Thriller Book Reviews

The best thriller book reviews, including crime, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, legal thrillers, medical, psychological thrillers, sci-fi and more.

The Best Thriller Books of 2018

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Our 2018 fall list of the best mystery and thriller books so far is incredibly diverse, ranging the gamut from political thrillers to crime thrillers and everything in between. If there’s one thing that distinguishes this excellent batch of books, it’s character development. While losing sleep is practically guaranteed with any of our mid-year picks, each is a fast-moving tapestry of emotionally-driven art that you’ll […]

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A Knife’s Edge by Eliot Parker, a Memorable Crime Thriller by Eliot Parker

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The Bottom Line: A truly memorable police procedural for the 21st century. Trouble has a way of finding middle-aged Charleston Police Department Sergeant Ronan McCullough. While he appears in uniform at the dedication for a new children’s cancer center, it’s to support his boyfriend, Ty, an ER nurse. But those plans change when a vehicle slams into the building. Moments later, he discovers the driver

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Death by the River, an Addictive Teen Thriller by Alexandrea Weis and Lucas Astor

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The Bottom Line: A deliciously dark and timely teen crime thriller deserving of a TV series. While tackling heavy-duty subject matter with grace and sophistication, Death by the River is tailor-made for fans of Riverdale, Twin Peaks and Twilight. A monster lurks in the halls of Louisiana small town St. Benedict High School, and his name is Beau Devereaux. As high school students go, Devereaux

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Butterfly Hill, a Captivating Heist Novel by Brendan le Grange

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The Bottom Line: An exotic, utterly captivating heist novel featuring one of the genre’s most entertaining detectives. Butterfly Hill opens as fugitive stowaway Hiko Shimizu escapes the lower deck of a rusting fireboat, only to swim through toxic Hong Kong waters to find his father, a legendary bank robber. To say Hiko’s family is dysfunctional would be a vast understatement. Hiko may have plotted to

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Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

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The Bottom Line: For Game of Thrones completionists only. Game of Thrones fans come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the literary to TV-only crowd. There are no reliable stats as to how many readers the TV-show has generated, but more than a few TV-to-book converts have complained that the epic is about as readable as Moby Dick (not very), and at best, are

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Deep Background, a Home Run Political Thriller by Rick Treon

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The Bottom Line: An intelligent, textured and taut thriller about political corruption through the lens of a disgraced journalist. Levi Cole had enjoyed a remarkable career as a journalist, rising from a small-town sportswriter to regular cable news contributor and charming political pundit. But he owed much of his success to an anonymous source that led to his veritable takedown of the governor of Texas.

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Lethal White, a new Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith

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The Bottom Line: The best of J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series to date. For those not familiar with the series, Strike is a private investigator, ex–Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch investigator and the illegitimate son of famous rock star Johnny Rokeby. Strike lost part of a leg in an attack in Afghanistan. He had previously studied at Oxford, but left in his second year

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Outside Of Normal, an Engrossing Crime Thriller by James Shay

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The Bottom Line: Fans of serial killer fiction will find plenty of diabolical suspense in this engrossing thriller. Tailor-made for fans of Jo Nesbo and John Sandford. Somewhere in a corrugated metal shed, Washington University grad student Dina Levins wakes up from a chemically induced sleep. She recalls the horror of being taken from her car at a service station. She’s vaguely aware of the

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Encore: A Contemporary Love Story of Hypnotic Abduction, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers

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The Bottom Line: Magical, mysterious, sensual and utterly profound. One of the year’s best thrillers. When the dying star of a famous performance troupe goes missing right before show time, her standby, Miriam, prepares to take her place in the performance. As is their custom, Dune, the troupe’s leader, hypnotizes her before the curtain rises. In her trance, she believes she is Susan, the leading

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Flagstaff Station, a Rollercoaster Legal Thriller by John Ellsworth

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The Bottom Line: The resurrection of Ellsworth’s popular hero Thaddeus Murfee is a great entry point for new fans. The first book in the new Justice Series finds Flagstaff, Arizona attorney Thaddeus Murfee agreeing to help Special Agent Donnie Francisco as he faces down the Vittini mob. As you might imagine, Murfee soon finds himself in the crosshairs, and the warfare spans both the courtroom

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