Crime Mystery Thriller Writers-fiction and non-fiction (my favorites)

Discover top crime, mystery, and thriller writers—both fiction and non-fiction! Explore a curated list of gripping books from my favorite authors in the genre.

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[No Title]

 

No summary available.
In Cold Blood (Penguin Modern Classics) Cover
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In Cold Blood (Penguin Modern Classics)

 

No summary available.
The Analyst Cover
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The Analyst

by John Katzenbach

Happy fifty third birthday, Doctor. Welcome to the first day of your death. Dr. Frederick Starks, a New York psychoanalyst, has just received a mysterious, threatening letter. Now he finds himself in the middle of a horrific game designed by a man who calls himself Rumplestiltskin. The rules: in two weeks, Starks must guess his tormentor’s identity. If Starks succeeds, he goes free. If he fails, Rumplestiltskin will destroy, one by one, fifty-two of Dr. Starks’ loved ones—unless the good doctor agrees to kill himself. In a blistering race against time, Starks’ is at the mercy of a psychopath’s devious game of vengeance. He must find a way to stop the madman—before he himself is driven mad. . . .
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

by Stieg Larsson

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The thrilling first book in the Millenium series featuring Lisbeth Salander: “Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist, and you have the ingredients of Stieg Larsson’s first novel” (The New York Times). Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
The  big sleep Cover
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The big sleep

 

No summary available.
The Burden of Proof Cover
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The Burden of Proof

 

No summary available.
Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley) Cover
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Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley)

 

No summary available.
Double Indemnity Cover
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Double Indemnity

by James M. Cain

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • James M. Cain, virtuoso of the roman noir, gives us a tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful story in Double Indemnity, an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. Walter Huff was an insurance salesman with an unfailing instinct for clients who might be in trouble, and his instinct led him to Phyllis Nirdlinger. Phyllis wanted to buy an accident policy on her husband. Then she wanted her husband to have an accident. Walter wanted Phyllis. To get her, he would arrange the perfect murder and betray everything he had ever lived for.
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[No Title]

 

No summary available.
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Eye of the Needle

by Ken Follett

The award-winning thriller that became an international bestseller and a distinguished film and launched the career of master storyteller Ken Follett.
Fatal Vision Cover
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Fatal Vision

 

No summary available.
The Getaway Cover
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The Getaway

by Jim Thompson

Doc McCoy knows everything there is to know about pulling off the perfect bank job. But there are some things he has forgotten--such as a partner who is not only treacherous but insane and a wife who is still an amateur. Worst of all, McCoy has forgotten that when the crime is big and bloody enough, there is no such thing as a clean getaway.
The Girl Who Played with Fire Cover
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The Girl Who Played with Fire

 

No summary available.
Miami blues Cover
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Miami blues

 

No summary available.
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[No Title]

 

No summary available.
Rebecca Cover
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Rebecca

by Daphne Du Maurier

"Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley Again." So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past ther beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten...her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant -- the sinister Mrs. Danvers -- still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley.
A Place of Execution Cover
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A Place of Execution

by Val McDermid

Winter 1963: two children have disappeared in Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from the isolated Derbyshire hamlet of Scardale. For the young George Bennett it is the beginning of his most difficult and harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation with more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the inner city; an outcome that reverberates down the years. Decades later he tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when her book is poised for publication, Bennett tries to pull the plug. He has new information that he will not divulge, and that threatens the very foundation of his existence. Catherine is forced to reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down. A taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multilayered narrative that turns expectations on their head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know...
The Grifters Cover
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The Grifters

by Jim Thompson

Roy DIllon seems too handsome and well-mannered to be a professional con man. Lilly Dillon looks too young--and loves Roy a little too intensely--to be taken for his mother. Moira Langtry is getting too old to keep on living off the kindness of male strangers. And Carol Roberg seems too innocent to be acquainted with suffering.
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders Cover
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Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

by Vincent Bugliosi

The true story of the Manson murders.
The Ice House Cover
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The Ice House

 

No summary available.
The Killer Inside Me Cover
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The Killer Inside Me

 

No summary available.
No second chance Cover
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No second chance

 

No summary available.
Sherlock Holmes Cover
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Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle

No summary available.
The Scold's Bridle Cover
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The Scold's Bridle

 

No summary available.
A Time to Kill Cover
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A Time to Kill

by John Grisham

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The master of the legal thriller probes the savage depths of racial violence in this searing courtroom drama featuring the beloved Jake Brigance. “John Grisham may well be the best American storyteller writing today.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer The life of a ten-year-old black girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless white men. The mostly white town of Clanton in Ford County, Mississippi, reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime—until the girl’s father acquires an assault rifle and takes justice into his own hands. For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client’s life—and then his own. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
Traveler Cover
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Traveler

 

No summary available.
A Touch of Frost Cover
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A Touch of Frost

by R.D. Wingfield

‘A funny, frantic, utterly refreshing brew’ – Sunday Telegraph Detective Inspector Jack Frost, officially on duty, is nevertheless determined to sneak off to a colleague's leaving party. But first the corpse of a well-known local junkie is found blocking the drain of a Denton public lavatory - and then the daughter of a wealthy businessman is reported missing. And now a wave of crime threatens to submerge sleepy Denton. A robbery occurs at the town's notorious strip joint, the pampered son of a local MP is suspected of a hit-and-run offence and, to top it all, a multiple rapist is on the loose. But the manic Frost manages to assure his superior that all is under control. Now he has only to convince himself...
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[No Title]

 

No summary available.
The stranger beside me Cover
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The stranger beside me

 

No summary available.
Tell No One Cover
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Tell No One

by Harlan Coben

“Harlan Coben is the modern master of the hook-and-twist.”—Dan Brown For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive. Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible—that somewhere, somehow, his wife is alive . . . and he’s been warned to tell no one. Praise for Tell No One “A thriller of runaway tension . . . masterful suspense and explosive twists of fate.”—Iris Johansen “A compelling and original suspense thriller.”—Los Angeles Times “Nonstop action with plot twists galore.”—Phillip Margolin
Wicked Prey Cover
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Wicked Prey

by John Sandford

Danger stalks Lucas Davenport at work and all too close to home, in the new thriller by the New York Times best-selling author of Phantom Prey. Original.
The Tin Roof Blowdown Cover
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The Tin Roof Blowdown

 

No summary available.
BoneMan's Daughters Cover
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BoneMan's Daughters

by Ted Dekker

They call him BoneMan, a serial killer who's abducted six young women. He's the perfect father looking for the perfect daughter, and when his victims fail to meet his lofty expectations, he kills them by breaking their bones and leaving them to die. Intelligence officer Ryan Evans, on the other hand, has lost all hope of ever being the perfect father. His daughter and wife have written him out of their lives. Everything changes when BoneMan takes Ryan's estranged daughter, Bethany, as his seventh victim. Ryan goes after BoneMan on his own. But the FBI sees it differently. New evidence points to the suspicion that Ryan is BoneMan. Now the hunter is the hunted, and in the end, only one father will stand.
Adam Cover
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Adam

by Ted Dekker

It takes an obsessive mind to know one. And Daniel Clark knows the elusive killer he's been stalking. He's devoted every waking minute as a profiler to find the serial killer known only as Eve. He's pored over the crime scenes of sixteen young women who died mysterious deaths, all in underground basements or caverns. He's delved into the killer's head and puzzled over the twisted religious overtones of the killings. What Daniel can't possibly know is that he will be Eve's next victim. He will be the killer's first Adam. After sixteen hopeless months, the case takes a drastic turn on a very dark night when Daniel is shot and left for dead. Resuscitated after twenty minutes of clinical death, Daniel finds himself haunted by the experience. He knows he's seen the killer's face, but the trauma of dying has obscured the memory and left him with crushing panic attacks. Nothing--not even desperate, dangerous attempts to reexperience his own death--seems to bring him closer to finding the killer. Then Eve strikes again, much closer to home. And Daniel's obsession explodes into a battle for his life . . . his sanity . . . his very soul. Enter a world of death and near death that blurs the lines between fiction and reality in a way that will leave you stunned. "The detail is stunning, pointing to meticulous research in FBI methods, forensic medicine, and psychological profiling. We have to keep telling ourselves that this is fiction. At the same time, we can't help thinking that not only could it happen, but that it will happen if we're not careful." David M. Kiely and Christina McKenna, authors of The Dark Sacrament
To Kill a Mockingbird Cover
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To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South -- and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, served as the basis of an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father -- a crusading local lawyer -- risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
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[No Title]

 

No summary available.
Just cause Cover
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Just cause

 

No summary available.
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[No Title]

 

No summary available.