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.

Scissorman, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers

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The Bottom Line: One of the year’s best thrillers. Simultaneously playful and edgy, Scissorman is a generous helping of dazzling contemporary detective fiction. In Henry Chancellor’s Scissorman, a wealthy American living in London kicks off what promises to be the most celebrated annual scavenger hunt in history: the search for King Arthur’s mythical sword, Excalibur. The book kicks off in dramatic fashion on July 13th, […]

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The Fisherman’s Daughter, a Mesmerizing FBI Thriller by Robin Barefield

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The Bottom Line: A mesmerizing FBI thriller set in the Alaskan wilderness. After the bodies of four murdered women are found on Alaska’s Kodiak Island, FBI Special Agent Nick Morgan flies to Kodiak to aid in the investigation. Morgan’s local contact, Alaska State Trooper Dan Patterson, fears a serial killer is at work. But finding the perpetrator won’t be easy. The victims have very little

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James Swain

The King Tides, a Gripping Crime Thriller by James Swain

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The Bottom Line: A delicious book about vigilante justice that will surprise you at every turn. Most of us never have to deal with even a single stalker. What if you had a seemingly endless string of them? In the first book in James Swain’s Lancaster & Daniels series, Nicki Pearl is the perfect daughter. Almost too perfect. Wherever she goes, she’s being watched. Each

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Lily White Lie, a Cozy Mystery by Connie Chappell

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The Bottom Line: Fans of cozy mysteries will enjoy this latest Wrenn Grayson series book. The latest entry in the Connie Chappell’s Wrenn Grayson series begins with a family investigation. The twenty-nine-year-old historian is spending Thanksgiving week alone at their rural farmhouse when an uninvited visitor arrives. Bret Kilmore, an old college friend of Wrenn’s boyfriend of seven years, Gideon Junior, claims to have a

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Game Piece, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers

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The Bottom Line: One of the year’s best thrillers. When Texas detective Barry Marshall receives an anonymous tip on a stolen Chevy truck, he knows that something is off. The caller urges him to come quickly, claiming to fear for his own life, and the truck description matches an active case Marshall is working. But when Marshall arrives, there’s no truck in sight – just

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The Girl Next Door, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers

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The Bottom Line: One of the year’s best thrillers, The Girl Next Door had me at “donuts and high heels.” This cheeky, stylish and sophisticated novel is a must for anyone who loves unreliable narrators. Lisa Aurello’s The Girl Next Door begins with a murder, then rewinds a few weeks to eavesdrop on a conspiratorial café conversation between her likely killers. But in a clever

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The Moving Blade, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers, by Michael Pronko

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The Bottom Line: One of the year’s best thrillers. A string of grisly murders, high stakes geopolitics and the prose of a master craftsman elevate this crime thriller to rarefied air. What do a murdered American diplomat, a set of rare erotic Japanese wood block prints, and an agreement to keep American bases in Japan have in common? That’s the question facing investigators in The

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Zyklon, a Timely Political Thriller by John Hazen

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The Bottom Line: A brazen political thriller for our times. Timely, spellbinding and entirely plausible. The follow up to John Hazen’s brilliant novel, Fava (which made our list of The Best FBI Thrillers), centers on a reporter chasing both a serial killer and an incendiary presidential campaign. Told from the point of view of TV news anchor Francine Vega, Zyklon opens as Vega introduces the story

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The Death of Vultures, a Dark Psychological Thriller by Susan Wingate

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The Bottom Line: This grim mystery about guilt, loss and the dark allure of vigilante justice is unlike anything you’ve read this year. Set on an island in the rural Pacific Northwest, Susan Wingate’s The Death of Vultures tells the story of a heartbroken middle-aged woman, Meg Storm, and her struggle to come to grips with the deaths of her husband and daughter. Both died

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The Thin Blue Sliver, a Hardboiled Crime Thriller by Troy Adami

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The Bottom Line: A delicious helping of contemporary noir from an exciting newcomer to the genre. Fans of hardboiled crime fiction legends Dennis Lehane, Jo Nesbo and Raymond Chandler will love The Thin Blue Sliver. Troy Adami’s crime novel opens in a Fort Lauderdale bar circa 2005, as former Miami-Dade Police Department homicide detective John Moss takes up his usual place at the bar. An

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