Adult

Steve Case was on the leading edge of the Internet revolution when he cofounded AOL in 1991. He was an entrepreneur in a business that hadn’t even been invented, yet he saw how significantly his efforts could change not only America, but the world. In THE THIRD WAVE, Case uses his insights garnered from nearly four decades of working as an innovator, investor and businessperson to chart a path for future visionaries.

When Logan West impulsively answers a dead man’s ringing phone, he triggers a global race against the clock to track down an unknown organization searching for an Iraqi artifact that is central to a planned attack in the Middle East --- one that will draw the United States into a major conflict with Iran. Logan, a former Marine officer, is quickly contracted as a “consultant” to assist the FBI as part of a special task force bent on stopping the shadowy operatives, whatever the cost. Meanwhile, Logan is battling his own demons, especially the trauma of the ambush that his Force Recon unit suffered at an insurgent torture compound in Fallujah in 2004, which threatens to destroy everything he holds dear.

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, at first it seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes. Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go but must. There he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, along with a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map. The focus of the investigation soon turns to Gamache himself, his mysterious relationship with one of the cadets, and his possible involvement in the crime.

Poland, 1944. Alfred Mendl and his family are brought on a crowded train to a Nazi concentration camp after being caught trying to flee Paris with forged papers. A renowned physicist, Mendl holds knowledge that only two people in the world possess. And the other is already at work for the Nazi war machine. In Washington, DC, Intelligence lieutenant Nathan Blum routinely decodes messages from occupied Poland. But never did he expect the proposal he receives from “Wild” Bill Donovan, head of the OSS: to sneak into the most guarded place on earth on a mission to find and escape with one man --- the one man the Allies believe can ensure them victory in the war.

Seventeen-year-old Ivan Isaenko is a life-long resident of the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus. For the most part, every day is exactly the same for Ivan, which is why he turns everything into a game, manipulating people and events around him for his own amusement. Until Polina arrives. She steals his books. She challenges his routine. The nurses like her. Soon, he cannot help being drawn to her, and the two forge a romance that is tenuous and beautiful and everything they never dared dream of. Before, he survived by being utterly detached from things and people. Now, Ivan wants something more: he wants Polina to live.

Ruddy McCann is finally getting his life back on track. He has a beautiful fiancé, a somewhat stable job stealing cars, and a lazy, lovable basset hound. With his job suddenly in jeopardy, his fiancé wanting a break, and a new court-ordered psychiatrist insisting he take his medication or violate the terms of his probation, Ruddy finds himself missing the one thing he thought he would be happy to be rid of --- the voice of Alan Lottner, dead realtor and Ruddy's future father-in-law. When a woman tells Ruddy that the tragedy that defines his life may be a lie, Ruddy starts to investigate the disappearances of women in the area and soon discovers that his own redemption may be within reach.

In 1944, three young men from a small town in West Virginia are among the American forces participating in D-Day, changing the fortunes of the war with one bold stroke. How is that moment aboard a Navy ship as it barrels toward the Normandy shore related to the death of an old man in an Appalachian nursing home 72 years later? Bell Elkins, prosecuting attorney in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, is asked by an old acquaintance to look into the death of her beloved father in an Alzheimer’s care facility. Did he die of natural causes --- or was something more sinister to blame?

Red Rover, the blackest of black ops teams, is betrayed on its top-priority mission to capture and interrogate a mysterious Saudi terrorist. Greg Whitman and Felix Orteño are left adrift in a world full of deathly shadows, blind alleys and unanswerable questions. Into their midst comes Charlize Daou, a brilliant arms expert who possesses the true power necessary for survival. Ignoring their new orders, Red Rover secretly sets out to find the protected Saudi terrorist, the first step in a perilous journey into the heart of a vast conspiracy that involves the NSA, a cabal of immensely wealthy mystics known as the Alchemists, and an ageless visionary out to create an entirely new way of waging war.