Thriller & Mystery Fiction Stars
Dive into the best thriller and mystery fiction stars with our curated list of gripping books. Uncover suspense, intrigue, and page-turning excitement from top authors in the genre.
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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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Obsession
by Jonathan Kellerman
Psychologist Alex Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis investigate the aunt of a former patient, after she confesses to a crime shortly before she dies.
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The Broker
by John Grisham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him? Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
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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.
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The Harry Bosch Novels
by Michael Connelly
For the first time in one volume, the three novels that introduced Michael Connelly's great LAPD homicide detective, maverick Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch. The Black Echo (Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel) For Harry Bosch-hero, loner, nighthawk-the body stuffed in a drainpipe off Mulholland Drive isn't just another statistic. This one is personal. Billy Meadows was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat," fighting the VC and the fear they used to call the Black Echo. Harry let Meadows down once. He won't do it again. The Black Ice The corpse in the hotel room seems to be that of a missing LAPD narcotics officer. Rumors abound that the cop had crossed over-selling a new drug called Black Ice. Now Harry's making some dangerous connections, leading from the cop to a string of bloody murders, and from Hollywood Boulevard's drug bazaar to Mexico's dusty back alleys. In this lethal game, Harry is likely to be the next victim. The Concrete Blonde When Harry Bosch shot and killed Norman Church, the police were convinced it marked the end of the hunt for the Dollmaker-L.A.'s most bizarre serial killer. But now Church's widow is accusing Harry of killing the wrong man-a charge that rings terrifyingly true when a new victim is discovered with the Dollmaker's macabre signature. For the second time, Harry must hunt the murderer down, before he strikes again. Together, these three novels are the perfect way to discover, or rediscover, the sleuth the New York Times Book Review called a "wonderful, old-fashioned hero who isn't afraid to walk through the flames."
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Harry Bosch Novels, The: Volume 2
by Michael Connelly
The Last Coyote: LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch is suspended from the force for attacking his commanding officer. Unable to remain idle, he investigates the long-unsolved murder of a Hollywood prostitute. Trunk Music: Harry returns to the force to investigate the murder of a movie producer with Mafia ties. Up against both the LAPD's organized crime unit and the mob, Harry follows the money trail to Las Vegas, where the case becomes personal. Angels Flight: The murder of a prominent African-American attorney who made his career suing the police for racism and brutality means that Harry's friends and associates have become suspects; and he must work closely with longtime enemies suspicious of his maverick ways to investigate them. Together for the first time, these three chilling, pulse-pounding novels chart the volatile, breakneck career of the sleuth the New York Post calls "the quintessential mystery book hero" and prove that "Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels are the most impressive body of work by any writer of crime thrillers now active" (Washington Post).
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Hide
by Lisa Gardner
You have good reason to be afraid. . . . It was a case that haunts Bobby Dodge to this day--the case that nearly killed him and changed his life forever. Now, in an underground chamber on the grounds of an abandoned Massachusetts mental hospital, the gruesome discovery of six mummified corpses resurrects his worst nightmare: the return of a killer he thought dead and buried. There's no place to run. . . . Bobby's only lead is wrapped around a dead woman's neck. Annabelle Granger has been in hiding for as long as she can remember. Her childhood was a blur of new cities and assumed identities. But what--or who--her family was running from, she never knew. Now a body is unearthed from a grave, wearing a necklace bearing Annabelle's name, and the danger is too close to escape. This time, she's not going to run. You know he will find you. . . . The new threat could be the dead psychopath's copycat, his protégé--or something far more terrifying. Dodge knows the only way to find him is to solve the mystery of Annabelle Granger, and to do that he must team up with his former lover, partner, and friend D. D. Warren from the Boston P.D. But the trail leads back to a woman from Bobby's past who may be every bit as dangerous as the new killer--a beautiful survivor-turned-avenger with an eerie link to Annabelle. From its tense opening pages to its shocking climax,Hideis a thriller that delves into our deepest, darkest fears. Where there is no one to trust. Where there is no place left to hide.
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High Profile
by Robert B. Parker
Struggling with a high-profile case involving the murders of a controversial talk-show host and a young woman, Paradise police chief Jesse Stone becomes increasingly frustrated by the lack of interest on the part of the victims' families.
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The Hunters
by W. E. B. Griffin
Acting on orders from the president, Charley Castillo and his team travel to Uruguay in pursuit of answers pertaining to missing oil-for-food scandal funds, only to witness the murder of the man they seek.
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Body of Lies
by David Ignatius
Roger Ferris is one of the CIA\'s soldiers in the war on terrorism. He has come out of Iraq with a shattered leg and an intense mission -- to penetrate the network of a master terrorist known only as \'Suleiman\'. Ferris\'s plan for getting inside Suleiman\'s tent is inspired by a masterpiece of British intelligence during World War II : he literally prepares a body of lies, the corpse of an imaginary CIA officer who appears to have accomplished the impossible by recruiting an agent within the enemy\'s ranks. This scheme binds friend and foe in a web of extraordinary subtlety and complexity, and, when it begins to unravel, Ferris finds himself flying blind into a hurricane. Written by a prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, Body of Lies confronts readers with a disturbingly realistic insight into the covert life of a CIA operative.
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Treasure of Khan
by Clive Cussler
When an oil survey team is abducted after a suspicious accident, Dirk Pitt follows leads to Mongolia, where he learns about a megalomaniac's plot to supply oil to China and to undermine global oil markets. By the author of Black Wind. 500,000 first printing.
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Baltimore Blues
by Laura Lippman
Unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan accepts an assigment from a suspected killer who wold have her engage in unorthodox snooping in orde to clear his name
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Beyond Reach
by Karin Slaughter
Heart-stopping suspense...cutting-edge forensic detail...flawless storytelling...these are the hallmarks of Karin Slaughter's novels. FromFaithlesstoTriptych, Slaughter's gritty, gripping thrillers have dazzled critics, who crown her "one of the best crime novelists in America."* Now the #1 internationally bestselling author returns to rural Grant County, Georgia, in a riveting tale of murder in a small town, a troubled woman cop at the center of it all, and the shocking secrets that keep a killer just beyond reach In a stifling jail cell in a hardscrabble Georgia town, Detective Lena Adams sits in stubborn silence: bruised, angry, and the only suspect in a horrific murder that left a woman incinerated beyond recognition. A hundred miles away, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver has gotten the call that his young detective has been arrested. Jeffrey's wife, pediatrician and medical examiner Sara Linton, has little patience for Lena or her dramas. Fighting a heartbreaking malpractice suit, struggling to pick up the pieces of a shattered career, the last thing Sara needs is to see Jeffrey playing Lena's knight in shining armor. Sara cannot guess that within days she herself will be at the center of a bizarre and murderous case. For Lena has fled back to the place where she grew up hard, careening back through the shadows of her past and into a shocking underground world of bigotry and rage. The man who raised her is slowly killing himself with drugs. The man who beguiled-and beat-her is reaching out from prison. And now only Jeffrey and Sara can free Lena from the web of lies, betrayal, and brutality that has trapped her-as this powerhouse of a novel races toward its shattering climax...and a final, unforgettable twist.
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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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Absolute Fear
by Lisa Jackson
When a series of brutal ritual slayings is linked to Our Lady of Virtues Hospital, Eve Renner, whose past is tied to this old asylum, must learn to trust her former lover Cole Dennis, who was accused of attempted murder, when she becomes the killer's next target.
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The Naming of the Dead
by Ian Rankin
Sent to man an abandoned police station during an international conference between the leaders of the free world, officer John Rebus investigates the suspicious falling death of a delegate at an Edinburgh banquet, a case he must race against time to solve. By the author of Fleshmarket Alley.
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The Navigator
by Clive Cussler
Years after an ancient Phoenician statue is stolen from the Baghdad museum, a series of murders sparks interest in the statue's relevance in Austin and Zavala, who lead the NUMA team on a historical investigation into the lost treasures of King Solomon. 650,000 first printing.
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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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Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues
by Robert Fate
A Texas oil heiress goes missing, and a newly-licensed PI is called in.
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The Sudoku Murder
by Shelley Freydont
Professor P.T. Avondale is found murdered at his desk at the Avondale Puzzle Museum. Katie McDonald, master puzzle-solver, has returned home to save her childhood mentor s museum from being auctioned off when she learns of the Professor s death. Now she finds herself curator of the museum and in charge of the Professor s newest mentee, a fourteen-year-old runaway. Katie is now faced with working to solve the puzzle of the Professor s murder before a ruthless killer applies his own deadly solution. "
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Always
by Nicola Griffith
Aud Torvingen--Sa hero who makes La Femme Nikita look like a Powerpuff GirlS ("Details")--returns to teach a new round of lessons in hard-hitting justice and to confront new adversaries: her own vulnerability and desire.
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The Various Haunts of Men
by Susan Hill
Three people disappear, so when fresh-faced policewoman Freya Graffham is assigned to the case, she must unravel the mystery before events turn too gruesome.
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Suffer the Little Children
by Donna Leon
A brutal attack on a pediatrician by a Carabiniere captain and two privates, who also take away the doctor's eighteen-month-old son, draws Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Inspector Vianello, into a dangerous case involving a ring of baby traffickers and an illegal money-making scheme between pharmacists and doctors. 50,000 first printing.
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Second Sight
by Charles McCarry
Christopher comes out of retirement to assist in locating an Arabian terrorist who is kidnapping and brain-draining American agents.
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The Savage Garden
by Mark Mills
Assigned to write about a famous sixteenth-century garden, Cambridge scholar Adam Strickland visits the garden only to discover that the woman to whom the garden was dedicated may have been murdered, a finding that points to a more recent killing.
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Cruel Choices
by Charles O'Brien
The latest in the acclaimed French Revolution series finds Anne Cartier searching for missing Lucie Gigot. The trail leads to the Marquis de Bresse, a notorious libertine. When Bresse is found dead in the Seine, Anne's quest turns into a murder investigation that uncovers unspeakable crimes.
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A Fatal Grace
by Louise Penny
From the Dagger and Arthur Ellis Award-winning author of "Still Life" comes the second Gamache mystery set in the stunning countryside of Quebec.
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Gun Shy
by Ben Rehder
The National Weapons Alliance is holding a rally in Blanco County, and it's being headlined by country music star Mitch Campbell. But Campbell's a fraud and someone's set to expose him.
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Nine
by Andrzej Stasiuk
Pawel, a young businessman in debt to loan sharks, wakes up one April morning in a sea of debris, broken glass, ripped upholstery, and clothes spilling out of the wardrobe. He turns to two friends for help: Bolek, a former coal miner, now a drug dealer who lives in tasteless luxury; and Jacek, an addict, who is himself on the run through Warsaw, a washed-out city, a hostile landscape of apartment blocks, railroad stations, wild gardens, factories, and suburban wastelands.In this novel Andrzej Stasiuk portrays a generation of Poles, freed from outdated ideologies but left feeling adrift and disconnected from family, neighbors, and friends. At once existential crime fiction and a work of art, Nine establishes Stasiuk as a major voice in European literature.
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Ghostwalk
by Rebecca Stott
When the death of a Cambridge historian leaves her opus on Sir Isaac Newton unfinished, Lydia Brooke is called in to finish the book, only to find herself embroiled in a mystery in which the present becomes entangled with a past based on Newton's life.
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The Chrysalis
by Heather Terrell
An international thriller that spans centuries, this stunning debut traces a mysterious Dutch masterpiece through the clutches of the Nazis and into the dark underbelly of today's art world.