There’s nothing better than a crime Thriller fiction books to keep you turning the pages late into the night.
Whether you’re looking for a gentle detective story or crime series, historical crime fiction or true crime books based on real-life events,
we have the case for you.
Our selection of the best crime thriller books of all time and the must-read crime novels of all time is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Crime fiction is growing and evolving all the time, and we’re constantly discovering new veins of the literature to read, new authors to appreciate.
Here’s your list of The Best Crime Thriller Books:
1. The Darkest Evening, By Ann Cleeves
BUY ON AMAZONThis is ninth crime novel of Ann Cleeves’s detective fiction series.
A girl name Vera comes across a car slewed off the road while driving home during a terrible night,
Vera is shocked to find the driver’s seat empty, but sees a toddler strapped in the back seat.
Vera takes the child to the first house she comes to, a stately home where her own father grew up.
Inside a Christmas party is in full swing, but outside a woman – possibly the child’s mother – lies dead!!
2. The Last Trial, By Scott Turrow
BUY ON AMAZONKindle County’s most revered courtroom advocate, Sandy Stern, has been persuaded to defend his old friend Kiril Pafko,
despite being eighty-five years old and in precarious health.
As Stern begins to question everything he thought he knew about his friend, he finds his duty to defend his client and his belief in the judicial system facing a terrible final test. This masterful legal thriller unfolds with page-turning suspense.
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3. Date with Danger, By Julia Champman
BUY ON AMAZONThis story is full of twists and turns and you’ll never know what will happen in the end of this crime thriller books
The Dales Detective Agency is about to face its biggest challenge after a fatal accident at Bruncliffe’s livestock auction. Detectives Samson O’Brien and Delilah Metcalfe are called in for a simple health and safety investigation,
but things take a dark turn when they discover evidence that points to murder.
If you love cozy crime books set in spectacular landscapes, you’ll love this intriguing murder mystery.
4. Gone Girl, By Gillian Flynn
BUY ON AMAZONMore than any other book in the decade, Gillian Flynn’s mega-hit Gone Girl captured the essence of female rage.
this is one of the best book in the list of best crime thriller books
There are so many reasons to praise this book, but to focus on the impact alone,
Gone Girl not only ushered in a decade of female-authored and feminist-driven crime fiction and helped to re-popularize the psychological crime thriller,
it also gave us arguably the best speech in crime history.
David Fincher’s superb adaptation of the book has also helped to cement Gone Girl’s rich, complex legacy.
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5. The Thief, By Fuminori Nakamura
BUY ON AMAZONThis noir follows a petty thief as he walks the streets of a cold and unfriendly city,
he makes the mistake of opening his heart to a young woman and her son!!
Nakamura’s eerie atmosphere and spare prose are on full display, and it makes sense that-
this book would also have established his writing in the United States. The Thief is also a great representation of the revival of midcentury minimalism that’s helped define the style of the decade.
6. The Secret Life of Mr. Roos, By Hakan Nesser
BUY ON AMAZONThis is the thrilling third crime thriller book in Håkan Nesser’s Inspector Barbarotti crime fiction series.
When fifty-nine-year-old Valdemar Roos wins the lottery, he sees the chance to escape the job he hates and the family he doesn’t get on with.
Without telling anyone, he quits his job and begins spending his days at the hut he buys in the Swedish countryside.
He couldn’t be happier, until recovering drug addict Anna – on the run from an abusive ex and looking for somewhere to hide.
But her ex isn’t far behind, When a woman reports her husband missing, Inspector Barbarotti doesn’t take much notice. Until a dead body turns up near the man’s recently bought hut.
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7. Find Them Dead, By Peter James
BUY ON AMAZONAward-winning crime fiction writer Peter James is back with a new crime, thrilling book.
A Brighton gangster is on trial for conspiracy to murder, and on the first day of the trial, there is one person in the gallery observing the jurors with keen interest.
The gangster’s henchmen need to influence two of the jurors if he is to be found not guilty, but which two,
When Roy Grace is called to investigate a murder with links to the trial,
he realizes how powerful the accused really is. Peter James’s Roy Grace crime series is a must for any crime-thriller-fiction fan.
8. Dare Me, By Megan Abbott
BUY ON AMAZONTrying to decide on the Megan Abbott book-of-the-decade is like trying to figure out the best crime books of the decade, but Dare Me, Abbott’s soon-to-be-on-television noir ode to the dangerous world of cheerleading feels like the most iconic.
Abbott came up on the crime world through her lovingly rendered historical noirs, and Dare Me is the book that proved Abbott could be just as dexterous and hard-boiled when writing about contemporary teenagers.
Abbott took inspiration from Full Metal Jacket when writing the book, which also means this is the toughest book about cheerleaders around.
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9. A Nearly Normal Family, By M.T. Edvardsson
BUY ON AMAZONA stunning legal thriller told from three differing viewpoints – father, mother and daughter.
which asks the question: ‘what would you do if your child is accused of murder?’
A Nearly Normal Family is the crime novel that got everyones talking.
10. Time For The Dead, By Lin Anderson
BUY ON AMAZONThe sixth gripping book in Lin Anderson’s Rhona MacLeod crime series sees Rhona return to the Isle of Skye, where she stumbles across what appears to be a crime scene, but without a victim, When a body is found at the bottom of the cliffs two days later,
Rhona begins to search for a link between these events and a group of missing army medics on leave from Afghanistan.
11. Witness, By Mandasue Heller
BUY ON AMAZONHolly Evans is constantly on the move with her over-protective mum. When they move into an illegal sub-let in Manchester, Holly feels settled for the first time in her life, but why is she forbidden to go out, or even open the door when her mum’s not there?
This gritty crime novel paints a dark picture of Manchester’s underworld, and will have you gripped until the last page.
12. Every Man a Menace, By Patrick Hoffman
BUY ON AMAZONEvery Man a Menace is a sprawling, kaleidoscopic crime novel of shifting perspectives and shifting fortunes, following various tendrils out from a global ecstasy ring.
From San Francisco’s Mission District to Miami to northern California jails to Southeast Asia, Hoffman’s story slithers along gathering momentum and nuance, as readers slowly grasp the sheer audacity and achievement of the work, Lives intersect, fates get entangled, and the novel more than lives up to the promise of its title. This is crime thriller fiction that masters both the grassroot particulars and the vast global scope.
13. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
In this masterpiece, Truman Capote takes us to the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, the entire Clutter family was murdered by a shotgun held inches from their faces, There was no apparent motive and few clues were found. Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers.
He spins a tale of suspense overshadowed by astonishing empathy, with chilling insight into American violence
14. Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke
BUY ON AMAZONBluebird, Bluebird, a modern masterpiece, particularly excels at representing the fraught, frictional relationships between race and justice, and freedom and oppressive social institutions in America.
Darren Mathews is a black Texas Ranger living in East Texas, torn up about his allegiance to his state and his career, He’s tried to leave the state, but has not been able to leave for long. He’s loyal to his badge, but also to his family, and suddenly his ties to his identity put his job at risk.
It’s this crime that causes the already chafing, seething racial tensions and discriminations to dangerously boil over.
It’s one of the richest, fullest, most gut-wrenching crime stories I’ve read. And it meets this terrible era in American history passionately and eloquently to beautifully, powerfully condemn it.
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15. The Innocent Dead, By Lin Anderson
BUY ON AMAZONWhen Mary McIntyre disappeared, it tore the local community apart.
When a child’s remains are found in a peat bog decades later,
it seems that the mystery may finally be solved.
Karen Marshall had been devastated by her friend’s disappearance,
but did Karen have a part to play in what happened? Rhona MacLeod must use all her skills to determine what happened all those years ago . . . and who was really responsible.