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Can You Find the 12 Thrillers Hidden Within This Text?

By J. D. Biersdorfer Sept. 3, 2024

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An illustration of a person reading a book while riding on a large bomb.

The 20th-century Cold War era of geopolitical tension between the United States, the Soviet Union and their allies also produced some gripping thrillers. This week’s Title Search puzzle is focused on novels set during that period, which ran from 1947 to 1991, and your challenge is to uncover the names of a dozen such books hidden below within an unrelated text passage. As you read along, tap or click the words when you think you’ve found a title. Correct answers stay highlighted. When you uncover each title, the answer section at the bottom of the screen grows to create a reading list with more information and links to the books.

A new literary quiz lands on the Books page each week and you can match wits with previous puzzles in the Book Review Quiz Bowl archive .

“When we left Cuba after that disastrous operation on the beach, our team should have left more than one agent in place,” said White. “Our man in Havana lost the Soviet agent.”

“Thankfully, our woman in Moscow is keeping us on our game,” replied Black. “One of her people got intel from an American spy when they met up today at the Higgins funeral in Berlin. Saw the Russki coming out of one of their safe houses near The Last Frontier nightclub and followed along.”

“That Soviet agent, a most clever girl, is on a train to Moscow right now and will be collected at the Minsk stop.”

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A Dutch Love Story in a Time of Silence:  In Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel, “The Safekeep,” the writer spins an erotic thriller  out of the Netherlands’ failure to face up to the horrors of the Holocaust.

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The Book Review Podcast:  Each week, top authors and critics talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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