Crime Thriller Books

The best crime thriller book reviews. “Crime thriller” is a catch-all term for thriller subgenres that feature a struggle for dominance between criminals and law enforcement, such as mafia thriller, police procedural, detective fiction, true crime, serial killer fiction and others.

Mystery of the Year: A Chain of Pearls by Raemi A. Ray

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The Bottom Line: Voted the year’s best Mystery novel in the 2024 BestThrillers.com Book Awards The year’s best mystery combines incredible atmosphere, a world-weary detective, a powerful politican and an amateur sleuth that everyone can easily relate to. When the body of a celebrated journalist is fished from the Edgartown Harbor, the official report rules his death accidental. But why was he alone on a […]

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DIVISIBLE MAN, an Exhilerating Superhero Origin Story by Howard Seaborne

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The Bottom Line: DIVISIBLE MAN reimagines the superhero origin story as both an exhilarating adventure and an exploration of power, relationships and community.  Howard Seaborne’s DIVISIBLE MAN series origin story begins as pilot Will Stewart wakes in a hospital room after a medical team worked diligently to repair his broken pelvis. Alone in his room after a morphine injection, he finds himself floating over the

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Crime Thriller of the Year: Chasing Money by Michael Balter

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The Bottom Line: Voted the year’s best Crime Thriller in the 2024 BestThrillers.com Book Awards Michael Balter’s debut crime thriller starts on a deliciously contrarian note. In declaring that an aspirational line in the Old Dominion song “No Such Thing as a Broken Heart” about following dreams is dead wrong, Balter’s narrator sets up the idea that greed is good, and a sucker (in this case an

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Action Thriller of the Year: Double Threat by Patrick Weill

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The Bottom Line: Voted the year’s best Action Thriller in the 2024 BestThrillers.com Book Awards How do you make a contemporary police procedural truly fresh? One way is to render your police detectives harbor police, so the jurisdiction, and all the ensuing action, spans both surf and turf. And for good measure, start your book with a gripping chapter told from the POV of a dog. The third book in

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Sci-Fi Thriller of the Year: Project Übermensch by Lonnie Busch

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The Bottom Line: Voted the year’s best Sci-Fi Thriller in the 2024 BestThrillers.com Book Awards North Carolina resident Geoffrey Cannon has a growing reputation as a benevolent healer. He detects illnesses. Like a messiah sent from God, he cures the gravely ill with a touch of his hand. A noted metaphysical author and speaker, he is revered as a source of comfort and hope for people

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Spy Thriller of the Year: The Spy Who Hated Me by Haris Orkin

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The Bottom Line: Voted the year’s best spy thriller in the 2024 BestThrillers.com Book Awards. Since the debut of the wildly funny You Only Live Once, the first book in Haris Orkin’s James Bond satire series, Orkin has been far more prolific than the material that originally inspired him. The latest installment in Orkin’s James Flynn Escapade series, The Spy Who Hated Me, is Orkin’s fifth since the

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NIGHTMARE BEFORE MARDI GRAS, an Unflinching Police Thriller by Robert Sterling Hecker

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The Bottom Line: A fast-paced, unflinching police procedural about a detective’s personal mission to solve a heinous child sex crime. In Robert Sterling Hecker’s debut novel, The Accidental Vigilante, detective Jeremy Porter quickly transformed from a rookie in New Orlean’s Child Abuse Section into an unstoppable force for justice. Hecker’s second novel featuring Porter, who is now the squad supervisor for the New Orleans Police Department’s Child

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Black Yéʼii, a Must-Read Small Town Crime Thriller by Joseph Lewis

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The Bottom Line: A must-read small town crime thriller that will please new and old fans. Black Yéʼii opens in Waukesha, Wisconsin, as Carmen Benevides finds three terrifying strangers on her doorstep. The trio is searching for her teenage son, Angel, and they won’t take no for an answer. Minutes later, Angel receives a text message from his mother’s phone: I need you to come home right away. It’s

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Last Call, a Brilliantly Told Crime Thriller by Travis Tougaw

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The Bottom Line: Brilliantly told, this nail-biter about the effort to free a convicted killer will make you question everything you know about our legal system. Highly recommended.  Last Call opens in a hole-in-the-wall bar in Denver, Colorado. It’s 2004, and bartender Paul Humphries is worried about a boisterous troublemaker sitting at a corner table named Dennis. After Dennis starts aggressively hitting on three much younger women,

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EIGHT BALL, a Must-Read Assassination Thriller by Howard Seaborne

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The Bottom Line: A must-read assassination thriller that pits a lovable superhero against a sniper targeting American extremists.  The eighth book in Howard Seaborne’s DIVISIBLE MAN series returns lovable superhero Will Stewart to a crisis that threatens to rip America apart. A pilot by trade, Will doesn’t need the assistance of a stealth aircraft in order to fly, vanish and reappear. With a touch, he can help

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