Perfect for those with the travel bug, these thrillers are all set overseas. A government conspiracy in China? A high-class forager in Angola? A James Bond–esque spy from Britain? The shady streets of nineteenth-century Barcelona? Forget the planes, trains, and hotels­: Sit back, relax, and do some literary globe-trotting from the comfort of home.

 Jon Land writes edge-of-your-seat thrillers impossible to put down. In The Eighth Trumpet, a killer proves he can penetrate the world’s finest security systems after he brutally murders three billionaires. It’s up to Jared Kimberlain, a retired special-forces agent, to come out of retirement and go undercover to protect the President before he becomes the next target.

Inspired by a true story, Thomas Gifford’s novel The Man from Lisbon brings to life a breathtaking international scam about a man with a knack for forging documents. In early twentieth-century Angola, a desperate Portuguese expat, Alves Reis, discovers an uncanny talent: He can fake diplomas, checks, even currency. In a scam that makes Madoff look like an amateur, this master swindler eventually brings a nation to its knees.

 Carl Hiaasen and Bill Montalbano set their riveting thriller A Death in China in Communist China. Tom Stratton, an art history professor, hasn’t seen his former mentor, David Wang, for years, until they run into each other on a guided tour of China. When Wang suddenly turns up dead, Stratton sets out to solve the crime, and gets quickly involved in a web of corruption and fatalities that reaches the highest rungs of the Chinese government.

Adam Quiller is the star of The Ninth Directive by British novelist Adam Hall. Quiller is a solitary, highly capable spy who works for British intelligence. In this installment, the #9 agent (Reliable Under Torture) is sent to Bangkok, where he must protect a very important diplomat from an assassination attempt on both of their lives.

The New York Times called Séance on a Wet Afternoon “a startlingly different crime novel.” In Mark McShane’s thriller, psychic Myra Savage tries to attract publicity for her sagging career by kidnapping a child, planning to later lead the police to the girl’s location through her special powers. But the plan goes terribly wrong, and Myra gives into her dream of speaking with the dead . . .

In the shady backstreets of late nineteenth-century Barcelona, where nothing is quite what it seems, a prosperous heir’s life is turned upside down when his working-class mistress mysteriously disappears. Roser Caminals-Heath was inspired by a popular local legend for her novel The Street of Three Beds, which explores the connections between Barcelona’s criminal underground and its echelons of power.