The two minute rule by Robert Crais

Two minutes, in and out, that's the rule for robbing banks in this
page-turning action ride around L.A. from bestseller Crais (Hostage).
Break that rule, and you can end up like Marchenko and Parsons, dying
in a violent shoot-out on the streets, the fortune from their string of
heists deeply hidden. Max Holman certainly knows the time limit better
than most. Dubbed the "hero bandit" by the press, he got caught during
a robbery after he stopped to perform CPR on a bank customer who had a
heart attack. About to leave prison on parole, the 48-year-old Max
hopes he can establish contact with the son he never really knew, now a
cop. When Max's son is murdered, suspected of being in a ring of dirty
cops seeking the Marchenko and Parsons loot, Max needs to know the
truth. The only person he figures can help him is Katherine Pollard,
the fed who nabbed him, who's now ex-FBI and a struggling single mom.
The perfect odd couple, they keep this novel personal and real as it
builds to an exciting twist on the bank-robbing rule.

Hostage by Robert Crais

The title of Crais's fiery third thriller (after L.A. Requiem and
Demolition Angel) can refer not just to the two sets of innocents held
at gunpoint in the story but to the reader, who will be wired tight to
the book. The novel launches with a familiar (as familiar as Demolition
Angel) premise: a soul-scarred cop here, former L.A. SWAT hostage
negotiator Jeff Talley, now chief of police of smalltown Bristo Bay,
Calif. plunges into an assignment that forces him to confront his
demons. The devil clawing Talley's brain is the dying gaze of a young
hostage he failed to save in L.A. Now three outlaws two lowlife
brothers and a homicidal maniac have, after botching a
robbery-homicide, taken refuge in a swank house in Bristo Bay. At their
mercy are the family's dad, whom they've knocked unconscious, and his
teen daughter and preteen son. The whopper of a complication is that
the dad serves as bookkeeper for Sonny Benza, West Coast mob kingpin,
and Benza will do whatever's necessary to retrieve the incriminatory
records secreted in the house before the cops storm the place. The
narrative ticks with suspense as Talley negotiates with the three
outlaws, and as they and the kids they're holding respond with panic,
fear and courage to the escalating tension. It snaps into overdrive as
Benza and his goons snatch Talley's wife and daughter, holding them
ransom for the records; the flow is marred only by a couple of cheap
turns obviously devised for the silver screen. Thriller vets will have
seen a lot of this before, but every virtuoso is allowed variations on
a theme, and Crais, with his record and with the smart suspense offered
here, has proven himself nothing less. (On-sale date: Aug. 7)Forecast:
Crais sells more with each title, and this will prove no exception. A
15-city author tour will enhance his visibility, as will forthcoming
film versions of Demolition Angel and of Hostage, which has already
been bought for Bruce Willis and MGM; Crais is writing the screenplays
for both films.

The forgoten man by Robert Crais

The Forgotten Man opens with Elvis’s being awakened
from a fitful sleep in the middle of the night by a phone call from a
police officer who asks him to come downtown and identify the body of a
murder victim. The officer tells Elvis that just before the man died he
said that he was Elvis’s father and was looking for Elvis. Elvis had
never known his father and was not sure if his mother even knew his
father’s name. The police officer who discovered the body tells Elvis
that news clips about Elvis’s heroic rescue of Ben were found on the
dead man’s person.

Matter by Iain banks

Matter concerns itself with a shell planet, which Banks defines
better than I, called Sursamen. The king of this largely agrarian realm
comes to a brutal end, and one set of plots in the book focuses on the
resulting fight for power. That alone would be a good enough yarn,
especially when told by Banks. Still, you'd wonder what all of the fuss
was about.

It's the other set of threads about the Culture, which is Banks'
science-fiction stock in trade. The Culture is a utopian
galaxy-spanning society that is full of all of the technical gee-gaws,
like A.I. and orbital habitats, that make a geek's heart beat fast. And
within the Culture is Special Circumstances, a team of agents who are
charged with keeping balance in the universe. The daughter of the late
Sursamen king is an SC agent.

Like most other M. Banks books, Matter
twists in completely unanticipated ways and offers up ampules of
philosophy along with its plot. His characters--even the most
minor--are fully drawn and fascinating. A reader can feel her mind
twist around Banks' more fantastic ideas and marvel at the complicated
whimsy he creates. That alone is worth the price of admission.