Looking for crime thriller novel suggestions? These novels are the best of the best, embodying both aspects of the genre: the novels listed here all explore crime from a variety of angels, and each one is a thrill-ride that readers won’t want to end. From modern classics, to longstanding staples of the genre, this list has a stack of crime thriller novels to discuss.
“Crime thriller” is a protean genre, of course. It can include elements of psychological thriller. Crime epic. Murder mystery. And more. This list tries to include a range of selections across the spectrum of crime thriller.
Notably, the selections here are divided into two parts. The early entries are crime novels told predominantly from the perspective of the criminals. The latter half of the list focuses more on books about crime solvers and the procedures of taking on gangsters, serial killers, and other lawbreakers.
Crook Manifesto
Written By Colson Whitehead; Published In 2023
Crook Manifesto is the middle installment of Colson Whitehead’s “Harlem Trilogy.” It is thrilling crime fiction, but it is also historical fiction, coming from one of the genre’s greatest modern experts. And on top of that, it is a deeply personal drama, building on protagonist Ray Carney’s struggles in book one, Harlem Shuffle, as he navigates 1970s New York.
Whitehead’s prose is flawless, and in an era where the crime thriller formula has become more recognizable than ever, the author elevates Crook Manifesto by returning a sense of realism, of place and time, to crime fiction. Which makes it distinct from, but no less compelling or gripping for readers than more conventional examples of the genre. (For example, the next entry on this list.)
Gone Girl
Written By Gillian Flynn; Published In 2012
Gone Girl is arguably the most consequential crime thriller novel of the past twenty years. It became a phenomenon even before its 2014 film adaptation. The novel and movie’s twists and turns still have people talking today. Gillian Flynn’s prose is eminently readable and highly rereadable; Gone Girl doesn’t lose a step or miss a beat even when readers know what’s coming next.
Which is the true test of an A+ thriller. At the same time, Gone Girl has the patience and precision of a masterful crime novel. Flynn knows exactly how to withhold information while still making the plot propulsive, when to spring shocking reveals on readers, and when to fully bring them in on the step-by-step details of the novel’s central crime.
No Country For Old Men
Written By Cormac McCarthy; Published In 2005
Lawlessness, disorder, and crime always had their places in Cormac McCarthy novels, but No Country for Old Men was the closest the author ever got to writing a full-on genre novel. No Country has all the trappings of a recognizable crime novel, paired with McCarthy’s singular prose style and narrative sensibilities.
No Country is predominantly told from the POVs of in-over-his-head everyman Llewelyn Moss and chilling contract killer Anton Chigurh; Sheriff Ed Bell completes the book’s trinity of central characters. No Country for Old Men is literary crime fiction at its finest. For anyone who wants to have a full grasp of 21st century American literature in general, No Country is an absolute must-read.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Written By Patricia Highsmith; Published In 1955
Patricia Highsmith’s Talented Mr. Ripley, and its four sequels, are regarded as the height of the “con man” subgenre of crime fiction. The Talented Mr. Ripley is an exquisitely tense psychological thriller about Tom Ripley, a protagonist who is as sociopathic as he is charismatic. There’s that Breaking Bad meme of Jesse Pinkman screaming “he can’t keep getting away with it,” and that’s how readers will feel reading Ripley.
The thrill of Highsmith’s novel comes from watching Tom Ripley manipulate everyone he encounters and every situation he’s in. It’s akin to a procedural for confidence schemes, which is exactly what made The Talented Mr. Ripley a source of fascination for readers 75 years ago, and why the story persists to this day with adaptations and remakes.
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Written By James M. Cain; Published In 1934
It’s impossible to talk about the crime thriller genre without going back to its roots. That includes The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is still one of the defining examples of a novel about the planning and execution of a crime. In this case, execution being the operative word: Postman’s narrator Frank and his lover Cora plot to murder her husband and live happily ever after together, so long as they get away with it.
Of course, things don’t go as planned. The Postman Always Rings Twice is a catalog of criminal mishaps and mistakes, proving just how hard it actually is to be a successful criminal. James M. Cain’s novel is as “hardboiled” as the genre gets, but by telling it from the criminal perspective, Cain set the precedent for generations of crime thrillers to come. (The same thing its adaptation subsequently did for crime thriller films.)
The Maltese Falcon
Written By Dashiell Hammett; Published In 1929
Now let’s look at another early 20th-century crime classic: Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. The novel is the gold-standard for sparse, straight-to-the-point detective fiction prose. Protagonist Sam Spade is no-nonsense, and the style of Hammett’s writing reflects that. At the same time, he’s still only human, as hardboiled as he is, as The Maltese Falcon’s famous ending makes clear.
The Maltese Falcon helped invent the modern thriller. It has twists, turns, reveals, violence, every staple of the genre, and it is also intricately plotted, flawlessly constructed. Just three years shy of the 100th anniversary of its publication, The Maltese Falcon remains a must-read, as both a timeless classic of the genre and also an artifact of its time and place in American literary history.
The Silence Of The Lambs
Written By Thomas Harris; Published In 1988
The Silence of the Lambs is in contention for GOAT modern thriller. It is the second of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter novels, which takes the formula of the first book, Red Dragon, and perfects it. Lambs is part procedural, part serial killer thriller, part psychological horror, and 100% impossible to put down once readers have picked it up and started it.
The story of FBI trainee Clarice Starling finds perfect balance by pitting her against the incarcerated Dr. Lecter in a battle of wits as she tries to help catch the active killer known as Buffalo Bill. With Silence of the Lambs, Harris triangulates the tension expertly between these three characters, creating an unequaled portrait of the disturbed criminal mind and the people who try to stop them.
Devil In A Blue Dress
Written By Walter Mosley; Published In 1990
Walter Mosley’s work, particularly Devil in a Blue Dress, represents the modern legacy of novelists like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Devil is a detective origin story, introducing the character of “Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins,” who would go on to appear in over a dozen subsequent books. In his debut, Rawlins must clear his own name in a tragic murder case.
And he finds out he’s a natural fit for the job of private eye, just as Walter Mosley writes fast-paced, high-tension crime drama like a fish breathing water. Devil in a Blue Dress deserves more attention as one of the great modern crime thrillers of its era, and another book that readers will rip through once they start it.
L.A. Confidential
Written By James Ellroy; Published In 1990
L.A. Confidential is another modern-day heir to the noir fiction of the early 20th century. And James Ellroy’s masterpiece is another example of historical crime fiction. Confidential is set in the 1950s, following a cast of LAPD detectives at a time when corruption ran rampant in the force. Ellroy’s novel is brutal and unsympathetic, which is why it is held up among the best crime fiction novels ever, period.
And like Cormac McCarthy, Ellroy plays by his own rules. He’s a literary novelist first and foremost, working in the crime genre. As such, L.A. Confidential’s prose can be tough, but that just makes it a perfect audiobook listen. No study of crime thriller lit is complete without having at least given L.A. Confidential, and the rest of James Ellroy’s “L.A. Quartet” of novels, their fair shake.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Written By Stieg Larson; Published In 2005
Stieg Larson tragically left his “Millennium” novel series unfinished at the time of his death in 2004; other writers have subsequently completed and extended the series, but the only two books fully written by Larson were the first two, including the transcendent Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Larson’s prose, in its English translation, is dense and exhaustive. It is frightening and shocking. It is thrilling and mesmerizing. Dragon Tattoo is a masterclass in suspenseful writing, but also a stunning work of procedural fiction. The novel’s sexual violence makes it a challenging novel to get through, but the arc of the novel bends toward justice, or at least vengeance. In any case, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remains crime fiction in a class of its own, 20+ years after its release.
- Release Date
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December 21, 2011
- Runtime
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158 minutes
- Writers
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Steven Zaillian
- Producers
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Ceán Chaffin, Ole Søndberg, Scott Rudin, Søren Stærmose