Best Thriller Books

Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between Los Angeles courthouses. When a wealthy Beverly Hills client hires him to fight a serious assault charge, Haller begins to suspect the man is guilty of something far worse — and that he has defended it before.

When the US government launches a covert military operation against Colombian drug cartels, Deputy National Security Advisor Jack Ryan uncovers a political conspiracy to disavow the soldiers involved — leaving them to die in the jungle rather than admit the mission existed.

When the Pope dies suddenly, the College of Cardinals gathers in the Sistine Chapel to elect his successor. Behind the locked doors of the Vatican, Dean of the College Cardinal Lomeli presides over a conclave of intrigue, ambition, and hidden sin — where faith and politics are indistinguishable.

Ex-military cop Jack Reacher is arrested for a murder he did not commit in a small Georgia town and uncovers a massive counterfeiting conspiracy that cost his brother his life.

An eighteenth-century Paris parfumeur with an extraordinary sense of smell and no odor of his own commits a series of murders to create the world's most perfect perfume.

The conclusion of the Inheritance Games trilogy finds Avery Grambs confronting the final deadly game of the Hawthorne brothers as she races to solve the mystery of Tobias Hawthorne's true intentions before time runs out.

A young Harvard Law graduate is recruited by a small but wealthy Memphis firm — and soon discovers it is run by the mob, the FBI wants him to spy on it, and leaving may cost him his life.

Lisbeth Salander, recovering from near-fatal wounds, faces a murder trial while Mikael Blomkvist races to expose the secret government faction that has controlled and abused her since childhood.

A seemingly airtight case against a beloved teacher accused of murder begins to unravel when impossible evidence suggests someone — or something — else was responsible.

DC homicide detective and forensic psychologist Alex Cross is called to investigate when a brilliant, media-obsessed killer kidnaps two children from a prestigious private school — drawing Cross into the most complex and personal case of his career.

A hitman who only kills bad people takes one last job but finds himself entangled with an unexpected companion and a plot to destroy him.

On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne's wife Amy disappears, and the investigation reveals two people who may be nothing like who they claimed to be.

Dublin Murder Squad detective Rob Ryan investigates a child murder in the woods where, as a boy, he survived a mysterious incident that left his two friends vanished and his memory blank.

Alex Cross races to catch two serial killers simultaneously — one targeting children in his own Washington DC neighbourhood, another assassinating celebrities in an escalating pattern. Patterson's dual-threat plot is the Alex Cross series at its most propulsive.

A neuroscientist builds a device that can record and restore memories, effectively allowing people to return to pivotal moments in their lives. But when her technology is weaponized, it threatens to destroy the very fabric of reality — and only a New York detective who has lived through multiple timelines can stop it.

Lisbeth Salander becomes the prime suspect in a double murder as journalist Mikael Blomkvist desperately works to expose a sex trafficking ring and prove her innocence.

Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist investigates the decades-old disappearance of a wealthy family's niece, partnering with the brilliant and deeply damaged Lisbeth Salander.

When a stranger leaves his entire fortune to seventeen-year-old Avery Grambs, she must move into his mansion and solve a series of puzzles to uncover why.

Six years after the Jurassic Park disaster, a separate island — Site B — is discovered still teeming with dinosaurs that have been surviving without human interference. Ian Malcolm leads a small expedition to study them, unaware that they're not the only ones there.

A young mother and her boyfriend vanish after a night out, a note is found with a cryptic clue, and the rural English countryside hides more than a missing persons case.

When two Supreme Court justices are assassinated in one night, law student Darby Shaw writes a speculative legal brief identifying a likely suspect — a powerful oil baron with everything to lose. The brief reaches the wrong hands, and suddenly Darby is running for her life.

A criminal psychotherapist becomes obsessed with uncovering why a famous painter shot her husband five times in the face and has not spoken a single word since.

A communist spy embedded in the South Vietnamese army narrates his journey from the fall of Saigon through Los Angeles exile to reeducation camp, examining what it means to be perpetually between worlds.

San Francisco detective Lindsay Boxer, recently diagnosed with a blood disease, teams up with a journalist, an assistant DA, and a medical examiner to catch a serial killer targeting newlywed couples. The first Women's Murder Club novel launched a beloved second Patterson series.