Looking back on it, Tom Clancy's success seems as improbable as the fate of the protagonists in his many best-selling novels. The Bear and the Dragon to be released later this month, is the 11th novel from this prolific author. He has also created a successful fiction series (Op-Center) and written several nonfiction works on military topics. Not bad for a former insurance salesman.

Thomas L. Clancy, Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1947. He graduated from Loyola College with a major in English before settling into life as an insurance broker. Like so many English majors, he dreamed of writing a novel. In Clancy's case, his hobby of warfare became the inspiration for that novel; the technology of warfare, in particular, interested him. An avid gun collector, he eventually moved on to the study of more high-tech weaponry.

In the early 1980s, Clancy read about the captain of a Soviet frigate attempting to defect to Sweden, and the seed of a novel was planted. The Hunt for Red October was eventually published by an obscure military press. It was the first work of fiction for both, and only about 14,000 copies were printed. After President Ronald Reagan read it and pronounced it "the perfect yarn," the book shot up the New York Times bestseller list.

Sales climbed when the Navy and other intelligence sources expressed consternation at Clancy's technical accuracy. Despite the rumors, he isn't a retired spy he's simply a diligent researcher. He's been debriefed by Pentagon officials and is required reading in military colleges.

Success has brought personal gain as well as personal cost; he has a fine house overlooking Chesapeake Bay, but he's been swindled in a stock scam. He's been criticized for his technology-as-hero approach, but Clancy himself decries the "techno-thriller" label attached to his fiction. He's seen three of his novels become hit movies, and his Op-Center creation has become a TV mini-series.

The entertainment press is abuzz with talk of Ben Affleck taking over for Harrison Ford as the third actor to play Jack Ryan. All of this sets the stage for the forthcoming release of The Bear and the Dragon, wherein converging forces of Russia and China present President Jack Ryan with a crisis of devastating proportions. Can there be any doubt who will rule the bestseller lists in the fall?

Jim Webb writes from Nashville.

Jack Higgins has long been regarded as the alpha dog of the thriller genre. Ian Fleming is long gone, Trevanian has turned his hand to westerns, and Tom Clancy has been co-creating Op-Center books for the last several years, generally regarded less favorably than his outstanding Jack Ryan series. Day of Reckoning, the new Jack Higgins novel, brings together all of the elements that have long been staples in thrillers: the IRA, the Mossad, the British crime underworld, the Mafia, the FBI, and conspiracies within conspiracies.

When the journalist ex-wife of a prominent FBI agent is murdered while doing an expose on a Mafia don, the agent musters forces on both sides of the Atlantic to wreak his revenge. It seems that the don is hurting for liquid assets and has engaged in some nefarious dealings with Irish and Middle Eastern terrorists. It is left to reformed IRA assassin Sean Dillon to throw a monkey wrench into the works, first to discredit the mafioso and then to bring him to the Halls of Justice or the Gates of Hell. Dillon rather favors the latter.

Halfway 'round the world, one of New York's finest gets drafted as an unwilling security aide to a presidential hopeful in Les Standiford's latest, Black Mountain. The candidate, long an advocate (so he says) of environmental issues, is headed to the Rocky Mountains with his entourage of hangers-on and security personnel for a week of soul searching, relaxation, and communing with nature.

The friendly seaplane pilot drops the party at a remote mountain lake, then taxies across the smooth water, lifting off like Sky King into the blue of the Western sky. Moments later, the party is horrified to hear the sounds of failing engines, the whine of an airplane falling from the sky; they watch helplessly as the small plane crashes into a mountainside. Stranded, and with no choice but to backpack their way home to civilization, the somber trekkers set out. A series of accidents ensues, taking the lives of several of the group, and leaving the survivors convinced that they are the targets of a force more sinister than even Murphy's Law.

Black Mountain is a thoroughly modern novel of corruption, intrigue, and murder at the highest levels. As is often the case with the new wave of thrillers, the hero is a character with complex motivations, a common man in an uncommon situation certainly not the urbane, unruffled James Bondian superhero of thrillers past.

Day of Reckoning and Black Mountain provide a fascinating counterpoint to one another, as well as great back-to-back reading.

Paeans to a host of other latter-day crime-writing icons abound in this dark first novel of deprivation, detection and dissection. Former NYPD Detective Charlie "Birdman" Parker, has really had it bad. The son of a child-killing cop, Parker's alcoholism destroyed his marriage in name, while a deranged killer ended it in reality by gruesomely murdering his wife and child. Having quit the force amid ugly, suspicious rumors, Parker now ekes out a meager living catching escaped fugitives for sleazy bail bondsmen, and talks through his anguish with a sympathetic (and attractive) psychiatrist named Rachel Wolfe. One of his cases ropes him into what appears to be an internal Mafia squabble but quickly leads to something altogether more sinister and depraved.

Parker, who harbors a desperate yearning to aid other people's children as he could not his own, follows a bloodstained trail from New York's outer boroughs to the Louisiana swamps (William Hjortsberg, Falling Angel) where a bayou medicine woman (shades of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) helps him uncover a grisly string of child slayings (cue Andrew Vachss). While this is happening, the killer known as Traveling Man, who murdered Parker's own family, resurfaces, forcing the detective to enlist the aid of a pair of career criminals befriended during his days on the force (think Robert B. Parker here, if Hawk were gay).

As the Mob struggle spills over into a full-blown feud and the bodies start piling up, Parker and a disheveled FBI agent named Woolrich race against time to decipher the gory language of Traveling Man's psychopathology and determine where he will strike next (Thomas Harris, big time). Traveling Man's MO has a terrible familiarity for Parker, which in turn increases his dependence on Rachel, which leads to well, you get the idea. Connolly's nods to established authors carry more than a touch of homage, and Connolly himself employs a strong command of the written word and his American locales. Every Dead Thing is a promising first attempt, and should appeal to many fans of the genre.

Adam Dunn writes reviews and features for Current Diversions and Speak magazine.

W.E.B. Griffin’s 27th novel and eighth in his Marine corps series, In Danger’s Path: A Corps Novel, is a mixture of real-life historical personalities that includes the likes of President Franklin Roosevelt, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and OSS Director William Donovan. As with all of his novels, Griffin superimposes this story on a historically based scenario allowing his fictional characters the ability to interact with the icons of World War II.

Using missions in the Philippines, the Gobi Desert of Chinese Mongolia, and Second World War United States as the lens through which he portrays this complex yet cohesive novel, Griffin once again proves that he is a master of storytelling.

Portraying an odyssey full of secret missions, separated loves, and reacquainted friends, Griffin skillfully intertwines a full spectrum of plots. Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, newly appointed head of the OSS’ Pacific operations during World War II, is Griffin’s hero in this novel. President Roosevelt assigns Fleming this position in a desperate measure to find someone to unite the warring interests of MacArthur, Nimitz, and Donovan. Accompanying Pickering as protagonists are a myriad of characters in an underlining two-fold plot: rescuing a band of former American serviceman and their dependents on the run from Japanese capture and, at the same time, establishing a weather station in the Gobi Desert to aid aerial attacks against the Japanese homeland.

Men like Ed Banning, Ken McCoy, Jake Dillion, and, much to Pickering’s surprise, his own son Malcolm participate in this and other exciting missions. Together, they venture incognito into enemy territory fully aware of the risks involved. Each of Griffin’s characters has his own story interwoven into a seamless narrative that’s sure to surprise readers in the end.

In Danger’s Path is historical fiction defining the Pacific Rim during WWII and a coming-of-age story. Of the 125 different novels Griffin has written, including those written under each of his eight different pseudonyms, In Danger’s Path, may be his best yet.

Major Dominic Caraccilo is the Operations Officer of the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne (Air Assault) in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Tom Clancy's long-awaited novel has finally arrived, and fans will delight because it truly is vintage Clancy. For those who might have chafed at the Op Center series and wondered about tomorrow, you can now relax—it is here. You won't, however, be able to relax for too long because Rainbow Six moves fast and furiously and keeps you in suspense from beginning to end. Rainbow Six is the story of an elite multinational task force formed to battle international terrorism hence the term rainbow. It has chosen the best people from several countries, all in tip-top physical shape. The leader of this special group is none other than ex-Navy SEAL John Clark, whom many will remember from other Clancy novels. And this time the man some Clancy fans call the dark side double of Jack Ryan really has his hands full.

The task force is stationed in England since the British have the location, infrastructure and the security needed. On the first trip there, three men, apparently after a Spanish diplomat, attempt to hijack the team's commercial plane. Then, before the Rainbow team even settles into its new digs in England, they are called to help stop a bank robbery in Switzerland. An attempted kidnapping of an Austrian financier soon follows. And, as if that weren't enough, the team is confronted with a challenge at a theme park in Spain. It seems that a dozen or so terrorists have seized a group of children at the park and are threatening to kill them one at a time unless various demands are met, including release of prisoners held by France. The force then does its job as effectively as usual, but not without witnesses a great tragedy in the process.

But all is not simply guns and foes for Rainbow Six, for other things are going on that will ultimately impact its members. In New York, a group of homeless men is whisked off the street, and at least two women are kidnapped. And then there is a certain somebody who is entirely too curious about the presence of the Rainbow group in England.

This is simply a prelude to the next major challenge, one so great that it boggles the mind. This time the group must face a band of men and women so merciless and so extreme that nothing like it has confronted the world before. The success of this terrorist group would literally endanger life on earth as most know it.

Clancy admits this novel took a very long time to write, with each page taking as much as six hours to finish. He says it was well worth it—you will most certainly agree.

Lloyd Armour is a retired newspaper editor.

Early in The Turnout, the beautifully dark suspense novel from bestselling author Megan Abbott (Dare Me), readers will sense that all is not right in the Durant School of Dance, a prestigious yet moldering ballet studio.

It’s “Nutcracker” season, and the holiday staple brings in the bulk of the annual revenue for the school, which is run by the Durant sisters, Dara and Marie, and Dara’s husband, Charlie. Emotions are running high in the days leading up to the announcement of who will play Clara—the most coveted role but also the one that makes the dancer the target of cruel jealousy from both students and parents.

Marie, who had been living with Dara and Charlie ever since the sudden death of the sisters’ parents, has recently set up camp in the attic above the studio. A fire from her space heater leaves part of the studio in ruins, and a possibly shady contractor comes on board to help with renovations. The future of the studio is in jeopardy, forcing the sisters to revisit their traumatic childhood as they decide whether the Durant School is worth saving.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Megan Abbott on her fixation with ballet.

The Turnout submerses readers in the obsessive, toxic world of competitive ballet. Abbott perfectly describes the unique smells and atmosphere of a dance studio: a mix of sweat, vomit and hormones. She unsettlingly juxtaposes a sport that requires astonishing levels of discipline with the sugary sweet story of “The Nutcracker.” “Consider the exquisite torture of all those little girls never allowed to eat dancing as costumed Sugar Plums, as fat Bonbons gushing cherry slicks. Tutus like ribbon candy, boys spinning great hoops of peppermint, and everywhere black slathers of licorice and marzipan glistening like snow.”

Abbott layers dread and darkness as readers learn about the harrowing family home that shaped Dara and Marie and pulled Charlie into their lives. Virtually no one is who they seem, and Abbott keeps the twists coming until the final pages. The Turnout is the kind of gripping, unnerving page turner we have come to expect from an author who does noir better than almost anyone.

With twists worthy of a season finale of “Law & Order: SVU,” The Damage explores a family’s struggle in the aftermath of a sexual assault.

College student Nick Hall meets a handsome stranger in a bar and leaves with him for a one-night stand, only to find himself the victim of a violent attack. Hospitalized and in shock, Nick turns to his much older brother, Tony, for support. Tony and his wife, Julia, have always been parental figures to Nick, and they find themselves reeling from the reality of his rape.

Overwhelmed by shame and trauma, Nick sinks into a suicidal depression while Tony, desperate for a sense of control and justice, turns his rage toward the man arrested for attacking Nick. Julia, a former defense attorney, sees her family fracturing and realizes she must go to extreme lengths to save them all.

Unlike a traditional mystery, we know who Nick’s attacker is within the first few chapters. The real mystery in The Damage is what happens after the assault. The book jumps between the months after the 2015 attack to 2019, when the detective assigned to the case, now facing a terminal diagnosis, looks for answers as to what really happened in the aftermath. The man suspected of Nick’s attack has long since vanished, and the detective believes Julia may know the truth.

The Damage stands out for its depiction of the still taboo subject of male rape. Female sexual assault victims are commonplace in thrillers, but there is still a stigma surrounding male victims of sexual violence. Nick is aware of this stigma, and we see him work through the toxic shame surrounding his attack as he struggles to accept that he was not at fault for what happened to him.

This study of a family in crisis is empathetic and never gratuitous, but still doesn’t shy away from the realities of sexual violence. The Damage carefully and expertly captures the collective trauma of a close-knit family when one of its members is victimized, and the lengths to which they’ll go to find justice and healing.

It’s not uncommon for neighbors or co-workers to consider themselves family, and in bestselling author Megan Miranda’s Such a Quiet Place, the residents of Hollow’s Edge feel that pressure from both sides. A picturesque community of close-set homes, Hollow’s Edge is mainly populated by employees of the nearby College of Lake Hollow. But something malevolent lurks beneath the community’s pretty surface, and close bonds are frayed, even broken, in the wake of a shocking murder.

It’s been 18 months since Brandon and Fiona Truett were found dead, and 14 months since Ruby Fletcher was convicted of the crime. The community heaved a collective sigh of relief when she began her 20-year prison sentence, but as the book opens, they’re gasping in righteous horror. Ruby’s conviction was overturned, and she’s back in Hollow’s Edge, charismatic as ever and with a vengeful gleam in her eye.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Why Megan Miranda is always drawn to dark, deep woods.

After all, despite the neighborhood watch, security cameras and homeowners association message board, somebody killed the Truetts. The neighbors, convinced it was Ruby, testified against her. Only her housemate, narrator Harper Nash, seems open to the possibility that it wasn’t Ruby—and even she’s not 100% sure. But what if Ruby really didn’t do it? Who among them is the actual killer? The residents of Hollow’s Edge face a highly disturbing and dangerous state of affairs, no matter how you look at it.

Playing with perspective is a Miranda specialty, and she does so spectacularly in Such a Quiet Place, exploring how speculation can transform from idle entertainment to actual condemnation. She also touches on a favored theme of manipulative friendships, as Harper’s persistent self-doubt and empathetic nature leave her vulnerable, coloring her worldview and behavior toward Ruby. But Harper is determined to suss out the truth, and readers will enjoy riding along as she tempts fate via some daring amateur sleuthing around the woods, lake and streets of Hollow’s Edge.

Miranda has created a claustrophobic and suspenseful whodunit—a pressure cooker brimming with a host of plausible suspects, toxic HOA groupthink and plenty of finger-pointing among supposed friends—that ponders the eternal question of how well we really know those closest to us.

A year after his acclaimed bestseller, Blacktop Wasteland, S.A. Cosby returns with the equally gripping but more complex Razorblade Tears. Set in rural and urban Virginia, the story centers on the thorny partnership between ex-convicts Ike, who is Black, and Buddy Lee, who is white. The duo is drawn together by the unfathomable murder of their sons, Isiah and Derek, a married couple who lived a relatively innocuous life. Fueled by law enforcement’s lack of interest in solving the case, as well as by their own personal guilt, Ike and Buddy Lee set off to uncover who killed their sons and unleash their own brand of vigilante justice.

Razorblade Tears is simultaneously a contemplative mystery and a stunning thrill ride. A master of his craft, Cosby balances incredibly complicated characters with enveloping suspense and some of the most captivatingly violent scenes that you will ever read. At the same time, Razorblade Tears features poignant, purposeful social commentary as Cosby takes a critical yet sensitive look at homophobia, racism, classicism and toxic masculinity. Ike and Buddy Lee’s quest puts their lives at risk but also challenges their senses of self and understanding of the world. Their self-interrogation and personal transformation prompt readers to examine their own sociopolitical standpoints.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: S.A. Cosby on writing the literary blues.

Cosby’s writing is both fearless and sympathetic, exhibiting his formidable intellect alongside vivid imagery, sharp wit and intricate plot lines. Razorblade Tears transcends genre boundaries and is a must-read for anyone looking for a mystery that provokes and thrills in equal measure.

Chris Bohjalian (The Guest Room) blends historical fiction with a thrilling courtroom drama in his latest novel, Hour of the Witch. Its narrator’s unique voice and perspective make this a fascinating and immersive read.

Mary Deerfield is a young Puritan woman who lives in Boston in 1662 and whose faith guides every aspect of her life. She’s constantly watching for signs—from both God and the devil. When her husband Thomas' physical abuse becomes too much to bear, she breaks from tradition and makes an unprecedented request to be granted a divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Mary’s decision to assert herself rather than submit to the will of her husband and the Church causes a cascade of unexpected events, the most terrifying of which is Mary being accused of witchcraft, a charge that could lead to her execution.

The themes in Hour of the Witch are universal: A young woman seeks to escape her husband's abuse and also the patriarchal culture that allows such abuse to persist. By demanding to be released from her marriage, Mary faces judgement that victims of violence from intimate partners still experience today. What makes this novel remarkable and compulsively readable is Bohjalian’s uncanny ability to capture the Puritan perspective. Mary’s manner of thinking is heavily informed by her religion and also by superstition; ultimately, she must break away from those structures in order to survive.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Chris Bohjalian explores the eerie similarities between the Puritans' time and our own.

As Mary’s community searches for supernatural evil and analyzes her every action for signs of witchcraft, true evil, in the form of Thomas’ abuse, is allowed to flourish due to his standing in the community. The reader will acutely feel Mary’s justifiable paranoia as she becomes the scapegoat for all of her community’s woes. Her fear of both Thomas and the people she is supposed to be able to trust make the tension in this novel almost claustrophobic.

Hour of the Witch is at once brilliantly idiosyncratic while also recognizable. This genre-defying thriller is sure to become a staple of book clubs and a favorite of historical mystery fans.