Candace Bushnell

The Lost Symbol
by Dan Brown

Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object, gruesomely encoded with five symbols - is discovered at the epicenter of the rotunda. It is, he recognizes, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipients towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's revered mentor, Peter Solomon - philanthropist and prominent mason - is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons and follow wherever it leads him.

Langdon finds himself quickly swept behind the facade of America's most powerful city into the unseen chambers, temples and tunnels which exist there. All that was familiar is transformed into a shadowy, clandestine world of a artfully concealed past in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth.

A brilliantly composed tapestry of veiled histories, arcane icons and enigmatic codes, The Lost Symbol is an intelligent lightning-paced thriller that offers surprises at every turn. For, as Robert Langdon will discover, there is nothing more extraordinary or shocking than the secret which hides in plain sight...

The Hunt for Red October
by Tom Clancy

Beneath the Atlantic's chilly waters, the captain of Russia's top secret missile submarine, Red October, secretly intends to defect--and U.S. intelligence agent Jack Ryan is eager to help him succeed.A military thriller so accurate and convincing that the author was rumored to have been debriefed by the White House.

One Amazing Thing
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A group of nine are trapped in the visa office at an Indian Consulate after a massive earthquake in an American city. Two visa officers on the verge of an adulterous affair; Jiang, a Chinese ,Indian woman in her last years; her gifted teenage granddaughter Lily; an ex-soldier haunted by guilt; Uma, an Indian.American girl bewildered by her parents decision to return to Kolkata after twenty years; Tariq, a young Muslim man angry with the new America; and an enraged and bitter elderly white couple. As they wait to be rescued or to die they begin to tell each other stories, each recalling one amazing thing in their life, sharing things they have never spoken of before.

Their tales are tragic and life-affirming, revealing what it means to be human and the incredible power of storytelling.