Some Pulse-Pounding Tension
Discover heart-racing reads with our list of pulse-pounding tension books. Dive into gripping thrillers, suspenseful novels, and edge-of-your-seat stories that will keep you hooked!
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Hold Tight
by Harlan Coben
Mike and Tia Baye, worried about their sixteen-year-old son Adam, wrestle with whether to spy on his computer, and discover details about their son's friend Spencer's suicide while a killer stalks the neighborhood.
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The Brass Verdict
by Michael Connelly
Things are finally looking up for defense attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next. Enter Harry Bosch. Determined to find Vincent's killer, he is not opposed to using Haller as bait. But as danger mounts and the stakes rise, these two loners realize their only choice is to work together. Bringing together Michael Connelly's two most popular characters, The Brass Verdict is sure to be his biggest book yet.
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The Crime Writer
by Gregg Hurwitz
Awakening in a hospital with a scar on his head and no memory of being found holding a knife over his ex-fiancée's murdered body, crime novelist Drew Danner struggles to reconstruct clues to determine his own guilt or innocence. By the author of The Tower. Reprint.
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Havana Bay
by Martin Cruz Smith
When the corpse of a Russian is hauled from the oily waters of Havana Bay, Arkady Renko comes to Cuba to identify the body. Looking for the killer, he discovers a city of faded loneliness, unexpected danger, and bewildering contradictions. His investigation introduces him to a beautiful Cuban policewoman; to the rituals of Santeria; to an American fugitive and a group of ruthless mercenaries. In this place where all things Russian are despised, where Hemingway fished and the KGB flourished, where the hint of music is always in the air, Arkady finds a trail of deceit that reaches halfway around the world–and a reason to relish his own life again.
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Running Scared
by Ken Douglas
Joey Sapphire wakes next to a dead man, the son of the American Ambassador to Trinidad, in a boat at anchor. It quickly dawns on her that she has to get rid of the body, because it looks like she did it and they hang murderers in Trinidad. So she weighs it down and drops it overboard. But she knows she's not safe, because the killer knows about her. She finds out that her husband Mick is blackmailing the daughter of the President of the United States and that the dead ambassador's son was Mick's partner. Now some very bad men think she is in on the plot. Joey is in trouble and she has nowhere to run.
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Stalin's Ghost
by Martin Cruz Smith
Gorky Park's Detective Arkady Renko returns to his Moscow base in Smith's latest entry in the internationally bestselling series about Russian crimes, broken hearts, and the mysteries of the soul.
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The Darkest Evening of the Year
by Dean Ray Koontz
Koontz delivers suspense for all seasons with a transcendent thriller--a heart-gripping tour de force featuring a dedicated dog rescuer, a very special golden retriever she saves, and the murderous adversaries they must face together.
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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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Secret Dead Men
by Duane Swierczynski
Detective Del Farmer is investigation a murder, but the usual suspects are all in his head. Del Farmer isn't your oridinary harboiled private eye. Instead of collecting fingerprints and clues, he collects souls of the recently dead.
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The Front
by Patricia Daniels Cornwell
Dispatched by the district attorney to a declining Massachusetts neighborhood to address a case related to a new public relations campaign, state investigator Win Garano becomes involved with a loosely organized association of vigilante police officers.
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The Blonde
by Duane Swierczynski
General Adult. Indulging in harmless flirting with the pretty blonde he meets in a Philadelphia airport bar, a married Jack Eisley is stunned when she tells him that she has poisoned his drink and will only give him the antidote if he remains close to protect her from the relentless assassin, double-crossing spy, eccentric crime scene cleaners, and other perils threatening her life. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.
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Book of the Dead
by Patricia Daniels Cornwell
Relocating to Charleston after a particularly grueling case, Dr. Kay Scarpetta opens a private forensic pathology practice but is quickly targeted by local politics and a covert saboteur before a series of violent deaths bring her skills into high view. 1,500,000 first printing. BOMC, Lit Guild, Doubleday, & Mystery Guild Main.
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Death's Little Helpers
by Peter Spiegelman
In this masterful follow-up to Peter Spiegelman’s stunning debut Black Maps, private investigator John March finds himself drawn into a web of corruption that extends from the halls of high finance to the dark underworld of organized crime. Gregory Danes, a Wall Street analyst has gone missing, and his ex-wife, a fashionable painter, calls March to track him down. She just wants him to sign her alimony checks, but as March soon discovers, she’s not the only one looking for him. Danes was once an industry hot shot, but has lost his touch. His biggest gains lately, it seems, had been in enemies–including a few members of the Russian mob. When March receives a threat upon his own family, he realizes Danes had been involved in something far more dangerous than insider trading.
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Red Cat
by Peter Spiegelman
This riveting mystery finds Private Investigator John March descending into Manhattan’s dark and scandalous underworld to help a member of his own family. David March, John’s brother, has been having affairs with anonymous women he meets on the internet. Now one of these women is stalking him. David knows her only as Wren. She, however, knows everything about David—and she's threatening to tell his wife and colleagues, ruining his life. With his marriage, career, and reputation at stake, David asks John to find her. What John discovers is there is more to Wren than David knows. She’s an intriguing mystery, an internet pornographer and video artist with a penchant for turning the tables on her subjects. But when she turns up dead, John finds he's no longer searching for a stalker—now he's looking for a murderer, and the clues keep leading him back to his older brother’s doorstep.
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Nothing to Lose
by Lee Child
Arriving in the small town of Despair, Colorado, Jack Reacher finds himself taking on an entire town as he searches for the truths behind its sinister connection to a brutal war that is killing Americans thousands of miles away. 400,000 first printing.
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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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Devil Bones
by Kathy Reichs
When a plumber discovers the remains of a murdered girl and various dark religious objects in the cellar of a client's house, Temperance Brennan is called in to investigate the case and finds her efforts challenged by vigilante upheavals against Wiccans and occultists. 450,000 first printing.
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Clockers
by Richard Price
Crack-dealers known as "Clockers" are at the bottom of the drug-dealing ladder, and they must commit murder to rise higher.
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In the Woods
by Tana French
Twenty years after witnessing the violent disappearances of two companions from their small Dublin suburb, detective Rob Ryan investigates a chillingly similar murder that takes place in the same wooded area, a case that forces him to piece together his traumatic memories.
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The Girl of His Dreams
by Donna Leon
One cold and rainy morning, the body of a gypsy is found floating in a canal. Brunetti suspects she fell off a nearby roof while fleeing an apartment she had robbed--but something about the case continues to haunt him.
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Moscow Rules
by Daniel Silva
Investigating the suspicious death of a journalist in Moscow, Gabriel Allon learns of the machinations of a former KGB colonel whose covert arms dealing business is part of a larger plot to challenge the global dominance of the United States.
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Shoot Him If He Runs
by Stuart Woods
Sent by the CIA to a beautiful Caribbean island where they are to track down murderous rogue agent Teddy Fay, the team of Stone Barrington, Holly Barker, and Dino Baldachetti finds their mission thwarted by corrupt local politicians and secretive American expatriates. By the author of Iron Orchid.
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Interred with Their Bones
by Jennifer Lee Carrell
Receiving a mysterious box from her eccentric mentor, who claims it contains a newly found work by Shakespeare, theater director and scholar Kate Shelton is horrified when her theater is burned to the ground and her mentor killed, an event that identifies the work of a calculated murderer who sets up crime scenes to resemble Shakespearean deaths.
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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.