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.

Blue Ridge, a High-Stakes Crime Thriller by James Foley

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The Bottom Line: The kind of second series book that fans expect: bigger stakes, harder questions and much more to lose. The second book in James Foley’s Lisa Owens series moves its protagonist from Miami homicide work into an FBI investigation stretching between Washington, D.C., and North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Foley begins with a massacre whose consequences will echo for half a century, opening […]

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Before the Devil Knows, An Irresistible Crime Thriller by R. John Dingle

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The Bottom Line: Irresistible. Before the Devil Knows pushes Dingle’s Gus Wheeler series into its darkest terrain yet, where religious terror and ritual murder collide. Before the Devil Knows opens in the Maine woods with the kind of betrayal that makes a book impossible to put down. Teenager Adam Carson is dragged from his bed, hooded, beaten and chained to a tree and surrounded by

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GLORIA, a Tender and Terrifying Psychological Thriller by Howard Seaborne

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The Bottom Line: Small town noir that is as tender as it is terrifying, GLORIA mesmerizes while asking whether the greatest mysteries live not in the world, but in our minds. GLORIA begins in small-town Wisconsin as Henry Halder, a boy on the cusp of adolescence, loses both legs in a tragic accident. What exactly happened is elusive. While in and out of consciousness across many surgeries, he’s told

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Storm Damage, a Captivating Crime Thriller by Terry R. Bacon

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The Bottom Line: A captivating crime thriller led by an unlikely hero with a saxophone, a big heart, and a talent for finding trouble. Thirty-four-year-old blues musician Sonny Marshall, already struggling with chronic pain and oxycodone dependence, is playing with his band in San Francisco when he learns that girlfriend Detective Sergeant Katrina “Kat” Hastings has been shot while responding to a mass shooting.  Sonny

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Dead Exit, a White-Knuckled Crime Thriller That Works on Every Level

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The Bottom Line: A double-shot of murder, dark humor and white-knuckled suspense that works on every level. Dead Exit will wow newcomers and satisfy series die-hards. The third entry in Michael Balter’s Marty Schott and Bo Bishop series brings the sharp-tongued business partners home to Portland, Oregon, and gives them a crisis that feels more intimate, more destabilizing and ultimately more revealing. The book opens with a 1 a.m.

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Merry-Go-Round Broke Down, a Breathtaking Financial Thriller

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The Bottom Line: A breathtaking financial thriller about globalization’s winners, losers and casualties, bound together by money and fate. Merry-Go-Round Broke Down may be the smartest novel you read all year. Merry-Go-Round Broke Down opens in the fall of 2008 at the Waldorf Astoria New York, where two armed men storm the hotel’s famed bar and take its occupants hostage. Among those trapped are an

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Rico Stays, a Masterclass in Antihero Crime Fiction by Ed Duncan

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The Bottom Line: A riveting, unsentimental crime thriller about the kind of man decent people should avoid, right up until they need him. A masterclass in antihero crime fiction. Rico Stays opens with the kind of ordinary Chicago afternoon that is too calm to last. Rico, a seasoned enforcer with a long criminal history, is watching baseball when his girlfriend, Jean, asks him to pick

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Under Cover of Chaos, a High-Stakes International Crime Thriller

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The Bottom Line: Under Cover of Chaos turns a UN field mission into a vivid, high-stakes hunt for a serial killer in a setting readers won’t soon forget. As 32-year-old United Nations employee Stella Fairmont arrives in the Central African Republic for her first field mission, she encounters a corpse on the road from the airport. She soon learns that the victim is connected to

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A Tempest Dropping Fire, an Urban Police Thriller by Edward J. Leahy

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The Bottom Line: NYPD detectives are the target of a terrifying killer in this taut urban cop thriller. Kim Brady’s refusal to accept the easy answer makes for a thoroughly entertaining police procedural with some satisfying surprises. As Edward J. Leahy’s fifth Kim Brady series book opens, the NYPD homicide detective is finishing her first half-marathon in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Just as she begins to

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Rough, Rough Country, a Neo-Western Thriller by Josh Jensen

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The Bottom Line: A neo-Western thriller as rugged as its terrain and as haunted as the men who cross it. Highly recommended for fans of Craig Johnson and Cormac McCarthy.  As Rough, Rough Country opens, a cartel-hired assassin known as The Texan is watching his mark in Las Vegas. The killing that follows is cold, controlled, and staged to mislead. Cut to Payson, Utah, where

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