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.

What You Did, an Engaging Psychological Thriller by Claire McGowan

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The Bottom Line: Big Little Lies meets The Big Chill. A thoroughly engaging whodunnit. Ah, reunions. They are always filled with both anticipation and dread. But in Claire McGowan’s new novel, the 20th anniversary get together of six college friends is also a deadly one. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted: a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with

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Touched Back, an Intoxicating Political Thriller by John Vance

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The Bottom Line: An intoxicating thriller that has it all: murder, romance, sports and politics. Fans of Harlan Coben’s superb Myron Bolitar series will love Touched Back. When the president’s brother-in-law is gunned down at the university where he coaches football, the murder sends shockwaves throughout the school’s Washington D.C. alumni. Unfortunately, the first family has little time to grieve. The killer is just getting

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This Storm, a Smoldering New LA Crime Thriller by James Ellroy

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The Bottom Line: Elloy’s most challenging work yet, This Storm is strictly for fans of LA Noir and James Ellroy completionists. With This Storm, the author of classics like LA Confidential and Black Dahlia has entered yet another novel in the canon of crime thrillers set in the city of angels. As torrential rain hits LA in 1942, a body is unearthed in Griffith Park. The cops

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Black Frog, a Small-Town Crime Thriller that Fires on All Cylinders

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The Bottom Line: Get in on the ground floor of this engrossing small-town crime thriller. Highly recommended for fans of C.J. Box and Craig Johnson. In B.D. Smith’s second Detective Douglas Bateman series novel, Bateman is called to investigate multiple axe murders in northern Maine. Bateman, who serves with Maine’s Major Crimes Unit, soon discovers that the victims attended a town hall meeting to voice

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Fishermen’s Court, a Smart Crime Thriller by Andy Wolfendon

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The Bottom Line: An exciting, fresh new voice delivers a thoughtful crime thriller. Perfect for fans of Jessica Knoll and Liane Moriarty. By his own admission, 38-year-old Finnian Carroll doesn’t have much to live for. He still lives at home, though his parents are long dead. He survived suicide and is depressed enough to give it another try. Until three intruders try to murder him

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Solving Cadence Moore, a Highly Recommended Mystery by Gregory Sterner

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The Bottom Line: Solving Cadence Moore is the quintessential mystery for the podcast era. Highly recommended. In the age of hit true crime podcasts like Serial, Criminal and My Favorite Murder, debut novelist Gregory Sterner has delivered the first work of fiction to effectively capture the contemporary media zeitgeist. Prepare to be hooked on page one, and stay tuned for the jaw-dropping final chapter. Radio

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To Hell with Johnny Manic, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers

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The Bottom Line: One of the year’s best thrillers. Part psychological suspense, part contemporary noir, Johnny Manic is wonderfully unreliable. Tom Gantry, a.k.a. Johnny Manis, a.k.a. Johnny Manic, is having an identity crisis of epidemic proportions. As Tom tells it, the gregarious, effortlessly cool Johnny Manis became legendary in the tech world for making a fortune off mobile video games, publishing a manifesto, then deleting

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White Oaks, an Ingeniously Dark Comic Thriller by Jill Hand

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The Bottom Line: A thriller about greed, gluttony and murder that is destined for the big screen. The promise of inheritance has divided families since the beginning of time, and from time to time has ended in murder. But novelist Jill Hand’s White Oaks has introduced an ingenious new twist on the time-old tale, as three siblings hoping to get a cut of their father’s

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The Disappeared, an Evocative Thriller by Sibel Hodge

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The Bottom Line: Lush and evocative. The perfect introduction to Sibel Hodge, one of the decade’s most dynamic literary talents. Set in the fictional West African country of Narumbe (you thought I was going to say Wakanda, didn’t you?), author Sibel Hodge delivers a taut thriller that could be a bonafide blockbuster. While Hodge commits the cardinal sin of calling her own book “gripping” (check the

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Don’t Fear, My Darling is Impossible to Put Down

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The Bottom Line: A wonderfully claustrophobic murder mystery with a razor-sharp amateur sleuth. As long as there have been artists, there have been long-suffering personal assistants. But author Laura Stewart Schmidt, author of the deftly-written Until Proven Innocent, manages to deliver plenty of surprises in Don’t Fear, My Darling. In 1987, twenty-two-year-old Louisa Berry is desperate for a job, leading her to apply for a

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