Good Read Aloud Detective Fiction for ESL

Eye of the Needle

By Ken Follett

An enemy spy code named "The Needle" knows the vital secret of the Allies deception and holds the key to Nazi victory.

The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man. One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. And as the minutes count down to the final act of execution, it seems that there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal.

Scorpion

By Jack Stewart

DEA agent Bill Broxton is assigned to protect the Prime Minister of Trinidad from an assassin. He doesn't know that his fiancée is the killer.

The Blind Man of Seville

By Robert Wilson

Investigating the brutal murder of an artist's son, the first of several victims, detective inspector Javier Falcn reads the artist's journals and learns several disturbing truths before realizing that he is the killer's next target. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

The Silence of the Lambs

By Thomas Harris

An ingenious, masterfully written novel, Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs is a classic of suspense and storytelling and the basis for the Oscar award-winning horror film starring Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname—Buffalo Bill—is stalking particular women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the F.B.I. Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, Chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and grisly killer now kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter's insight into the minds of murderers could help track and capture Buffalo Bill. Smart and attractive, Starling is shaken to find herself in a strange, intense relationship with the acutely perceptive Lecter. His cryptic clues—about Buffalo Bill and about her—launch Clarice on a search that every reader will find startling, harrowing, and totally compelling.

Gorky Park

By Martin Cruz Smith

"Brilliant...One of the best books of the season." ASSOCIATED PRESS A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it.

Good Read Aloud Detective Fiction for ESL

Eye of the Needle

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The Day of the Jackal

Scorpion

The Blind Man of Seville

The Silence of the Lambs

Gorky Park