12 Gripping Thrillers and Mystery Books
Are you an avid reader in search of heart-pounding excitement and captivating plots? Look no further! We've curated a collection of 12 gripping thrillers and mystery books that will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. Get ready to dive into a world of suspense, intrigue, and unputdownable storytelling!
Whether you're a fan of psychological thrillers, intricate mysteries, or pulse-pounding suspense, this collection has something for every reader seeking an enthralling literary experience. So, what are you waiting for? Dive into these captivating books today and let yourself be transported to a world of gripping intrigue and unrelenting suspense.
After Death
by Dean Koontz
A modern-day Lazarus is humanity's last hope in a breathtaking novel about the absolute powers of good and evil by Dean Koontz, the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.
Michael Mace, head of security at a top-secret research facility, opens his eyes in a makeshift morgue twenty-four hours following an event in which everyone perished--including him and his best friend, Shelby Shrewsberry.
Having awakened with an extraordinary ability unlike anything he--or anyone else--has ever imagined, Michael is capable of being as elusive as a ghost. He sets out to honor his late friend by helping Nina Dozier and her son, John, whom Shelby greatly admired. Although what Michael does for Nina is life changing, his actions also evoke the wrath of John's father, a member of one of the most violent street gangs in Los Angeles.
The Beast You Are: Stories
by Paul Tremblay
A haunting collection of short fiction from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World.
Paul Tremblay has won widespread acclaim for illuminating the dark horrors of the mind in novels and stories that push the boundaries of storytelling itself. The fifteen pieces in this brilliant collection, The Beast You Are, are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart.
In "The Dead Thing," a middle-schooler struggles to deal with the aftermath of her parents' substance addictions and split. One day, her little brother claims he found a shoebox with "the dead thing" inside. He won't show it to her and he won't let the box out of his sight. In "The Last Conversation," a person wakes in a sterile, white room and begins to receive instructions via intercom from a woman named Anne. When they are finally allowed to leave the room to complete a task, what they find is as shocking as it is heartbreaking.
Behold the Monster: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer
by Jillian Lauren - Michael Connelly
Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she wrote her first letter to prolific serial killer Samuel Little. All she knew was her research had led her to believe he was good for far more murders than the three for which he had been convicted. While the two exchanged dozens of letters and embarked on hundreds of hours of interviews, Lauren gained the trust of a monster. After maintaining his innocence for decades, Little confessed to the murders of ninety-three women, often drawing his victims in haunting detail as he spoke. How could one man evade justice, manipulating the system for over four decades?
As the FBI, the DOJ, the LAPD, and countless law enforcement officials across the country worked to connect their cold cases with the confessions, Lauren's coverage of the investigations and obsession with Little's victims only escalated.
Circle of Death: A Shadow Thriller
by James Patterson - Brian Sitts
When a ruthless killer seeks to overturn the world order, our only hope is vigilante justice.
Since Lamont Cranston - known to a select few as the Shadow - defeated Shiwan Khan and ended his reign of terror over New York one year ago, the city has started to regenerate.
But there is evil brewing elsewhere. And this time the entire world is under threat.
Which is why Lamont has scoured the globe to assemble a team with unmatched talent. Only their combined powers can foil an enemy with ambitions and abilities beyond anyone's deepest fears.
As their mission takes them across the globe and into the highest corridors of power - pushing them beyond their limits - can justice prevail?
Genealogy of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night
by Lisa Belkin
Independence Day weekend, 1960: a young cop is murdered, shocking his close-knit community in Stamford, Connecticut. The killer remains at large, his identity still unknown. But on a beach not far away, a young Army doctor, on vacation from his post at a research lab in a maximum-security prison, faces a chilling realization. He knows who the shooter is. In fact, the man--a prisoner out on parole--had called him only days before. By helping his former charge and trainee, the doctor, a believer in second chances, may have inadvertently helped set the murder into motion. And with that one phone call, may have sealed a policeman's fate.
Alvin Tarlov, David Troy, and Joseph DeSalvo were all born of the Great Depression, all with grandparents who'd left different homelands for the same American Dream. How did one become a doctor, one a cop, and one a convict? In Genealogy of a Murder, journalist Lisa Belkin traces the paths of each of these three men--one of them her stepfather. Her canvas is large, spanning the first half of the 20th century: immigration, the struggles of the working class, prison reform, medical experiments, politics and war, the nature/nurture debate, epigenetics, the infamous Leopold and Loeb case, and the history of motorcycle racing. It is also intimate: a look into the workings of the mind and heart.
Little, Crazy Children: A True Crime Tragedy of Lost Innocence
by James Renner
For readers of Ann Rule and Gregg Olsen, a riveting new true crime book from the acclaimed author of True Crime Addict and creator/host of the podcasts True Crime This Week and The Philosophy of Crime, as he explores the unsolved murder of 16-year-old Lisa Pruett in the real life town of the bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere for a painstakingly researched account of a senseless and heartbreaking tragedy and the people who were pulled into its aftermath.
In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett, a poetry lover and member of a church youth group, was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend, when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home.
The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. Together they wove a damning narrative that circled back to a likely suspect: "weird" high school outcast Kevin Young. Without a shred of evidence the teen was arrested, charged, and tried for the crime. His eventual acquittal didn't squelch the anger and outrage among those who believed that Kevin got away with murder.
Maeve Fly
by Cj Leede
"This is gory and brutal and beautiful and painful and terrifying and a pure delight." --Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author
By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child's favorite ice princess.
By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes.
But when Gideon Green - her best friend's brother - moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet.
Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it's Maeve's turn with the knife.
"An apocalyptic Anaheim Psycho." --Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House
Out of Nowhere
by Sandra Brown
#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with a fast-paced, emotional thriller where the lives of a young mother and a high-rolling consultant collide under devastating circumstances--culminating in a desperate manhunt that will change their futures forever.
At a Texas county fair, amidst carousels and a bustling midway, children's book author Elle Portman is enjoying a rare night out with her favorite cowboy: her two-year-old son, Charlie. But just as they're about to head home, the unthinkable happens: a shooter opens fire into the crowd, causing widespread panic to erupt all around them.
Also caught in the melee was corporate consultant Calder Hudson. Arrogant, self-centered, and high off his latest career win, he's frustrated and confused when he wakes up in the hospital after undergoing emergency surgery on his arm. The doctor tells him that he was lucky--that as far as gunshot wounds go, he pulled through remarkably well. Others weren't so lucky, which instills in Calder a furious determination to get justice . . . a goal shared by Elle.
Rogue Justice: A Thriller
by Stacey Abrams
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The #1 bestselling author of While Justice Sleeps returns with another riveting and intricately plotted thriller, in which a blackmailed federal judge, a secret court and a brazen murder may lead to an unprecedented national crisis.
"Abrams delivers another smart, zippy thriller." --Washington Post
"A thoroughly compelling take on the machinations of Washington and those covetous of power." --New York Magazine
Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene is back, trying to get her feet on solid ground after unraveling an international conspiracy in While Justice Sleeps. But as the sparks of Congressional hearings and political skirmishes swirl around her, Avery is approached at a legal conference by Preston Davies, an unassuming young man and fellow law clerk to a federal judge in Idaho. Davies believes his boss, Judge Francesca Whitner, was being blackmailed in the days before she died. Desperate to understand what happened, he gives Avery a file, a burner phone, and a fearful warning that there are highly dangerous people involved.
Private Moscow
by James Patterson
The best international investigation series since Jason Bourne! In this action-packed thriller, an invitation from an old friend draws Private investigative agency founder Jack Morgan into a deadly conspiracy.
On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell.
But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark.In the aftermath of the murder, the victim's wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world's largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core. Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia, and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences.
The Viper: A Dave Gurney Novel
by John Verdon
Pushed to his breaking point and accused of murder, retired NYPD detective Dave Gurney must face his greatest adversary yet to solve a mystery that is quickly tearing his world apart.
Tennis bad boy Ziko Slade is serving twenty years for the grisly murder of small-time criminal Lenny Lerman. The facts of the case--and Slade's checkered past--seem indisputable. What begins as a cursory review of the case as a favor to Dave Gurney's wife's friend soon spirals into something much more complicated. When Gurney's involvement threatens to expose a viper's nest of corruption, he finds himself framed for murder and pursued by a sensational media, a ruthless district attorney, and a coldblooded killer.
As he evades the law and attempts to solve the case to salvage his reputation, Gurney grapples with the realization that his unshakable need for police work is costing him more than the brilliant detective ever suspected. The Viper is the most shocking and riveting chapter yet in the internationally bestselling Dave Gurney series.
What the Dead Know: Learning about Life as a New York City Death Investigator
by Barbara Butcher
A riveting, deeply personal memoir of more than twenty years of death-scene investigations by New York City death investigator Barbara Butcher.
Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner's Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous - she loved it.
Butcher (yes, that is her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides.