexities of West Africa, The Silver Fish combines espionage with contemporary geopolitical intrigue. Connor Martin explores the hidden infrastructure of global power, examining how technology, intelligence, and competing national interests shape the modern world—and the personal cost of pursuing the truth.

London becomes a battleground when the long-standing alliance between American and British intelligence begins to unravel. A new CIA director arrives determined to disrupt the agency and rethink its relationship with MI6. When the veteran chief of the CIA’s London Station is forced out, he makes an extraordinary decision: to work for the British instead. His betrayal is uncovered by his successor, Artemis Aphrodite Procter, who suddenly finds herself caught between a treacherous former superior and an increasingly ruthless leadership back in Washington. As intelligence sources begin dying and the identities of covert agents are exposed, Procter and her team must uncover who is leaking secrets—and why. Their investigation draws them into a dangerous world of private intelligence companies, technological surveillance, and competing agendas, where allies become adversaries and loyalty can be fatal. In this fifth novel featuring Artemis Procter, David McCloskey explores the fragile relationship between intelligence agencies and the political forces that shape their work. Combining intricate espionage operations with a story of institutional betrayal, London Station asks what happens when serving your country means disobeying the people who claim to represent it.

Money can buy almost anything—but it cannot guarantee love, loyalty, or a clean family reputation. Jia Song, the ambitious daughter of Korean immigrant bodega owners, has spent her life chasing the luxuries she once admired from behind a shop counter. Now a rising star at a prestigious Manhattan law firm, she is closer than ever to the glamorous future she imagined. But her latest assignment plunges her into the spectacularly messy private lives of the Parks, a Korean American family whose billion-dollar beauty empire is threatened by scandal. The family patriarch wants a divorce from his terminally ill wife, while their three adult children wage war against their father and one another. Jia has just thirty days to investigate the family’s finances, uncover the truth, and protect her clients’ interests. As her investigation takes her from New York to Seoul and beyond, she discovers that the Parks’ wealth conceals secrets far darker than she expected. Glamorous, sharp-witted, and full of betrayal, Park Avenue explores ambition, family loyalty, and the price of success. Behind the designer handbags and extravagant lifestyles lies a question Jia must confront herself: what if getting everything you’ve ever wanted means losing sight of what truly matters?

Hidaya Abuayash, a Palestinian woman studying at an American university, believes she is finally building a safe and stable future. Having left behind her family and painful memories in Palestine, she hopes to complete her education, obtain American citizenship, and start a family with her husband, Idris. Her carefully constructed life collapses when an argument with Idris takes a terrifying turn. After he pulls a gun on her and reveals that he has been working as an FBI informant, spying on students at her university, Hidaya stabs him in the back. Faced with the consequences of his death, she fears that reporting what happened will not protect her. Her precarious immigration status and Palestinian identity could leave her vulnerable to suspicion, discrimination, and deportation. With the help of her best friend, Layyan, and Layyan’s brother, Ahmed, Hidaya attempts to conceal the killing. But as the three become entangled in an increasingly complicated web of secrets, their trust in one another begins to fracture. When social media unexpectedly draws Hidaya into the public eye, the risk of exposure grows, and revelations about Idris’s past force her to question everything she thought she knew. Blending psychological suspense with questions of surveillance, prejudice, and belonging, Black Widow, White Shroud explores the vulnerabilities faced by Muslim and Palestinian communities in America. It examines how immigration status can become a source of power over people’s lives, and how the search for safety can force individuals into morally complicated choices.