We have a lot of interviews with writers and other experts choosing the best thriller books.
Anthony Franze, Lucy Atkins, Jeffrey Archer, Tess Gerritsen, Sam Bourne, Simon Kernick and James Twining all choose their favourite thrillers. Matt Lynn chooses his best British thrillers.
On sub-genres of thrillers Scott Turow recommends the best legal novels. Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom recommend their best Swedish crime writing. Peter James recommends his best crime fiction and Simon Brett the best Whodunnits.
On political thriller books, Peter Hitchens chooses his best anti-communist thrillers and Jeremy Duns his best forgotten Cold War thrillers. Ben Macintyre chooses The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré and Casino Royale by Ian Fleming in his best books on spies. Charles Cumming chooses Le Carré’s The Constant Gardener among his best books on espionage.
Ramsey Campbell and Kim Newman choose their best horror stories, while Louise Bagshawe chooses the best chase stories.
We have selected the best thriller audiobooks if you prefer to listen.
Our interviewees have chosen a very wide range of books, but, some thrillers come up multiple times. Both Lucy Atkins and Tess Gerristen chose Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Jeffrey Archer and Sam Bourne both selected The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. Sam Bourne also chose The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. That thriller also makes James Twining’s list. Tess Gerritsen and Louise Bagshawe both choose Eye of a Needle by Ken Follett.
The Best Psychological Thrillers, recommended by Tammy Cohen
Psychological thrillers play on our fears that those closest to us can’t be trusted and that even our homes aren’t safe, explains Tammy Cohen, author of Stop at Nothing and They All Fall Down. She recommends five psychological thrillers and explains what it is that makes them so deeply unsettling and utterly gripping.
The Best Thrillers of 2020, recommended by Anthony Franze
Every year, the International Thriller Writers awards highlight the best new thrillers of the previous year. Anthony Franze, administrator of the awards and an acclaimed thriller author in his own right, talks us through their 2020 shortlist for the best new thriller published in hardback.
The Best Thrillers of 2019, recommended by Anthony Franze
Looking for a pacy, suspenseful thriller that keeps you racing through the pages? Look no further. Anthony Franze, author and coordinator of the International Thriller Writers’ annual awards, talks us through some of the books that made the shortlist for the best thrillers of 2019.
The best books on Spies, recommended by Ben Macintyre
The British public-school system, with its hidden homosexuality and feelings of loneliness, encouraged subterfuge and led to a generation of great spy writers and spies, suggests author and journalist Ben Macintyre. He picks the best books on spies.
The Best Anti-Communist Thrillers, recommended by Peter Hitchens
Right-wing journalist and political commentator Peter Hitchens says the Left has been liberated by the fall of the Berlin Wall and that speech is probably freer in modern Russia than it is in Britain. He recommends some great anti-Communist thrillers.