Editors Reads
Crime FictionThrillerMysteryNoir & Hardboiled

Tom Gillespie

70 books reviewed 12 articles written

Crime & Thriller Editor, Editors Reads

Tom Gillespie has a weakness for crime fiction done well and almost no patience for it done badly. As Crime & Thriller Editor at Editors Reads, he reviews mysteries, thrillers, and crime novels with attention to plot mechanics, narrative pace, and the degree to which the writer respects the reader's intelligence. He is particularly interested in the crime novel as a vehicle for social observation, and in the ways that genre conventions can be honoured, subverted, or quietly dismantled.

70 Books Reviewed

Rebecca book cover
BestsellerEditor's Pick

Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier

4.5

A young woman marries the brooding Maxim de Winter and moves to his grand estate Manderley, where the memory of his glamorous first wife Rebecca poisons every room and every relationship.

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Broken Harbor book cover

Broken Harbor

by Tana French

4.4

Detective Mick 'Scorcher' Kennedy investigates the brutal murder of a young family in a half-built ghost estate — and discovers a connection to his own past he cannot afford to acknowledge.

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Faithful Place book cover

Faithful Place

by Tana French

4.4

Undercover detective Frank Mackey's carefully constructed life unravels when the suitcase of the girl he loved — and believed had abandoned him twenty-two years ago — is found in a derelict house on Faithful Place.

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Red Dragon book cover

Red Dragon

by Thomas Harris

4.4

Retired FBI profiler Will Graham, who was nearly killed capturing Hannibal Lecter, is called back to help catch a serial killer called the Tooth Fairy — and must return to Lecter's cell to get inside the new killer's mind.

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The Hunt for Red October book cover
BestsellerEditor's Pick
4.4

Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius attempts to defect to the United States with his entire crew and the USSR's most advanced nuclear submarine — and CIA analyst Jack Ryan must convince a skeptical Navy the defection is real before both superpowers open fire.

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The Likeness book cover
Editor's Pick

The Likeness

by Tana French

4.4

Detective Cassie Maddox is pulled back into undercover work when a murder victim is found bearing her exact face — and carrying the identity Cassie once used as an alias.

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The Lincoln Lawyer book cover
Bestseller

The Lincoln Lawyer

by Michael Connelly

4.4

Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between Los Angeles courthouses. When a wealthy Beverly Hills client hires him to fight a serious assault charge, Haller begins to suspect the man is guilty of something far worse — and that he has defended it before.

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The Maltese Falcon book cover

The Maltese Falcon

by Dashiell Hammett

4.4

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade is hired by a woman who calls herself Miss Wonderly to follow a man — and within twenty-four hours his partner Miles Archer is dead, he is tangled with the San Francisco police and a group of international criminals, and at the centre of it all is a statuette of a black bird supposedly worth a fortune.

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The Power of the Dog book cover
BestsellerEditor's Pick

The Power of the Dog

by Don Winslow

4.4

DEA agent Art Keller's decades-long war against the Sinaloa Cartel, from the 1970s through 9/11. A massive, novelistic account of the Mexican drug trade — cartel politics, US government corruption, CIA involvement, and the human cost on both sides of the border.

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The Trespasser book cover

The Trespasser

by Tana French

4.4

Detective Antoinette Conway and her partner Stephen Moran catch what looks like a routine domestic killing — but someone in the Murder Squad is pushing hard to close the case fast, and Conway can't tell who to trust.

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Black and Blue book cover
Editor's Pick

Black and Blue

by Ian Rankin

4.3

Rebus investigates a murder that connects to the unsolved Bible John killings of the 1960s while simultaneously investigating the oil industry in Aberdeen and a copycat killer. The book that won the Gold Dagger and established Rebus as a major series.

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Clear and Present Danger book cover
Bestseller
4.3

When the US government launches a covert military operation against Colombian drug cartels, Deputy National Security Advisor Jack Ryan uncovers a political conspiracy to disavow the soldiers involved — leaving them to die in the jungle rather than admit the mission existed.

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Darkness, Take My Hand book cover
Editor's Pick

Darkness, Take My Hand

by Dennis Lehane

4.3

Kenzie and Gennaro are hired to protect a psychologist who has received death threats from a patient. As they investigate, they are drawn into a twenty-year pattern of murders in Dorchester and Charlestown — and into personal danger that will alter the series permanently.

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Ripley's Game book cover

Ripley's Game

by Patricia Highsmith

4.3

Tom Ripley is insulted at a party by Jonathan Trevanny, a picture framer in Fontainebleau with a terminal blood disease, and decides to arrange a small act of vengeance: he has Jonathan recruited, through an intermediary, to carry out a Mafia killing on a train. Jonathan, desperate for money for his family, agrees — and Ripley watches, and then becomes involved in ways he didn't plan. Widely considered the best novel in the Ripley series.

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The Big Sleep book cover

The Big Sleep

by Raymond Chandler

4.3

Philip Marlowe, private detective, is hired by the aging General Sternwood to deal with a blackmailer — and finds himself drawn into a Los Angeles underworld of pornography, gambling, and murder involving the General's two dangerous daughters, Vivian and Carmen.

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The Black Echo book cover

The Black Echo

by Michael Connelly

4.3

LAPD detective Harry Bosch investigates the murder of a Vietnam veteran found dead in a drainpipe in the Hollywood Hills — and discovers a trail leading to a daring bank heist tied to the tunnels both men once crawled through in the war.

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The Firm book cover
Bestseller

The Firm

by John Grisham

4.3

A young Harvard Law graduate is recruited by a small but wealthy Memphis firm — and soon discovers it is run by the mob, the FBI wants him to spy on it, and leaving may cost him his life.

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The Last Devil to Die book cover

The Last Devil to Die

by Richard Osman

4.3

When a local antiques dealer is murdered and a consignment of heroin goes missing, the Thursday Murder Club has a new case. But this investigation is personal — one of their own is directly connected to the dead man — and the answers they find will test the friendship at the heart of the group.

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The Secret Place book cover

The Secret Place

by Tana French

4.3

A year after a boy was murdered on the grounds of a Dublin girls' boarding school, a card appears on the school's anonymous message board: 'I know who killed him.' Detective Stephen Moran sees his chance to make the Murder Squad.

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Along Came a Spider book cover
Bestseller

Along Came a Spider

by James Patterson

4.2

DC homicide detective and forensic psychologist Alex Cross is called to investigate when a brilliant, media-obsessed killer kidnaps two children from a prestigious private school — drawing Cross into the most complex and personal case of his career.

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Kiss the Girls book cover

Kiss the Girls

by James Patterson

4.2

Alex Cross races to find a serial kidnapper called Casanova who keeps intelligent, accomplished women as captives in an underground harem — while simultaneously discovering that his own niece Naomi has become one of Casanova's victims.

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Showing top 24 of 70 reviewed books.

Articles by Tom Gillespie

guide

Where to Start with A.J. Finn: A Reading Guide

Where to start with A.J. Finn — how to approach The Woman in the Window, the Hitchcockian psychological thriller featuring an agoraphobic narrator. A complete reading guide.

guide

Where to Start with B.A. Paris: A Reading Guide

Where to start with B.A. Paris — how to approach Behind Closed Doors, her domestic thriller about a perfect marriage that is actually a prison. A complete reading guide.

guide

Where to Start with Brad Thor: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Brad Thor — whether to begin with The Lions of Lucerne, Near Dark, or Black Ice. A complete reading guide to the Scot Harvath thrillers.

guide

Where to Start with Dashiell Hammett: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Dashiell Hammett — how to approach The Maltese Falcon, his essential novel and the founding text of hardboiled crime fiction. A complete reading guide.

guide

Where to Start with Ian Rankin: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Ian Rankin — whether to begin with Knots and Crosses or Black and Blue. A complete reading guide to the Scottish crime novelist.

guide

Where to Start with John Sandford: A Reading Guide

Where to start with John Sandford — whether to begin with Rules of Prey, Field of Prey, or Ocean Prey. A complete reading guide to the Lucas Davenport crime series.

guide

Where to Start with Mary Kubica: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Mary Kubica — whether to begin with The Good Girl or Local Woman Missing. A complete reading guide to the psychological thriller author.

guide

Where to Start with Raymond Chandler: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Raymond Chandler — how to approach The Big Sleep, his essential hardboiled crime novel and Philip Marlowe's debut. A complete reading guide.

list

Best Books with Plot Twists: Novels That Will Shock You

The best books with plot twists — from Gone Girl to The Secret History, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Shutter Island, and Atonement. Novels whose endings redefine everything.

list

Best Books with Unreliable Narrators: Fiction That Keeps You Guessing

The best books with unreliable narrators — from Gone Girl and Lolita to The Remains of the Day and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Fiction that keeps you guessing.

list

Best Detective Fiction: From Golden Age to Hardboiled to Modern Noir

The best detective fiction — from Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler to Tana French and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The complete guide to crime fiction.

list

Best Legal Thriller Books: The Essential Reading List

The best legal thrillers ever written — from John Grisham's The Firm to Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent. The definitive guide to courtroom fiction.

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