Tailspin/Sandra Brown/424 pgs

Most pilots avoid flying in extreme or bad weather, but not Rye Mallett.  This pilot agrees to fly on Thanksgiving in heavy fog that has closed nearly every airport in the Atlanta region.  The cargo, unknown to him, is time sensitive and has an anxious recipient.  However, the person meeting the plane, Brynn O'Neal, has other ideas for the cargo.  Mallett's landing is compromised when someone shines a laser at the plane blinding him as he attempts landing.  Climbing from the wreckage, he unexpectedly meets Brynn and they head to the airport office to find out what happened.  There they find the air traffic controller of the small, rural airport injured and unconscious.  The situation gets heated when Brynn and Rye Mallett realize that they are in danger and must run to protect themselves and the "cargo."  This is a good thriller worth reading.

Animal Farm / George Orwell / 113 pages

Animal Farm is a political satire, but comparisons to others are hard to make.  Orwell is even more critical of human nature than Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels, where the weary Gulliver comes home to find he much prefers the company of horses to that of people.  While the work was originally meant to criticize Stalinism, lessons can be applied to almost any human civilization.  Foremost is the pigs' use of "the enemy" to strengthen their status as leaders of the farm.  While a short book, it has many deeper themes that take time to digest.  This is a book meant to challenge the way a person sees the world and it is successful if you are not already cynical about government.

Child 44/ Tom Rob Smith/ 439 pages

Child 44 is a historical fiction novel set in the post Stalin USSR.  Leo delays the arrest of a political prisoner to question a family of a boy killed on the railroad tracks.  The prisoner slips away and Leo must track him down.  A series missteps puts Leo in trouble with his boss.  Not a good thing in the post Stalin Soviet Union.  Leo's demotion drops him into the center of a series of child murders, also an enigma as there is not crime in the Soviet Union.  Leo must decide to pursue the case at a risk to himself and his family or leave it be risking the lives of unknown children.  This books has lots of action and adventure and does a good job relating the  paranoia existing in the Soviet Union at that time.  For more information about this book check the SCCCLD wesite.  There are two more books in this series.

Patriot Threat/ Steve Berry/ 386 pages

Patriot Threat is Steve Berry's newest offering of the exploits of Cotton Malone.  Released at an appropriate time, the reader is treated to a mix of Chinese and  North Korean interests in a race to find missing facts concerning the U.S income tax system.  Finding those papers is a joint race by Cotton in Europe and Stephanie Nells in the US.  This Malone story developed a little slower than some others, but was a satisfying read.  For more information and read a likes check out the SCCCLD website.  You'll never look at a dollar bill the same again.

Crime of privilege/Walter Walker/413 pages

When George was in college, he was lucky (unlucky) enough to have a roommate who ran with a prestigious Massachusetts political family. He and the roommate went to a party in Palm Springs where a young woman was raped. George had always regretted that he didn't do more to stop it and then didn't stand up as a witness when the girl pressed charges. In payment for his silence, he has a job as a ADA in Cape Cod. When the father of a girl who had been viciously murdered and left on a golf course years before corners him, George is put on a path to find the truth. Can he expect someone to stand up as a witness when he didn't in similar circumstances?

There's a reason all of this sounds familiar. The author goes to great pains to tell us that this is fiction, but the setting, characters and crime are very close to the Martha Moxley/Edward Skakel murder case and the William Kennedy Smith rape case. Even if you've read A Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dunne which deals with the same murder case, this is worth your time.

Protect and Defend / Richard North Patterson / 549 pages

Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice this book walks us through the legal terms and consequences of what our views mean beyond a birth or the taking of a life.

I am not normally a political fiction reader but found this very thought provoking.