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  1. Genres
  2. ›Thriller

Best Thriller Books

Suspense and thriller novels

1,424 summaries

Showing 217–240 of 1,424

  1. The Wasp Factory

    Iain Banks

    ★ 3.8 (83k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    A dark, funny, and unsettling story about a Scottish teenager whose ritualistic violence and strange family life lead to a shocking truth when his institutionalized brother escapes.

  2. The Affair

    Lee Child

    ★ 4.1 (83k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    Before becoming a drifter, Major Jack Reacher goes undercover in a small Mississippi town. He gets caught in a murder case that pits military secrets against a beautiful, mysterious sheriff, making him choose between his uniform and his conscience.

  3. The Man in the Brown Suit

    Agatha Christie

    ★ 4.0 (82k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    An English girl named Anne is caught in a web of stolen diamonds, international plots, and a hunt for a killer called 'The Colonel,' after a deadly fall in a London tube station, a strangled ballerina, and a dangerous trip to Africa.

  4. The Poet

    Michael Connelly

    ★ 4.2 (82k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    A crime reporter, investigating his detective brother's apparent suicide, uncovers a chilling trail of poetic clues left by a serial killer who hunts cops, turning his personal tragedy into the most dangerous story of his career.

  5. State of Fear

    Michael Crichton

    ★ 3.7 (81k) average on GoodreadsPolitics

    An intelligence agent races from Parisian labs to Antarctic volcanoes to connect seemingly unrelated events as a global conspiracy to weaponize natural disasters unfolds, aiming to stop eco-terrorists before they cause catastrophic climate chaos.

  6. The Black Dahlia

    James Ellroy

    ★ 3.8 (81k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    In postwar Hollywood, two detectives hunt the killer of the Black Dahlia. The case mirrors the darkness in themselves and the city they protect.

  7. Elevation

    Stephen King

    ★ 3.7 (80k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    In Castle Rock, a man losing weight without shrinking discovers his strange condition might help unite a prejudiced community.

  8. Night Film

    Marisha Pessl

    ★ 3.8 (80k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    A disgraced journalist enters the cult-like world around a reclusive horror film director and his mysteriously dead daughter, risking his sanity and life to solve a decades-old mystery.

  9. Behind Her Eyes

    Sarah Pinborough

    ★ 3.8 (80k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    A secretary's affair with her married boss turns dangerous when she befriends his fragile wife and uncovers a supernatural secret that upends everything she knows about their marriage.

  10. A Painted House

    John Grisham

    ★ 3.7 (80k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    In 1952 Arkansas, a seven-year-old farm boy's innocent summer in the cotton fields turns dark when he witnesses a murder and is forced to keep secrets that threaten to unravel his family and their community.

  11. A Stranger in the House

    Shari Lapena

    ★ 3.6 (79k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    A woman wakes from a car crash with amnesia, only to find her perfect suburban life unraveling as police suspect her, and a sinister presence invades her home, revealing that everyone, even her husband, is a stranger with deadly secrets.

  12. Airframe

    Michael Crichton

    ★ 3.7 (77k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    After a routine flight turns into a bloody mid-air mystery, a corporate investigator races to find out what happened on the crippled jet before public opinion and corporate rivals ruin the airline's reputation.

  13. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

    John le Carré

    ★ 4.1 (77k) average on GoodreadsMystery
  14. The Strain

    Guillermo del Toro

    ★ 3.8 (77k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    When a silent, dark plane lands at JFK, a CDC doctor uncovers a chilling vampiric contagion that forces him to join a Holocaust survivor and an unlikely team in a desperate fight to save New York City from an ancient, bloodthirsty evil.

  15. The King of Torts

    John Grisham

    ★ 3.7 (77k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    A public defender's routine murder case turns into a complex conspiracy against a pharmaceutical company, offering him a life-changing fortune or professional ruin.

  16. The Secret of the Nagas

    Amish Tripathi

    ★ 4.1 (77k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    Haunted by betrayal, Shiva, the prophesied destroyer of evil, quests across ancient India to unmask a Naga warrior and unravel a web of deceit that threatens his faith and world.

  17. Broken Harbor

    Tana French

    ★ 3.9 (76k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    Detective Scorcher Kennedy unearths a chilling conspiracy behind a family's murder in a desolate, half-built luxury estate, forcing him to confront the dark, buried secrets of his own past tied to the same haunted ground.

  18. Rules of Prey

    John Sandford

    ★ 4.1 (75k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    A serial killer who enjoys outsmarting the police with traps meets his intellectual match in Lieutenant Lucas Davenport.

  19. American Assassin

    Vince Flynn

    ★ 4.2 (75k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    After the Lockerbie attack kills his girlfriend, Mitch Rapp changes from a college athlete into a deadly black ops agent, enacting revenge across Europe and Beirut.

  20. The Rooster Bar

    John Grisham

    ★ 3.6 (75k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    Three law students, burdened by predatory debt from a fraudulent institution, devise a plan to expose the corrupt system and escape financial ruin by quitting school just months before graduation.

  21. A Reliable Wife

    Robert Goolrick

    ★ 3.3 (74k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    An isolated, wealthy businessman and a calculating woman with a secret plan marry, each intending to kill the other, only to find their sinister goals complicated by an unexpected love.

  22. Only Time Will Tell

    Jeffrey Archer

    ★ 4.1 (74k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    A dockworker's son in 1920s Bristol learns a secret about his parents, moving him from the shipyards to an elite school and forcing a choice between Oxford and WWII, all while questioning who he is.

  23. The Beach

    Alex Garland

    ★ 3.9 (74k) average on GoodreadsLifestyle

    On a secluded Thai island, an adventurous backpacker's discovery of a utopian beach community quickly devolves into a struggle for survival as human nature's darker side erodes paradise.

  24. 61 Hours

    Lee Child

    ★ 4.1 (74k) average on GoodreadsMystery

    Stranded in a brutal South Dakota snowstorm, Jack Reacher finds himself in a desperate race against a professional assassin to protect a lone woman whose testimony could expose a town's deadly secrets, all while a ticking clock counts down their final 61 hours.

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