Best Thriller Books of All Time
All Systems Red (Released: January 2017)
Author(s): Martha Wells
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.07 (1819 Ratings, 243 Reviews)
Pages: 144
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
Genre(s): Science fiction, Space, Adventure, Fiction, Mystery, Dystopian, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Thriller
Dark Matter (Released: January 2016)
Author(s): Blake Crouch
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.04 (1354 Ratings, 195 Reviews)
Pages: 340
A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy. “Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.
Genre(s): Science fiction, Fiction, Kidnapping victims, Mystery, Suspense, Fantasy, Dystopian, Time Travel, Thriller, Adventure
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Released: January 2005)
Author(s): Stieg Larsson
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.06 (1354 Ratings, 120 Reviews)
Pages: 465
The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age--and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness--assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism--and a surprising connection between themselves.--From publisher description.
Genre(s): Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Murder, Comics, Spanish, Detective and mystery stories, Missing persons, Blomqvist
And Then There Were None (Released: January 1939)
Author(s): Agatha Christie
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.25 (1208 Ratings, 115 Reviews)
Pages: 116
And Then There Were None is the signature novel of Agatha Christie, the most beloved work of the world's bestselling novelist. It is a masterpiece of mystery and suspense that has been a fixture in popular literature for more than sixty years, a brilliant tale that remains as compelling today as ever. First there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the-coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to any of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder, and one by one they begin to fall prey to an unseen hand. As the only people on the island, unable to leave and unable to call for help, they know that the only possible suspects are among their number. And only the dead are above suspicion. Also published as "Ten Little Indians"
Genre(s): Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Classics, Suspense, Traditional Detectives, etc, English fiction, Islands, Juvenile Fiction
The Secret History (Released: January 1992)
Author(s): Donna Tartt
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.06 (877 Ratings, 158 Reviews)
Pages: 578
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.
Genre(s): Fiction, Murder, Mystery, Thriller, LGBTQ, Friendship, Spanish, Coming of Age, Genre Fiction, Classicists
It (Released: January 1986)
Author(s): Stephen King
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.07 (832 Ratings, 78 Reviews)
Pages: 1168
Welcome to Derry, Maine ... It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real ... They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.
Genre(s): Horror, Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction, Science fiction, Suspense, Classics, Thriller, Friendship, Horror stories
The Stand (Released: January 1978)
Author(s): Stephen King
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.15 (841 Ratings, 67 Reviews)
Pages: 1553
Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by virus and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published. Soon to be a television series. 'THE STAND is a masterpiece' (Guardian). Set in a virus-decimated US, King's thrilling American fantasy epic, is a Classic. First come the days of the virus. Then come the dreams. Dark dreams that warn of the coming of the dark man. The apostate of death, his worn-down boot heels tramping the night roads. The warlord of the charnel house and Prince of Evil. His time is at hand. His empire grows in the west and the Apocalypse looms. When a man crashes his car into a petrol station, he brings with him the foul corpses of his wife and daughter. He dies and it doesn't take long for the virus which killed him to spread across America and the world.
Genre(s): Classics, Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction, Science fiction, Suspense, General, Thriller, Dystopian, Good and evil
Recursion (Released: June 2005)
Author(s): Blake Crouch
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.20 (844 Ratings, 133 Reviews)
Pages: 329
Reality is broken. At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself. In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth—and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back. Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy—before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.
Genre(s): Science fiction, Fiction, Adventure, Suspense, Thriller, Dystopian, Police, Technothrillers, Thriller & Suspense, Solar system
11/22/63 (Released: January 2011)
Author(s): Stephen King
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.32 (758 Ratings, 94 Reviews)
Pages: 849
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force. Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history. Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time. A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.
Genre(s): Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction, Science fiction, Thriller, Thriller & Suspense, Time Travel, alternate history, Historical
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Released: January 1)
Author(s): Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland (Translator)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.07 (602 Ratings, 43 Reviews)
Pages: 563
The stunning third and final novel in Stieg Larsson's internationally best-selling trilogy. Lisbeth Salander - the heart of Larsson's two previous novels - lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She's fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she'll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back.
Genre(s): Fiction, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller, Political corruption