Must-Read Thrillers

The International Thriller Writers selection of the Must-Read Thrillers is comprised of works chosen based on the "impact that each had on the genre." In addition, only one title by an author was chosen. The titles are in chronological order from earliest (1838) to current (1995).

1		Edgar Allan Poe. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym After reading an 1836 newspaper account of a shipwreck and its two survivors, Edgar Allan Poe penned his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the story of a stowaway on a Nantucket whaleship who finds himself enmeshed in the dark side of life at sea: mutiny, cannibalism, savagery-even death.
2		Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, The Count of Monet Cristo recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal.
3		Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White Generally considered the first English sensation novel, The Woman in White features the remarkable heroine Marian Halcombe and her sleuthing partner, drawing master Walter Hartright, pitted against the diabolical team of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde. A gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness, and mistaken identity.
4		H. Rider Haggard. King Solomon's Mines An elephant hunter's chronicle of his safari into the interior of South Africa to search for a fabled diamond mine and to rescue the brother of the English gentleman who accompanies him across the deserts and mountains.
5		Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde In Stevenson's famous supernatural story of good versus evil, meet the well-intentioned, wealthy physician Dr. Jeckyll who, through the use of drugs, unleashes the dark side of his nature, the hideous Mr. Hyde.
6		Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray Enthralled by his own exquisite partrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.
7		Bram Stoker. Dracula Nosferatu, vrolok, demon--for centuries he has ruled armies of wolves, hordes of rats, legions of the undead. Six people have faced his horror--and lived. And now these mortals dare to hunt him, dare to risk their lives and souls--to challenge the evil of Dracula.
8		Rudyard Kipling. Kim Reared in the teeming streets of India at the turn of the century, the orphan Kim is the 'Friend of all the world', an imp with an endless interest in the extraordinary characters he meets daily. One of them, an old Tibetan lama, sets him on the path that will lead him to travel the Great Trunk Road, and become a spy for the British.
9		Joseph Conrad. Heart Of Darkness His narrator, Marlow, travels into the heart of the Congo to retrieve Mr. Kurtz, a promising young agent who has disappeared into the bush. Throughout Marlow's harrowing journey, Conrad maintains an unflinching focus on the crassness and avarice of which human society is capable, ultimately revealing that "the horror" Kurtz fears lies within us all.
10		A. Conan Doyle. The Hound of the Baskervilles The most famous of the Sherlock Holmes stories features the spectral hound of Dartmoor, which, according to an ancient legend, has haunted the Baskerville family for generations. When Sir Charles Baskerville dies suddenly of a heart attack on the grounds of the estate, the locals are convinced the ghost dog is responsible, and Holmes is called in.
11		Erskine Childers. The Riddle of the Sands Against the backdrop of the Anglo-German Great Naval Race, Carruthers and his friend, Davies, explore the Frisian Islands in the North Sea. Their discovery of a carefully laid plan for the invasion of England creates a spellbinding adventure story.
12		Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes When Tarzan is orphaned as a baby deep in the African jungle, the apes adopt him and raise him as their own. By the time he's ten, he can swing through the trees and talk to the animals. By the time Tarzan is 18, he has the strength of a lion and rules the apes as their king. But Tarzan knows he's different and yearns to discover his true identity.
13		Marie Belloc Lowndes. The Lodger In 1888, a series of prostitutes were brutally murdered in the East End of London. These gruesome crimes filled the press and shook England with fear and intrigue. Marie Belloc Lowndes established her considerable reputation as a crime writer through her fictional account of these murders. Dealing with not only the psychology of "The Avenger"--her version of Jack the Ripper--but also with that of his landlady, Mrs. Bunting, who never gives away his secret, Lowndes creates an atmosphere of suspense, fear, and horror. [eBook]
14		John Buchan. The 39 Steps Richard Hannay, who, despite claiming to be an "ordinary fellow," is caught up in the dramatic and dangerous race against a plot to devastate the British war effort.
15		Rafael Sabatini. Scaramouche A lawyer until his best friend is struck down by a member of the aristocracy, Andre-Louis Moreau becomes Scaramouche the clown, a comic figure with a serious message who takes refuge with a nomadic band of acting improvisers. Set during the French Revolution, this novel is also a thought-provoking commentary on class, inequality, and the individual's role in society.
16		Richard Connell. The Most Dangerous Game On his way to hunt jaguars in the Brazilian jungle, a professional hunter is marooned on remote island inhabited by a fellow hunter who pursues unusual game. [Short Story]
17		W. Somerset Maugham. Ashenden. or The Secret Agent A collection of stories rooted in Maugham's own experiences as an agent, reflecting the ruthlessness and brutality of espionage, its intrigue and treachery, as well as its absurdity.
18		James M. Cain. The Postman Always Rings Twice An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one grisly solution--a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.
19		Eric Ambler. A Coffin for Dimitrios A chance encounter with a Turkish colonel with a penchant for British crime novels leads mystery writer Charles Latimer into a world of sinister political and criminal maneuvers throughout the Balkans in the years between the world wars. Hoping that the career of the notorious Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an Istanbul morgue, will inspire a plot for his next novel, Latimer soon finds himself caught up in a shadowy web of assassination, espionage, drugs, and treachery.
20		Geoffrey Household. Rogue Male
21		Helen MacInnes. Above Suspicion Affable Oxford professor and his jaunty bride are off on a romantic romp through Europe -- until they're asked by British intelligence to track down a missing agent.
22		Cornell Woolrich. The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
23		Kenneth Fearing. The Big Clock
24		Graham Greene. The Third Man Rollo Martins' usual line is the writing of cheap paperback Westerns under the name of Buck Dexter. But when his old friend Harry Lime invites him to Vienna, he jumps at the chance. With exactly five pounds in his pocket, he arrives only just in time to make it to his friend's funeral. The victim of an apparently banal street accident, the late Mr. Lime, it seems, had been the focus of a criminal investigation, suspected of nothing less than being "the worst racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city." Martins is determined to clear his friend's name, and begins an investigation of his own...
25		Patricia Highsmith. Strangers on a Train Two men, a tennis star and a psychopath, meet by chance on a train and "swap" murders. "Strangers on a Train", Highsmith's first novel, was the source for Alfred Hitchcock's classic masterpiece.
26		Jim Thompson. The Killer Inside Me Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring.  But, then, most people don't know about the sickness --the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again.
27		Daphne du Maurier. The Birds A farmer and his family live in an isolated part of England.  Birds begin to gather, and attack, in greater and greater numbers as the story progresses. [Short Story]
28		Hammond Innes. Campbell's Kingdom
29		Jack Finney. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovered an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms were taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loved -- the world as he knew it.
30		Ian Fleming. From Russia with Love The lethal SMERSH organization in Russia has targeted Agent 007 for elimination. But when James Bond allows himself to be lured to Istanbul and walks willingly into a trap, a game of cross and double-cross ensues, with Bond as both the stakes and the prize.
31		Richard Condon. The Manchurian Candidate A terrifying and suspenseful political thriller featuring Sergeant Raymond Shaw, ex-prisoner of war, Medal of Honor winner, American hero...and brainwashed assassin.
32		Len Deighton. The Ipcress File For the working-class narrator, an apparently straightforward mission to find a missing biochemist becomes a journey to the heart of a dark and deadly conspiracy. [Audio Book]
33		Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey. Seven Days in May
34		John le Carre. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold When the last agent under his command is killed and Alec Leamas is called back to London, he hopes to come in from the cold for good. His spymaster, Control, however, has other plans. Determined to bring down the head of East German Intelligence and topple his organization, Control once more sends Leamas into the fray -- this time to play the part of the dishonored spy and lure the enemy to his ultimate defeat.
35		Alistair MacLean. Ice Station Zebra The Dolphin, pride of America's nuclear fleet, is the only submarine capable of attempting the rescue of a British meteorological team trapped on the polar ice cap. The officers of the Dolphin know well the hazards of such an assignment. What they do not know is that the rescue attempt is really a cover-up for one of the most desperate espionage missions of the Cold War -- and that the Dolphin is heading straight for sub-zero disaster, facing hidding sabotage, murder . . . and a deadly, invisible enemy . . .
36		Adam Hall. The Quiller Memorandum
37		Michael Crichton. The Andromeda Strain When an unmanned satellite returns to earth lethally contaminated, four American scientists are ordered to a secret lab to work against the threat of a orldwide epidemic.
38		James Dickey. Deliverance The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the states most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.
39		Frederick Forsyth. The Day of the Jackal The Jackal. A killer at the top of his profession, unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes, who with a rifle can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. It seems there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal, and time is counting down to the final act of execution.
40		Brian Garfield. Death Wish
41		David Morrell. First Blood The story of Vietnam veteran John Rambo and his encounter with a sadistic small town police chief--a story that inspired a popular series of films starring Sylvester Stalone.
42		Trevanian. The Eiger Sanction Jonathan Hemlock lives in a renovated Gothic church on Long Island. He is an art professor, a mountain climber, and a mercenary, performing assassinations (i.e., sanctions) for money to augment his black-market art collection. Now Hemlock is being tricked into a hazardous assignment that involves an attempt to scale one of the most treacherous mountain peaks in the Swiss Alps, the Eiger.
43		Joseph Wambaugh. The Onion Field This is the frighteningly true story of two young cops and two young robbers whose separate destinies fatally cross one march night in a bizarre execution in a deserted Los Angeles field.
44		Peter Benchley. Jaws It's out there in the water--waiting. Nature's most fearsome predator. It fears nothing. It attacks anything. It devours everything. And the seaside community of Amity is at its mercy.
45		William Goldman. Marathon Man
46		James Grady. Six Days of the Condor
47		Robert Stone. Dog Soldiers In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers - and the price of survival was dangerously high.
48		Jack Higgins. The Eagle Has Landed As the Allied forces slowly begin turning the tide of war, Hitler vehemently orders the impossible-kidnap Winston Churchill, or kill him. A crack team of commandos led by a disgraced war hero must venture into the heart of England to carry out their mission, or die trying. Meanwhile, in a quiet seaside village, a beautiful widow and an IRA assassin have already laid the groundwork for what will be the most treacherous plot of the war. It begins on November 6, 1943, when Berlin receives the fateful message . . . "THE EAGLE HAS LANDED . . ."
49		Clive Cussler. Raise the Titanic! Dirk Pitt begins his most thrilling mission--to raise the "RMS Titanic"--to retrieve a secret cache of an extremely rare radioactive element for an unprecedented defensive weapon.
50		Ira Levin. The Boys from Brazil A band of Nazi leaders, escaped from postwar Germany, scheme to return to power. Their plans to dominate the world are based on a bizarre biological experiment undertaken by Josef Mengele.
51		Anne Rice. Interview with the Vampire Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force--a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses.
52		Robin Cook. Coma They called it "minor surgery," but Nancy Greenly, Sean Berman, and a dozen others-all admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital for routine procedures were victims of the same inexplicable, hideous tragedy on the operating table. They never woke up. . . .
53		Ken Follett. The Eye of the Needle One enemy spy knows the secret if the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin--code name: "The Needle"--who holds the key to the ultimate Nazi victory. Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is coming to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life. Ken Follett's unsurpassed and unforgettable masterwork of suspense, intrigue, and dangerous machinations of the human heart.
54		Stephen King. The Dead Zone A supernatural thriller that plunges the reader into the fate awaiting all mankind -- The Dead Zone.
55		John D. MacDonald. The Green Ripper Beautiful girls always grace the Florida beaches, strolling, sailing, relaxing at the many parties on Travis McGee's houseboat, The Busted Flush. McGee was too smart--and had been around too long--for many of them to touch his heart. Now, however, there was Gretel. She had discovered the key to McGee--to all of him--and now he had something to hope for. Then, terribly, unexpectedly, she was dead. From a mysterious illness, or so they said. But McGee knew the truth, that Gretel had been murdered. And now he was out for blood...
56		Robert Ludlum. The Bourne Identity Jason Bourne. He has no past. And he may have no future. His memory is blank. He only knows that he was flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, his body riddled with bullets. There are a few clues. A frame of microfilm surgically implanted beneath the flesh of his hip. Evidence that plastic surgery has altered his face. Strange things that he says in his delirium -- maybe code words. Initial: "J.B." And a number on the film negative that leads to a Swiss bank account, a fortune of four million dollars, and, at last, a name: Jason Bourne. But now he is marked for death, caught in a maddening puzzle, racing for survival through the deep layers of his buried past into a bizarre world of murderous conspirators -- led by Carlos, the world's most dangerous assassin. And no one can help Jason Bourne but the woman who once wanted to escape him.
57		Eric Van Lustbader. The Ninja This is the story of Nicholas Linnear, half-Caucasian, half-Oriental, a man caught between East and West, between the sexual passions of a woman he can't forget and the one he can't control and between a past he can't escape and a destiny he can't avoid. A sprawling erotic thriller that swings from postwar Japan to present-day New York in a relentless saga of violence and terror elaborately designed for the most savage vengeance of all...
58		Thomas Harris. Red Dragon A gruesome tale unfolds when a brilliant detective takes on the most terrifying case of his career--a psychopathic murderer who takes pleasure in killing happy families.
59		Tom Clancy. The Hunt for Red October The Soviets' new ballistic-missile submarine is attempting to defect to the United States, but the Soviet Atlantic fleet has been ordered to find and destroy her at all costs. Can Red October reach the U.S. safely?
60		Dale Brown. Flight of the Old Dog The riveting story of America's military superiority being surpassed as our greatest enemy masters space-to-Earth weapons technology-neutralizing the U.S. arsenal of nuclear missiles. America's only hope: The Old Dog Zero One, a battle-scarred bomber fully renovated with modern hardware-and equipped with the deadliest state-of-the-art armaments known to man.
61		Nelson DeMille. The Charm School On a dark road deep inside Russia, a young American tourist picks up a most unusual passenger: a U.S. P.O.W. on the run with an incredible secret to reveal to an unsuspecting world. Poised against the very heartland of America is a vast and astounding KGB enterprise known as "The Charm School." Three Americans -- an Air Force officer, an embassy liaison, and the chief of the CIA's Moscow station -- take on this renegade power of the Soviet state in a tour de force of suspense, excitement, and danger.
62		Dean Koontz. Watchers From a top secret government laboratory come two genetically altered life forms. One is a magnificent dog of astonishing intelligence. The other, a hybrid monster of a brutally violent nature. And both are on the loose...
63		Katherine Neville. The Eight Computer expert Cat Velis is heading for a job to Algeria. Before she goes, a mysterious fortune teller warns her of danger, and an antique dealer asks her to search for pieces to a valuable chess set that has been missing for years...In the South of France in 1790 two convent girls hide valuable pieces of a chess set all over the world, because the game that can be played with them is too powerful....
64		John Grisham. The Firm For a young lawyer on the make, it was an offer he couldn't refuse: a position at a law firm where the bucks, billable hours, and benefits are over the top. It's a dream job for an up-and-comer--if he can overlook the uneasy feeling he gets at the office. Then an FBI investigation plunges the straight and narrow attorney into a nightmare of terror and intrigue, with no choice but to pit his wits, ethics, and legal skills against the firm's deadly secrets--if he hopes to stay alive . . .
65		James Patterson. Along Came a Spider Detective Alex Cross and FBI agent Jezzie Flanagan are called in to penetrate the mind of a psychopath to save two kidnapped children.
66		Stephen Hunter. Point of Impact He was one the best Marine snipers in Vietnam. Today, twenty years later, disgruntled hero of an unheroic war, all Bob Lee Swagger wants to be left alone and to leave the killing behind. But with consummate psychological skill, a shadowy military organization seduces Bob into leaving his beloved Arkansas hills for one last mission for his country, unaware until too late that the game is rigged. The assassination plot is executed to perfection -- until Bob Lee Swagger, alleged lone gunman, comes out of the operation alive, the target of a nationwide manhunt, his only allies a woman he just met and a discredited FBI agent. Now Bob Lee Swagger is on the run, using his lethal skills once more -- but this time to track down the men who set him up and to break a dark conspiracy aimed at the very heart of America.
67		Caleb Carr. The Alienist The hunt for a serial killer in the 1800s in New York by Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, using the new science of forensic psychology. As with so many new sciences this one is ridiculed by law enforcement and civic leaders alike.
68		John Lescroart. The Thirteenth Juror A legal thriller featuring a battered San Francisco wife accused of shooting both her husband and her seven-year-old son. When the trial opens she refuses to allow a defense of spousal abuse because of its implication of guilt. Which presents her lawyer, the narrator, with a major problem as the prosecution claims she killed the husband for the insurance.
69		Tami Hoag. Night Sins gripping tale unfolds in a peaceful Minnesota town, where crime is something that just doesn't happen. But when a young boy disappears, it marks the beginning of a unspeakable nightmare. There are no witnesses, no clues--only a note, cleverly taunting, casually cruel. Has a cold-blooded kidnapper struck? Or is this the reawakening of a long-quiet serial killer? Now, a tough-minded investigator on her first make-or-break case, and a local cop who fears that big city evils have invaded his small town, are hunting for a madman. Together, they must outsmart a killer who knows no bounds...and protect a town that may never feel safe again.
70		David Baldacci. Absolute Power A burglar in the bedroom of a mansion has his work interrupted by the arrival of the mistress of the house with the president of the U.S. The couple have a fight and she is killed. The burglar flees, taking along a blood-stained letter opener as evidence, but is spotted by presidential bodyguards. The White House chief-of-staff, an ambitious woman, has him tracked and killed, but not before the burglar has told his story to a lawyer. The lawyer realizes he is next, but how to save oneself from the government?