Best Thriller Books

Ryland Grace wakes up alone on a spacecraft millions of miles from Earth, with no memory of how he got there. As he pieces together the mission, he realises he may be humanity's last hope against a microscopic threat that is slowly extinguishing the Sun — and that he is not entirely alone.

Astronaut Mark Watney is stranded alone on Mars after his crew evacuates, and must use science, engineering, and dark humour to survive until a rescue mission can reach him.

FBI trainee Clarice Starling is sent to interview the imprisoned Dr. Hannibal Lecter — brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer — hoping to gain insight into a new killer called Buffalo Bill, who is making suits of human skin.

In Ford County, Mississippi, a Black father kills the two men who brutally raped his ten-year-old daughter — and the young lawyer Jake Brigance must defend him before a white jury in the Deep South.

A billionaire's dinosaur theme park — built using ancient DNA extracted from prehistoric mosquitoes — collapses into chaos when the animals escape containment, in a gripping techno-thriller that is also a serious argument about the limits of human control over nature.

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.

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.

Ten strangers with guilty secrets are lured to an island mansion, and one by one they are murdered according to a nursery rhyme — with no apparent killer among them.

A high school teacher travels back to 1958 through a time portal with a mission to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

A California scholarship student at a Vermont college is drawn into a group of elite Greek students who have committed a murder — the beginning of something far worse.

A recovering alcoholic writer takes a winter caretaker job at a remote Colorado hotel where the building's evil history begins to consume his sanity and endanger his family.

Pippa Fitz-Amobi reopens the supposedly closed case of Andie Bell's murder as her senior capstone project — and discovers the truth is far more dangerous than anyone expected.

A bestselling novelist is nursed back to health by his self-proclaimed number one fan after a car accident, and discovers that his rescue has become his captivity.

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.

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.

When the Pope dies suddenly, the College of Cardinals gathers in the Sistine Chapel to elect his successor. Behind the locked doors of the Vatican, Dean of the College Cardinal Lomeli presides over a conclave of intrigue, ambition, and hidden sin — where faith and politics are indistinguishable.

Ex-military cop Jack Reacher is arrested for a murder he did not commit in a small Georgia town and uncovers a massive counterfeiting conspiracy that cost his brother his life.

An eighteenth-century Paris parfumeur with an extraordinary sense of smell and no odor of his own commits a series of murders to create the world's most perfect perfume.

The conclusion of the Inheritance Games trilogy finds Avery Grambs confronting the final deadly game of the Hawthorne brothers as she races to solve the mystery of Tobias Hawthorne's true intentions before time runs out.

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.

Lisbeth Salander, recovering from near-fatal wounds, faces a murder trial while Mikael Blomkvist races to expose the secret government faction that has controlled and abused her since childhood.

A seemingly airtight case against a beloved teacher accused of murder begins to unravel when impossible evidence suggests someone — or something — else was responsible.

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.

A hitman who only kills bad people takes one last job but finds himself entangled with an unexpected companion and a plot to destroy him.