The faithful spy by Alex Berendson

present day espionage, if you call it that. American undercover with the Taliban for years forsaking wife and son for the good of his country. The predictable badies are still the badies, but at least it does ask some questions. Shame really, good story, but some trains of thought could have been followed a bit further...but I guess his home audience would have had problems with that.

Dead until dark by Charlaine Harris

A bit slow, but worth the patience. An enjoyable whodunit with the added bonus of vampires and people with special abilities. This the first in the Sookie Stackhouse series which consists of 11 books, so far.