Top 10 suspense books ever?
Filed under: bestseller, book review, crime book, International bestseller, recommendation
It is hard to say exactly which books are the best in any given category or genre. With books, as with many other things, the beauty is in the eye (or the mind) of the beholder. However, the books below are generally regarded as top suspense books, they are all very famous and written by well known, world class authors. They are all wonderful. They are my candidates for the top ten suspense books ever.
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1. | Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier (1938). The heroine, who remains nameless, lives in Europe with her husband,Maxim de Winter, traveling from hotel to hotel. She has memories of a beautiful home called Manderley, which has been destroyed by fire. The story begins with her memories of how she and Maxim first met, in Monte Carlo, years before. | Amazon US Amazon UK
(links to order the books) |
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2. | Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris (1988). This is the second novel by Thomas Harris to feature the sociopathic psychiatrist and cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In the novel, Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, is sent to see the imprisoned Lecter in order to ask his expert advice on catching a serial killer given the name Buffalo Bill, who is abducting women and skinning them. The book has been filmed. | Amazon US Amazon UK |
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3. | Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris (1993). This is the first book about Hannibal Lecter. “Red Dragon” is a wonderfully intense psychological thriller, with plenty of obscene violence and “typical” Thomas Harris plot twists. The story of the ex-FBI agent stalking the “Tooth Fairy” or “Red Dragon” is extremely interesting and detailed, right down to forensic and crime scene evidence. This book, too, has been filmed. | Amazon USAmazon UK |
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4. | Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark (1975) This book is very fascinating. The plot is about a woman named Nancy whose children were kidnapped and murdered on her birthday. Everyone pointed their fingers at Nancy, but she left the courtroom on a technicality.Seven years later, Nancy is remarried and has two more children. However, one morning Nancy goes outside where her children were supposed to be playing and finds them gone.. A must read! | Amazon USAmazon UK |
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5. | Laura, by Vera Caspary (Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp) (1942, filmed 1944). Laura Hunt was the ideal modern woman: beautiful, elegant, highly ambitious, and utterly mysterious. No man could resist her charms. As a tough cop probes the mystery of Laura’s death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power. Soon he realizes he’s been seduced by a dead woman. | Amazon USAmazon UK |
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6. | Beast in View, by Margareth Millar (1945). A chain of events starting with a crank call from an old school chum sets the lonely, aloof, financially comfortable Miss Helen Clarvoe on a path as predictable only as madness. Lured from her rooms in a second-rate residential Hollywood hotel, she finds herself stranded in the more perilous terrain of extortion, pornography, vengeance, and ultimately murder. |
Amazon US Amazon UK |
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7. | A Judgement in Stone, by Ruth Rendell (1977). This novel is famous in the world of crime fiction for its opening line: “Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write“. It has been acclaimed as a keen social examination of the differences between British classes in the 1970s, as well being remarkable in its levels of suspense, despite the reader knowing from the first line what is going to happen. | Amazon USAmazon UK |
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8. | Rosemary’s Baby, by Ira Levin (1967). The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young pregnant woman, who begins to suspect her elderly neighbors are not the kindly souls they appear to be. Gradually she discovers they are the leaders of a coven of witches. Her husband, a struggling actor, allowed the devil to impregnate her in exchange for a successful career, but she is unable to convince anyone to believe her.A movie based on the novel was filmed by Roman Polanski. Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes starred in the movie. |
Amazon USAmazon UK |
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9. | The Big Clock, by Kenneth Fearing (New York Review Books Classics)(1946) . George Stroud is a hard-drinking, tough-talking writer for a New York media conglomerate. One day, before heading home to his wife, Stroud has a drink with Pauline, the girlfriend of his boss. Things happen. The next day Stroud escorts Pauline home. The day after that, Pauline is found murdered in her apartment.This novel was the basis for the feature films The Big Clock (1948) and No Way Out (1987). | Amazon USAmazon UK |
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10. | Brighton Rock, Graham Greene (Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition)(1938). Although this is an underworld thriller, the book is also a very powerful exploration of the nature of sin and the basis of morality (Pinkie and Rose, two of the main characters, are Roman Catholics, as was Greene, and their beliefs are contrasted with Ida’s strong but non-religious moral sensibility).This book was filmed in 1947. | Amazon USAmazon UK |
Lost Souls, by Lisa Jackson
Filed under: book review, crime book, erotic fiction, Thriller
Four coeds have disappeared in less than two years at All Saints College. They were all considered “troubled” girls. So no one has asked too many questions about the missing students.
Twenty-seven-year-old Kristi Bentz, the stunningly beautiful, hot wanna-be-detective is lucky to be alive. Not many people her age have nearly died twice at the hands of a serial killer, and lived to tell about it. Her last encounter was with a sadistic monster in bestselling Jackson’s Absolute Evil. But somehow she is fascinated by the minds of serial killers, and she is ready for another go and wants to write about it.
Kristi by chance rents the apartment of one of the missing girls. She begins investigating the case, thinking it might make a great first book. However, Vlad, the mysterious serial killer, very soon sets his sights on Kristi. And the action starts.
There is a lot of action in this book, but I am not sure I like it much even so. Vampirism is not my thing. But it seems very fashionable for the moment. But Jackson is smart, and has written a book that probably will be attractive to a lot a people – some hot sex, some vampire-stuff, a lot of action, a real crime mystery, and some supernatural powers as well for good measure.
Lost Souls is entertaining. Even though I didn’t like it all that much, it was still somehow a little fun and a little exciting. So if you like pretty well written romantic suspense novels and the campus background, and some hot sex scenes, this may be it.
The Three Evangelists, by Fred Vargas
Filed under: book review, crime book, Fred Vargas, French writer, Prize winning novel
This is not a Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg mystery. The sleuths in The Three Evangelists are instead somewhat unusual – actually a trio of 30-something historians under the auspices of a retired policeman.
This odd group lives together 
The first little mystery in the book is sudden appearance of a beech tree in the garden of Madame Siméonidis. The tree – planted under cover of darkness – worries her, and she doesn’t know who planted it or why, so she asks the historians to dig it up and investigate. Nothing suspicious is found under the beech.
Then Madame Siméonidis disappears, and a few days later her body is found in a burned out car. Now the Evangelists launch a full-scale investigation, aided by Marc’s godfather Vandoosler, the former policeman. There are plenty of possible suspects, but there is little evidence to go by.
This book, with a plot that twists and turns, was awarded the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger in 2006. Even so, The Three Evangelists is a strange crime novel, with eccentric, lovable characters. As usual in Vargas’ books, there are lots of interesting and odd conversations, and the book is intelligently and humorously written. Reading it is a complete delight if you like intelligent, well written mystery novels. If you are looking for fast paced action, on the other hand, this is probably not the book for you.
Praise for the works of Fred Vargas:
“A Vargas novel is as good as a trip to Paris.”
–Daily Express
“Fred Vargas is a wonderful writer. Much of the joy of reading this book lies in Vargas’s wonderful use of language, her subtle characterizations and her superb sense of place.”
–Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail
“Joyous, enchanting, amazing, fantastic, unclassifiable, beyond-brilliant. Readers will not hold back praise for Fred Vargas.”
–Elle (France)
“Vargas is clearly an author who will rank alongside Henning Mankell. .. Creepy, sophisticated and wonderfully off-beat.”
–Scotland on Sunday
Unspoken: A Mystery, by Mari Jungstedt
Filed under: Anders Knutas, book review, crime book, Main character, Mari Jungstedt, recommendation, Swedish writer
Unspoken is the second in Mari Jungstedt’s series of crime and detective novels set in Gotland, Sweden. The first is Unseen (see review) The main characters, in this book too, are Inspector Anders Knutas and investigative journalist Johan Berg.
Then, well into the investigation of the first murder, 14-year old Fanny Jansson, a volunteer at the local stables, vanishes. Initially Knutas and Jacobsson view them as separate cases. One is a violent murder, the other the disappearance of child.
Painstakingly, they work the clues, assisted by ambitious StockholmTV reporter Johan Berg, who tries to keep his bosses interested in Dahlström’s murder so he can take trips to Gotland to visit his married lover, Emma Winarve. And eventually they uncover a tenuous link between Henry and the missing fourteen year old Fanny Jansson. Before his murder Henry won a lot of money at the racetrack while Fanny cared for the horses at a local stable.However, matters become further complicated when sexually explicit photos of murdered 14-year-old Fanny Jansson are found in Dahlstrom’s darkroom.
The official investigation in Unspoken is cleverly designed by Mari Jungstedt to keep the audience’s attention. It is a great police procedural. And the cast is fully developed and interesting – in this book we also learn more about Knutas’ family and the very complicated love affair between Johan Berg and Emma Winarve.
Unspoken is a book with crisp prose, steady suspense, and flesh-and-blood characters, as well as powerful descriptions of the dark Swedish winter. The narrative is engaging and twisty, and will fool even the most attentive reader.
See more reviews of Swedish crime fiction at ScandinavianBooks.com!
Links to Mari Jungstedt’s books: Mari Jungstedt at amazon US
Have Mercy on Us All, by Fred Vargas
Filed under: book review, crime book, Fred Vargas, French writer, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, Main character, recommendation
This is the third book in the series about the eccentric and very special Detective Commisaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. And it is a fantastic book. At least, to me it 
is. 
In this book the eccentric, enigmatic and intuitive detective – in an eccentric plot – has been made commisaire principal, head of a new section in the Paris police force. His style of leadership, of course, is as interesting as the commisaire himself!
At the center of this book is the threat of plague – the Black death, no less in Paris. A murderer, or several, creates a panic in Paris while they systematically kill people. But why? How are the victims and murderers related? Why do the use the plague as a guise? And, of course, who are the killers? There are many and complicated questions and very few clues. Even Adamsberg, so famous for his intuition and photographic memory of images, as well as for his unclear, convoluted, sometimes quite muddled thinking, loses track of it all, somewhere in the great sea of his unfinished thoughts.
We meet a number of very interesting characters. There is Adamsberg’s assistant, Danglard, trying to bring an element of order into the chaos of Adamsberg’s thinking. And the town crier Joss Le Guern, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, who is used as a medium of communication for the murderers. There is also the mystical Decambrais, the lovely Camille with whom Adamsberg has a complicated romantic involvement, as well as several other very interesting persons. An engaging cast of very strange yet real characters, often amusing, and usually recognizable as bearing a resemblance to folks we have known. Together they make this a rich work of fiction alongside the wonderful crime novel.
Have Mercy On Us All is a strange, twisted, gothic thriller. It is impossible to categorize. It is also well planned, very thoughtfully written, excellently observed, very human and totally absorbing. It will make you laugh as well as excite you. It is, simply, a fascinating read!
Link: Fred Vargas at amazon US
When the Devil Holds the Candle, by Karin Fossum
Filed under: book review, crime book, Inspector Konrad Sejer, Karin Fossum, Main character, Norwegian writer, recommendation
When the Devil Holds the Candle, by the Norwegian author Karin Fossum, won the Gumshoe award for best European crime novel published in the US in 2007.
When called in to investigate the crime, Inspector Konrad Sejer and his colleague Jacob Skarre see no connection between the infant’s death and the reported disappearance of a local delinquent. And so, while the confusion in the world outside mounts, the chilling truth unfolds inside the old woman’s home.
Unflappable as ever, Sejer digs below the surface of small-town tranquility in an effort to understand how and why violence destroys everyday lives.
When the Devil Holds the Candle is another brilliantly observed, precisely rendered psychological mystery from the highly acclaimed Karin Fossum, where she creates intensity by problematizing the roles of murderer and victim. A wonderful story by Fossum!
, or her Black Seconds (Inspector Sejer Mysteries)
.
Or, if you prefer amazon UK, you can order Karin Fossums books When the Devil Holds the Candle (Inspector Sejer Mystery)
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