Best Crime Fiction Books

Ray Garrett's wife has died — a probable suicide — and her father, Ed Coleman, blames Ray and has tried to shoot him in Rome. The novel follows the two men as they circle each other through Venice and its islands — Coleman hunting Ray, Ray unable to leave, drawn back to a man who wants to kill him in a city that seems to conspire with grief.

A young man comes to Kinsey Millhone with a fragment of buried memory: as a six-year-old, he believes he saw two men digging a hole in the woods — perhaps burying a child kidnapped twenty-one years ago. The recollection is unreliable, the witness is suspect, but Kinsey can't let it go, and the past begins to surface.

A pair of killers obsessed with vampirism drain their victims of blood across the country, while the Mastermind who shattered Alex Cross's life in Roses Are Red continues to taunt him from the shadows. Cross must close two cases at once — one grotesque, one personal — in this two-front thriller.

Sonchai is sent to Dubai and beyond to investigate a human organ-trafficking operation — the harvesting and sale of kidneys, corneas, and hearts from the living poor to the wealthy dying. The fifth Sonchai novel takes the series global, from Bangkok to Shanghai to Dubai, asking what Buddhist teachings have to say about the commodification of the human body.

Two dead men, seemingly unconnected: a sleazy private investigator Kinsey Millhone knew, shot in a parking lot, and a homeless man found dead on the beach with Kinsey's name and number in his pocket. As Kinsey untangles how they're linked, she discovers the homeless man was family — and that he left her a fortune.

A Secret Service agent recruits Jack Reacher to do the impossible: assassinate the Vice President-elect — on paper — to expose the holes in his protection before a real killer exploits them. As credible death threats mount, Reacher's war game becomes a desperate race to stop an assassination for real.

A luxury-hotel murder scene yields a shocking clue: a news photo places Lindsay Boxer's own husband, Joe, at the scene — with another woman. When Joe vanishes, Lindsay must investigate the man she married, uncovering a possible double life tangled in espionage and national security.

An imprisoned serial killer's reign of terror seems to be over — until a copycat begins killing in his style, and reporter Cindy Thomas, writing a book about the original murderer, finds herself drawn dangerously close to both. Lindsay Boxer and the Women's Murder Club race to stop a protégé finishing his mentor's work.

When her longtime mentor and former partner Warren Jacobi is brutally stabbed to death, Lindsay Boxer vows to find his killer at any cost. The murder links to a string of clue-leaving killings — and to a brutal cartel that has drawn her husband Joe to Mexico, as Yuki prosecutes a case of her own.

A pair of arsonists is burning wealthy families alive in their own homes, leaving taunting Latin clues amid the ashes. As Lindsay Boxer hunts the fire-setters, the cold case of a missing young man — the son of a former governor — resurfaces to test the Women's Murder Club on two fronts.

A young man is found dead on a houseboat in London. Three women — each damaged, each with a connection to the dead man — become suspects in an investigation that reaches back through years of loss and resentment.

A passenger plane is shot out of the sky over Washington, and Alex Cross is drawn into the hunt for whoever turned the capital's airspace into a killing ground. As the investigation deepens, a separate executioner is at work — and the title is no idle threat: someone wants Cross dead.

As Alex Cross plans his long-awaited wedding to Bree Stone, a sniper begins assassinating Washington's most corrupt politicians and power brokers, dividing a city that half-cheers the killings. Then Cross's oldest nemesis, Kyle Craig, returns to turn the chaos into a personal trap.

A criminal genius named Thierry Mulch becomes obsessed with Alex Cross, watching his every move and orchestrating an elaborate campaign to prove he can outthink and destroy him. As Mulch closes in, the danger gathers around the one thing Cross can't protect: his family.

When Washington's police chief — Cross's friend and mentor — is gunned down, Alex Cross steps back into the force to find the killer. But the murder is only the start: a wave of vigilante killings is sweeping the capital, as someone decides the law is too slow and begins executing criminals in the streets.

A shady stranger hires Kinsey Millhone to deliver a $25,000 check to a teenage boy — a simple errand that turns out to be anything but. The client, John Daggett, is a drunk, a liar, and an ex-con responsible for deaths he never paid for, and when he turns up drowned, Kinsey is left to untangle who wanted him dead.

A killer who stages elaborate murders for a watching audience terrorizes Washington, just as Alex Cross is trying to build a peaceful life with Bree Stone. Then his oldest nemesis, the brilliant Kyle Craig, escapes and resurfaces — with a new face and a single obsession: destroying Cross.

Alex Cross and John Sampson set out on a wilderness canoe trip to clear their heads, but their old enemy M has other plans. Stalked through the Montana backcountry by snipers and drones, the two friends fight for their lives, while Bree pursues a dangerous trafficking case of her own back home.

Investigating an insurance fraud that turns deadly, Kinsey Millhone finds herself drawn deep undercover into the world of staged-accident scams — and trapped in the orbit of a volatile, dangerous man whose jealousy could get her killed. To get out, she'll have to play a role and pray her cover holds.

The origin story of Hannibal Lecter: from his aristocratic Lithuanian childhood through the traumatic events of the Second World War that broke something fundamental, to the first murders in post-war Europe and Japan. A prequel that traces the specific losses and grievances that created the most celebrated fictional cannibal.

Thierry Mulch has Alex Cross's entire family — Bree, Nana Mama, and the children — and forces Cross to dance to his commands or watch them die. Desperate and half-broken, Cross must obey a madman's escalating demands while racing to find the people he loves before it's too late.

After Michael Bennett helps capture a ruthless South American crime lord, the man swears vengeance from his cell — and makes good on it. With his family in danger, Bennett flees the city for a small town upstate, but his enemy's reach is long, and the war he has started will not stay behind him.

A town in the Nevada desert is wiped off the map as a demonstration of power, and a mastermind threatens to destroy the world's great cities unless he is paid billions. Alex Cross joins forces with MI6 and Interpol to stop the Wolf — and the returning Weasel — in a globe-spanning race against catastrophe.

A killer who signs emails 'Mary Smith' is murdering Hollywood stars and sending taunting accounts of each crime to a celebrity reporter. Alex Cross, pulled from a family vacation, hunts a murderer whose motive proves more painful and personal than the glamorous victims suggest.