Mystery & Thriller Fiction Stars
Dive into the best Mystery & Thriller Fiction Stars with our curated list of gripping books. Uncover suspense, twists, and page-turning thrillers from top authors!
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Mistress of the Art of Death
by Ariana Franklin
Sent to medieval Cambridge in order to exonerate Jewish prisoners who have been accused of murdering four children, University of Salerno medical expert Adelia discovers that the killer may be a former crusader.
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Storm Runners
by T. Jefferson Parker
Matt Stromsoe has come a long way since his wife and son were killed in an explosion meant for him. Wounded severely in both body and spirit, Stromsoe gave up the last thing that held any meaning for him—his job on the police force—and proceeded to hit rock bottom, hard. That was a lifetime ago, and finally the spiral of personal destruction and despair seems to have come to an end. The man responsible for the murders—Stromsoe's best friend from childhood and his wife's old lover—is behind bars and Stromsoe has put the past behind him, rescued from the abyss by a former colleague who offers him a job at his private security firm. Stromsoe's first assignment is to protect local television personality Frankie Hatfield from a stalker. But the further Stromsoe is drawn into this case, the more he finds that the net of intrigue is wide and ultimately leads back to the man who killed his family. As events conspire against him, Stromsoe learns that prison is no safeguard against revenge. T. Jefferson Parker has been hailed as belonging "in the first rank of American crime novelists" (Washington Post Book World) and praised for "some of the finest writing you'll ever read" (Chicago Sun-Times). Superbly crafted, emotionally complex, and filled with heart-stopping action, Storm Runners proves why the novels of T. Jefferson Parker are impossible to resist.
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Simple Genius
by David Baldacci
Checking into a psychiatric institution, former Secret Service agent Michelle Maxwell is worriedly monitored by partner Sean King, who distracts himself with a murder investigation at a genius enclave where a sophisticated microprocessor is being develope
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The Overlook
by Michael Connelly
Near Mulholland Drive, Dr. Stanley Kent is found shot twice in the back of the head. It's the case LAPD detective Harry Bosch has been waiting for, his first since being recruited to the Homicide Special Squad. When he discovers that Kent had access to dangerous radioactive substances, what begins as a routine investigation becomes something darker, more deadly, and frighteningly urgent. Bosch is soon in conflict with not only his superiors but the FBI, which thinks the case is too important for just a cop. Complicating his job even more is the presence of Agent Rachel Walling, his onetime lover. Now guarding one slim advantage, Bosch relentlessly follows his own instincts, hoping they are still sharp enough to find the truth--and a killer who can annihilate an entire city.
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Skinny Dip
by Carl Hiaasen
Marine biologist Chaz Perrone can't tell a sea horse from a sawhorse. And when he throws his beautiful wife, Joey, off a cruise liner, he really should know better. An expert swimmer, Joey makes her way to a floating bale of Jamaican pot-and then to an island inhabited by an ex-cop named Mick Stanahan whose ex-wives include five waitresses and a TV producer. Now Joey wants to get revenge on Chaz and Mick's happy to help her. But in swampy South Florida, separating lies from truths and stupidity from brilliance isn't easy. Especially when you're after a guy like Chaz-who's bad at murder, great at fraud, and just terrible at getting caught...
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The Testament
by John Grisham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In a plush Virginia office, a rich, angry old man is furiously rewriting his will. With his death just hours away, Troy Phelan wants to send a message to his children, his ex-wives, and his minions—a message that will touch off a vicious legal battle and transform dozens of lives. Because Troy Phelan’s new will names a sole surprise heir to his eleven-billion-dollar fortune: a mysterious woman named Rachel Lane, a missionary living deep in the jungles of Brazil. Enter the lawyers. Nate O’Riley is fresh out of rehab, a disgraced corporate attorney handpicked for his last job: to find Rachel Lane at any cost. As Phelan’s family circles like vultures in D.C., Nate goes crashing through the Brazilian jungle, entering a world where money means nothing, where death is just one misstep away, and where a woman—pursued by enemies and friends alike—holds a stunning surprise of her own. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
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Dead Ringer
by Ken Douglas
"Maggie Nesbitt is pregnant and depressed, because her husband isn't the father of her unborn child. She's thinking about abortion when she's attacked on the beach. She barely gets away, then gets the shock of her life the next morning when she sees that she has been killed on the news and that her nude body had been dumped in the trash behind a beachside bar. She finds out the body behind the bar is the twin sister she'd been told had died when she was two weeks old. She also learns her twin was divorced from a horrid man and that she had an eight-year-old daughter, Jasmine. Maggie, showing a bump on her head she got while getting away from her attackers, claims partial amnesia and steps into her dead twin's life. This way she can have her baby, give it a home, and save Jasmine from having to go and live with her father. But she doesn't know her twin saw someone do murder. And that someone thinks he's killed the wrong woman."--Publisher description
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Tango for a Torturer
by Daniel ChavarrĂa
Whores, politics, and history tangle in Havana in the new novel from the author of Edgar Award-winning Adios Muchachos.
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Origin
by Diana Abu-Jaber
New York-based fingerprint expert Lena investigates a series of crib deaths that may actually be the work of a serial killer, a case that reminds Lena of the mystery surrounding her own childhood, marked by her orphaned status and her intuitive talents.
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Love Kills
by Edna Buchanan
When a bulldozer in the Everglades unearths the skull of an infamous kidnapper, the Cold Case Squad is brought in to investigate. Britt Montero was the last person to see him alive, and the detectives have questions only she can answer.
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The Cairo Diary
by Maxim Chattam
"Mont-Saint-Michel, 2005: Marion has taken refuge in the wind-swept and remote monastery located on a spit of land on the west coast of France. In the wake of a scandal, caused by her own revelations, that is now reverberating through the French capital, she has been spirited away from Paris and brought here by the French Secret Service for her own protection. When she finds a diary dating from 1928 in the monastery library, penned by Jeremy Matheson and hidden inside the jacket of an Edgar Allan Poe book, she is inexorably pulled into the past as she follows his investigation. Soon she feels she is being watched, and taunting notes and riddles urge her to give back what is not hers. Could one of the brothers or sisters at the monastery be behind this? And who is the old man Marion befriends?" "The two stories intertwine and culminate in an absolutely battling climax in this cinematic bestselling thriller from France."--BOOK JACKET.
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Raven Black
by Ann Cleeves
A celebrated crime writer in Britain and winner of the coveted 2006 Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Cleeves now introduces a dazzling new suspense series--featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez--to U.S. mystery readers.
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School's Out
by Christophe Dufossé
In this brilliant and surreal French thriller, a teacher commits suicide and a colleague takes over his class of strangely unsettling children. A novel that skates close to fantasy, it is also chillingly observant about our society and the children it produces.
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Obit
by Anne Emery
Declan Burke fled Ireland forty years ago and never looked back. Now settled in New York, he thinks he's put the old country behind him, until he reads the obituary of one Cathal Murphy. The obituary, he sees at once, is not about Murphy at all. It is a coded indictment of Burke's own life. And an announcement of his impending death. Halifax lawyer Monty Collins investigates the obit with its allusions to Burke's IRA past. Collins gets no help from Burke, who -- good soldier to the end -- keeps the silence of the grave. But Burke's denial becomes harder to maintain following a burst of gunfire at a family wedding. The shooting brings another old soldier onto the field: Leo Killeen, the commanding officer of Burke's former battalion in Dublin. But he also has secrets to protect. When a body is found in a rundown Brooklyn flat, Collins wonders just how far Killeen will go to keep those secrets under wraps. From the farms of Ireland to the tenements of New York City, Monty is confronted by a cast of enigmatic characters, including the owner of a nightclub frequented by the New York mob; a sultry chanteuse; and Burke's hotheaded son Francis, whose resentment and dubious activities set the family on a road to destruction. Monty isn't the only one who is surprised when he reaches the end of the road. Burke too must now confront the suspicion that he has been manipulated all along by an unseen hand.
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A Good and Happy Child
by Justin Evans
A darkly suspenseful literary thriller with the eerie heart of a ghost story, Evans's debut novel delves into 30-year-old George Davies's childhood memories to reveal ominous visions and mysteries that have been long suppressed.
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White Corridor
by Christopher Fowler
For uniquely atmospheric, richly rewarding, and teasingly thrilling mysteries, there's nothing better than the latest adventure of crime fiction's oddest couple, Bryant and May, and London's Peculiar Crimes Unit.
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The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
#1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER • While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. “Blockbuster perfection.... A gleefully erudite suspense novel.” —The New York Times “A pulse-quickening, brain-teasing adventure.” —People As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci—and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever.
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Angels & Demons
by Dan Brown
From the #1 "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Da Vinci Code" comes the explosive thriller that started it all.
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Whiskey Sour
by J. A. Konrath
Lieutenant Jacqueline 'Jack' Daniels is having a bad week. Her live-in boyfriend has left her for his personal trainer, chronic insomnia has caused her to max out her credit cards with late-night home shopping purchases, and a frightening killer who calls himself 'The Gingerbread Man' is dumping mutilated bodies in her district. Between avoiding the FBI and its moronic profiling computer, joining a dating service, mixing it up with street thugs, and parrying the advances of an uncouth PI, Jack and her binge-eating partner, Herb, must catch the maniac before he kills again....and Jack is next on his murder list. Whiskey Sour is full of laugh-out-loud humor and edge-of-your-seat suspense, and it introduces a fun, fully drawn heroine in the grand tradition of Kinsey Millhone, Stephanie Plum, and Kay Scarpetta.
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Strip Tease
by Carl Hiaasen
A single mom turned stripper finds herself locking horns with a high-powered Congressman when a bachelor party gets out of hand in this inventive tale yet of savage appetites and sweet justice. Only in America could an innocent, if drunken, guest of honor at a strip joint bachelor party become a mortal threat against Big Money and Big Government. Only in south Florida, land of roadside honky-tonks and sinister pleasure boats -- not to mention blackmail and murder -- would a virtuous topless dancer join forces with a cool but clueless cop. And only in the fiction of Carl Hiaasen do readers experience riveting suspense and razor-sharp characters along with the most wicked humor imaginable. Don't miss Strip Tease, Hiaasen's crazed romp through lust, murder, and government machinations.
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Blood Work
by Michael Connelly
New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly presents his most ambitious, most gripping achievement to date--a novel of masterly suspense and righteous obsession that will never let you go. When Graciella Rivers steps onto his boat, ex-FBI agent Terrell McCaleb has no idea he's about to come out of retirement. He's recuperating from a heart transplant and avoiding anything stressful. But when Graciella tells him the way her sister Gloria was murdered, it leaves Terry no choice. Now the man with the new heart vows to take down a predator without a soul. For Gloria's killer shatters every rule that McCaleb ever learned in his years with the Bureau--as McCaleb gets no more second chances at life...and just one shot at the truth.
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Volk's Game
by Brent Ghelfi
The explosive debut introducing Russian gangster Alexei Volkovoy delivers at every turn, announcing Volk as the boldest hero of a new generation.
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Earthly Delights
by Kerry Greenwood
Corinna Chapman was once a high profile accountant and banker. That is until she walked out on the money market and her dismissive and unpleasant husband James, threw aside her briefcase, and doffed her kitten heels forever. Now she is a baker working in her own business, Earthly Delights, in Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Australia.Corinna is living in an eccentric building on the Roman model called Insula, which has eight stories, sixteen apartments, and a lot of strange and interesting people. These include a retired professor of classics, Dionysius Monk; a Dutch gardener named Trudi; Mr. and Mrs. Pemberthy and their rotten little doggie, Traddles; a pair of disgustingly thin, would-be soapie stars Goss and Kylie; and a jobbing witch, Meroe of The Sibyls Cave.Corinna is quite content with her cat Horatio and her shop until a junkie falls half dead on her grate, a gorgeous sabra stalks along her alley and tells her that she is beautiful, and she starts receiving threatening letters accusing her of being a scarlet woman. Then it is Goths, lost girls, fraud, late nights, nerds, and beautiful slaves. Life for Corinna has suddenly become interesting. And she still needs to get her bread out in time for the morning rush.... Includes recipes. Earthly Delights is the first book in this delicious new series by the award-winning author who brought us the Phryne Fisher series.
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Hard Man
by Allan Guthrie
Still grieving over the death of his mother, tough Edinburgh ex-con Pearce refuses a job offer from the dysfunctional Baxter family to protect their pregnant sixteen-year-old daughter from her older, martial-arts-expert husband Wallace, until Wallace makes the mistake of killing Pearce's dog.
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Blood Lies
by Daniel Kalla
Young ER doctor Ben Dafoe struggles to solve a tragic mystery from his past and clear his name. In doing so, he might just learn that, sometimes, blood can lie.
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The Secret Hangman
by Peter Lovesey
"Widowed Inspector Peter Diamond is being pursued by a secret admirer even as he pursues a serial killer." "First, Delia Williams, a waitress with two young daughters, is reported missing by her mother. She is soon found dead in a public park, hung from the crossbar of a swing set. It looks like suicide but the postmortem reveals that she was murdered." "Delia was divorced, living with a new man. Her former husband lives in the vicinity. And she had been chatted up by a customer at the restaurant, a traveling salesman, the night she was killed. Diamond has three suspects to investigate." "Other deaths by hanging follow, with Mrs. Williams's ex-husband among the victims. Now earlier deaths are attributed to this killer. The latest bodies are found prominently positioned in public places around the historic city of Bath. The murderer is no longer shy. What is he trying to say?" "Peter Diamond must unravel motive and means before more people are killed by this secret hangman."--BOOK JACKET.
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The Face of Death
by Cody McFadyen
InShadow Man, Cody McFadyen took the suspense thriller where other writers have feared to tread. He introduced readers to a heroine every bit as dark and edgy as the serial killers she hunts: Special Agent Smoky Barrett. Now, in his latest novel, McFadyen brings Agent Barrett back to track down a killer who breaks all the rules. Get ready for a shattering confrontation with the very essence of human evil. "I want to talk to Smoky Barrett or I'll kill myself." The girl is sixteen, at the scene of a grisly triple homicide, and has a gun to her head. She claims "The Stranger" killed her adoptive family, that he's been following her all her life, killing everyone she ever loved, and that no one believes her. No one has. Until now. Special Agent Smoky Barrett is head of the violent crimes unit in Los Angeles, the part of the FBI reserved for tracking down the worst of the worst. Her team has been handpicked from among the nation's elite law enforcement specialists and they are as obsessed and relentless as the psychos they hunt; they'll have to be to deal with this case. For another vicious double homicide reveals a killer embarked on a dark crusade of trauma and death: an "artist" who's molding sixteen-year-old Sarah into the perfect victim--and the ultimate weapon. But Smoky Barrett has another, more personal reason for catching The Stranger--an adopted daughter and a new life that are worth protecting at any cost. This time Smoky is going to have to put it all on the line. Because The Stranger is all too real, all too close, and all too relentless. And when he finally shows his face, if she's not ready to confront her worst fear, Smoky won't have time to do anything but die.
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The Day of the Dandelion
by Peter Pringle
In this suspenseful, witty thriller, an irresistible hero (a handsome scientist-adventurer cum cunning spy) confronts a murderous international conspiracy to control the world's food supply.
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Play Dead
by David Rosenfelt
"Author David Rosenfelt's hero, Andy Carpenter, plunges into a high-profile murder case with a golden retriever as his key witness"--Provided by publisher.
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Justice For The Damned
by Priscilla Royal
It is May of 1272, and Prioress Eleanor, recovering from a near-fatal winter fever, returns to Amesbury Priory to visit her aunt in time for the Feast of Saint Melor. Although Eleanor hopes to regain her strength in the midst of pleasant childhood memories, Death reveals a most troublesome fondness for her company, thwarting her desire for peace.
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Stalin's Ghost
by Martin Cruz Smith
A high-stakes tale set in Moscow follows the machinations of a group of reactionaries who harbor a nostalgic loyalty to the regime of Joseph Stalin and who plot to create a groundswell for a new dictatorship. By the author of Wolves Eat Dogs. 250,000 first printing.
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Three Bags Full
by Leonie Swann
A flock of sheep living on a hillside near the Irish village of Glennkill, regularly exposed to literature by their shepherd George, feel well-equipped to investigate murder after they find George dead--pinned to the ground with a spade.
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The Broken Shore
by Peter Temple
When a prominent local is attacked in his home and left for dead, big-city detective Joe Cashin, shaken by a personal scrape with death and posted to a quiet town, is thrust into what becomes a high-profile murder investigation. 75,000 first printing.
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The Silent Assassin
by Lori Andrews
When a John Doe with a bayonet wound in his chest is discovered in a Washington, D.C. alley, geneticist Dr. Alexandra Blake of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology is pulled away from her bioterrorism work to aid in the investigation. Just a little digging reveals a corpse that's not at all that of the homeless robbery victim it was set up to resemble---and Alex and her colleagues find themselves wrapped up in a complicated mystery of high-stakes international financial intrigue. The homicide investigation is just heating up when a political firestorm erupts over the AFIP's possession of human skulls brought back from Vietnam thirty years earlier by American servicemen. Alex is handed the delicate task of managing the restoration and return of these grisly souvenirs. Even the President of the United States has become involved, with the actual exchange scheduled to take place at a White House ceremony. Alex knows it's an important job---her father was a soldier killed in Vietnam, so she of all people is sensitive to the issues surrounding the war---but to her it still seems like an outsized uproar over something that happened long ago. But the skulls take on much more urgent significance when she uncovers evidence of a much bigger crime, and suddenly Alex discovers she's a target and the White House itself is under fire. The Silent Assassin is a tour-de-force thriller combining the intricate details of forensic science with the dark side of Washington politics and one of the freshest and most original characters in crime fiction today.
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Five Skies
by Ron Carlson
Working together on a summer construction project high in the Rocky Mountains, drifter Arthur Key, shiftless Ronnie Panelli, and foreman Darwin Gallegos reveal details about their pasts and beliefs in cautious and profound ways.
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Bad Luck and Trouble
by Lee Child
When a man is killed by being thrown from a helicopter high over the California desert, loner Jack Reacher discovers that someone is targeting his old friends and teammates and launches a personal campaign to end the conspiracy before it claims any more lives.
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The Unquiet
by John Connolly
Private detective Charlie Parker is faced with untangling a twisted story brimming with betrayal, secrets, and murder when a psychiatrist goes missing following revelations about the harm done to children in his care. Abridged. 5 CDs.
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Final Undertaking
by Mark de Castrique
When Barry Clayton’s father developed Alzheimer’s, Barry gave up his career in law enforcement to return to the North Carolina mountain town of Gainesboro and run the family’s funeral home. But even a small town in the Appalachians is not immune to crime. At a summer street dance, Barry’s friend Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins is gunned down by an old man distraught at the death of his wife. To the dismay of Deputy Reece Hutchins, hospitalized Tommy Lee appoints Barry as the deputy in charge of the investigation. Who was the old man stalking? Who was the young woman who was wounded at the scene? What at first appears to be a case of a mentally unstable summer tourist quickly develops into a tangled web of deceit stretching from western North Carolina to the Florida coast. Someone is preying upon senior citizens. Barry realizes Deputy Hutchins is undercutting his investigation. Then potential witnesses and informants begin to die under mysterious circumstances and Barry must confront a conspiracy that runs so deep he can’t trust anyonw. One false step, one be-trayal could make this Buryin’ Barry’s final undertaking.