Best Thrillers
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My pick of the best thrillers - books I've actually read, not a compilation of others' lists compiled again from others' lists. Spy novels figure strongly, but why?  Is deceitr and duplicity an important element?
best thrillers best thriller novels best spy novels thriller novel spy novels
 best thrillers - my picks why we could argue for ever about this, but if you are looking for the best thrillers &ndash and i&rsquo m talking books here, not films &ndash then this is my pick, across a range of sub-genres not all are selected for unremitting action &ndash some are recommended for other reasons, such as new concepts or &lsquo novel&rsquo style spy novels who is the master of this genre for me, it has to be john le carré he worked for the uk&rsquo s mi6 secret intelligence service and knows the score, inside out things have changed since his day, and in my view his earlier works are best my nomination in this category is &lsquo tinker, tailor, soldier, spy alternatives would be &lsquo restless&rsquo by william boyd, and &lsquo spies of the balkans&rsquo by alan furst horror &lsquo the flesh house&rsquo by stuart macbride realistic and suitably gruesome, with some great twists other obvious candidates include books by stephen king, but for me his best are more akin to occult than to horror sci-fi &lsquo neuromancer &rsquo by william gibson a debut novel, it won all three major sf prizes gibson was the author who coined the term &lsquo cyberspace&rsquo ok, you say, why include it in your best thriller novels if it is sf well, the fact is that when it was written in 1984 eerie coincidence with george orwell it was mainstream sf, but since then there has been so much technical/ computer/ communications progress that it is, now, close to realisation ghost story &lsquo the haunting of hill house&rsquo by shirley jackson my review of this best thrillers choice is elsewhere on this site, so i shan&rsquo t repeat it here action hard to choose here, but i&rsquo m plumping for &lsquo day of the jackal&rsquo by frederick forsyth i could opt for one of the bourne books by robert ludlum, but i think that forsyth&rsquo s book was seminal in the genre, even though the action is relatively low key i can&rsquo t let this category go though, without a mention of the jack reacher novels by lee child as is often the case with long-running novel franchises, the earlier ones are the best war story i&rsquo m not a great reader of this sub-genre, but one of the classics is &lsquo where eagles dare&rsquo by alistair maclean, though i do love &lsquo for whom the bell tolls&rsquo by ernest hemingway, set in the spanish civil war occult stephen king&rsquo s works should feature near the top of the list, but to provide a bit of variety i&rsquo m suggesting a novel which i read many years ago occult novels are, arguably, timeless so, &lsquo the devil rides out&rsquo by dennis wheatley comes in here don&rsquo t read it alone late at night some of dean koontz&rsquo s work is scary-modern, and he figures high on my list, preferably the earlier works techno-thrillers some would say that tom clancy established this genre - his &lsquo the hunt for red october&rsquo is deeply ingrained on my memory others would say it was craig thomas remember the clint eastwood film &lsquo firefox&rsquo this is a big arena now, with ex-air force jocks writing extensively in the genre thomas was a welshman, so i&rsquo m opting for firefox political thriller this is a tough one what is a political thriller exactly is it about superpower conflict, or a presidential election the watergate story would itself have made a great political thriller, but that&rsquo s a true story i think tom clancy with one of his later &lsquo jack ryan&rsquo books gets the nod here, and it&rsquo s going to be &lsquo patriot games&rsquo for me this could qualify as an action thriller too, and also verges on techno-thriller in many aspects crime thriller i cut my teeth on mickey spillane, even before i became a teenager elmore leonard too, and other cop classics now i like to read james lee burke his settings are superbly described, without being over-detailed try either of his writing streams &ndash dave robicheaux great evocation of new orleans pre-katrina, and later, post-katrina in &lsquo tin roof blowdown&rsquo , or billy bob holland &lsquo cimarron rose&rsquo in texas, then moved to missoula, montana &lsquo bitterroot&rsquo i almost have a mental map of missoula now, and pictures of the cottonwood trees along the river, and the fishing billy bob has problems with a personal &lsquo haunting&rsquo , and that adds a fascinating dimension in a way that doesn&rsquo t require any disbelief suspension &ndash it&rsquo s just there, and real finally i&rsquo ve listed nine sub-genres of thriller novels, and more than fifteen books when i set out to list ten it&rsquo s tough &ndash there are so many great novels out there however, this is not a consolidation of others&rsquo lists &ndash it a list based on what i&rsquo ve read myself similarly, checking best seller lists only tells you what has sold well, which is hugely impacted by marketing effectiveness looking back at these sub-genres of the best thrillers, i can see that spy novels or at least, espionage, in some degree cross several boundaries, into the political, war story and even action novel categories did my subconscious influence the choices what are spy novels anyway what makes a good one i&rsquo m looking forward to exploring that in my next article