Race the Clock with a Super Thriller
Race the clock with these 15 pulse-pounding thrillers, including Jeffery Deaver’s *The Broken Window*, Lee Child’s *Bad Luck and Trouble*, and John Grisham’s *The Appeal*. From courtroom suspense to high-octane manhunts, this curated list of fiction and detective mysteries delivers nonstop tension, twisty plots, and explosive page-turners perfect for fans of James Patterson, Sue Grafton, and Walter Mosley.
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The Appeal
by John Grisham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • “Fascinating ... filled with deadly accurate characterizations by an author who knows both the law and politics from the inside.”—Los Angeles Times In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it. Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided? The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice. The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave readers unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever again. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
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1st to Die
by James Patterson
Four crime-solving friends face off against a killer in San Francisco in the Women's Murder Club novel that started James Patterson's thrilling series. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered--before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong. Full of the breathtaking drama and unforgettable emotions for which James Patterson is famous, 1st to Die is the start of the #1 New York Times bestselling series of crime thrillers.
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Bangkok Haunts
by John Burdett
Royal Thai Police detective and devout Buddhist Sonchai Jitpleecheep returns as he investigates a mysterious snuff film in which the victim is Damrong, a woman whom he had once loved obsessively, following a haunted trail that leads to Bangkok's most exclusive men's club while dealing with his never resolved feelings for Damrong. 75,000 first printing.
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City of the Sun
by David Levien
Fourteen months after their young son Jamie vanishes while delivering newspapers in his suburban Indianapolis neighborhood, Paul and Carol Gabriel hire private detective Frank Behr to uncover the truth about their son's fate.
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Desperation Moon
by Ken Douglas
When racecar driver Sara Hackett arrives home from a desert road race, she finds her niece and another girl have been kidnapped and a dead man has turned up in her bed. The kidnappers want a million dollars she doesn't have or they say they'll kill the kids.
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T is for Trespass
by Sue Grafton
Sociopath Solana Rojas uses a stolen identity as a private caregiver to gain access to her intended victims while endeavoring to outmaneuver private investigator Kinsey Millhone.
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City of Shadows
by Ariana Franklin
A cultured city scarred by war. . . . An eastern émigré with scars and secrets of her own. . . . A young woman claiming to be a Russian grand duchess. . . . A brazen killer, as vicious as he is clever. . . . A detective driven by decency and the desire for justice. . . . A nightmare political movement steadily gaining power. . . . This is 1922 Berlin. One of the troubled city's growing number of refugees, Esther Solomonova survives by working as secretary to the charming, unscrupulous cabaret owner "Prince" Nick, and she's being drawn against her will into his scheme to pass a young asylum patient off as Anastasia, the last surviving heir to the murdered czar of all Russia. But their found "princess," Anna Anderson, fears that she's being hunted—and this may turn out to be more than paranoia when innocent people all around her begin to die.
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Blonde Faith
by Walter Mosley
Fearing his friend, Christmas Black, has met his demise when the ex-Marine's daughter is left on his doorstep, reluctant L.A. detective Easy Rawlins finds the challenges of caring for a child further complicated by his ladylove's imminent marriage and another friend's murder accusation. 125,000 first printing.
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Skin Tight
by Carl Hiaasen
Somebody wants Mick Stranahan dead. Mick is sure of this, because he just had to dispatch a pistol-packing intruder with the help of a stuffed marlin head. But who would want to hurt a former Florida state investigator? The answer is plenty of peopleas Stranahan soon finds himself acquainted with a litter of nefarious players, including a hit man whose skin problems could fill a comprehensive (if bizarre) medical textbook, a lawyer of questionable repute who advertises on billboards, and a TV show host whose taste for sensationalism is exceeded only by his vanity. The whole thing gets downright harrowing for the ex-cop in one of Hiaasen's most breathtaking, madcap romps everwhere even a plastic surgeon with extremely shaky hands waits to wring Stranahan's neck....
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Hitman
by Parnell Hall
The new Stanley Hastings novel featuring the unlikeliest private eye in New York City.
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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 Broken Window
by Jeffery Deaver
Chasing down a vicious serial killer who complicates his crimes by leaving behind iron-clan evidence implicating innocent people, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs reluctantly team up for the investigation only to find themselves rendered the killer's next targets. By the author of The Cold Moon. 300,000 first printing.
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A Prisoner of Birth
by Jeffrey Archer
International bestseller and master storyteller Jeffrey Archer is at the very top of his game in a story of fate and fortune, redemption and revenge. If Danny Cartwright had proposed to Beth Wilson the day before, or the day after, he would not have been arrested and charged with the murder of his best friend. But when the four prosecution witnesses are a barrister, a popular actor, an aristocrat, and the youngest partner in an established firm’s history, who is going to believe your side of the story? Danny is sentenced to twenty-two years and sent to Belmarsh prison, the highest-security jail in the land, from where no inmate has ever escaped. However, Spencer Craig, Lawrence Davenport, Gerald Payne, and Toby Mortimer all underestimate Danny’s determination to seek revenge, and Beth’s relentless quest to pursue justice, which ends up with all four fighting for their lives, Thus begins Jeffrey Archer’s most powerful novel since Kane and Abel, with a cast of characters that will remain with you long after you’ve turned the last page. And if that is not enough, prepare for an ending that will shock even the most ardent of Archer’s fans.
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Last Known Victim
by Erica Spindler
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a grisly discovery is made at one of New Orleans' massive refrigerator graveyards--six severed female hands. It's the signature of The Handyman, who remains at large.
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The Sleeping Doll
by Jeffery Deaver
California Bureau of Investigation interrogator and body language expert Kathryn Dance works to recapture a dangerous escaped killer with the help of three victims from his former cult and the lone survivor from a family he slaughtered. By the author of The Bone Collector. 300,000 first printing.
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Still Summer
by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Twenty years after a shared childhood marked by their considerable popularity, Tracy, Olivia, and Holly reunite on a luxury Caribbean cruise during which a chance mistake triggers a series of devastating events that puts their survival in jeopardy. By the author of Cage of Stars. 100,000 first printing.
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Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
The mesmerizing bestseller that combines the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock—A New York Times Ten Best Book of the Year Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age tale and a richly plotted suspense story, told with dazzling intelligence and wit. At the center of the novel is clever, deadpan Blue van Meer, who has a head full of literary, philosophical, scientific, and cinematic knowledge. But she could use some friends. Upon entering the elite St. Gallway School, she finds some—a clique of eccentrics known as the Bluebloods. One drowning and one hanging later, Blue finds herself puzzling out a byzantine murder mystery. Nabokov meets Donna Tartt (then invites the rest of the Western Canon to the party) in this novel—with visual aids drawn by the author—that has won over readers of all ages.
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The Woods
by Harlan Coben
Grieving over the murder of his sister twenty years earlier and raising his six-year-old daughter alone after losing his wife to cancer, county prosecutor Paul Copeland is inadvertently tied to a murder investigation that he believes may be related to his sister's case, a discovery that threatens to reveal long-buried family secrets. 400,000 first printing.
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The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers
Twenty-seven-year-old Mark Schluter, suffering from a rare brain disorder that causes him to believe his sister to be an impostor, endeavors to discover the cause of the motor vehicle accident that resulted in his head injury.
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Double Take
by Catherine Coulter
Murder, mystery and breathtaking suspense in the roller-coaster ride of the year.
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The Sanctuary
by Raymond Khoury
More than 250 years after a pretender marquis escapes the decimated palazzo of his vengeful prince, an American Army unit discovers a secret lab in Baghdad where dozens of victims have been subjected to torturous experiments, a finding that places two bold women on the trail of an ancient mystery. By the author of The Last Templar. 150,000 first printing.