I love the spy/mystery/political thrillers also and maybe my favorite is Nelson DeMille. When one of his new books comes out I’m gone until I’m done with it. Loved Upcountry way more than I thought I would.
Also an extraordinary book - absolutely impossible to put down - was Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. A true story of an impossible to imagine life - if someone had put Louie Zamperini’s life into fiction no one would believe it. Many interesting real stories on WWII and so beautifully written....mesmerizing. Believe I heard Imus talking about the amazing Zamperini not long ago - he is still alive.
If you like spy/espionage novels, the great Charles McCarry is a must, especially his Paul Christopher novels but anything he has written is superb. He is unarguably the greatest American spy novelist and I’d never heard of him until a month ago. I would suggest “The Tears of Autumn” http://www.amazon.com/The-Tears-Autumn-Charles-McCarry/dp/1585676616 to start (if you want to know the “truth” about the Kennedy assassination) or “The Miernik Dossier” http://www.amazon.com/The-Miernik-Dossier-Charles-McCarry/dp/1585677361 which was his first published novel. But anything by McCarry is great.
Mr. McCarry is in his 80s now but his novels read like they were written by a master only yesterday. Although out of print, they were all available at my local library.
I’m also taken with Olen Steinhauer, another great writer, who in an interview turned me on to McCarry, one of his great influences.