Seven thrillers to read before someone kidnaps your spouse, steals your identity and plans to set off a nuclear device in Times Square unless you can stop them by midnight
Thrillers and mysteries are sometimes talked about as if they're interchangeable, but they have their differences. The main one is that a mystery looks backward, the thriller looks forward. In a mystery, the hero deals with a crime that has already happened. In a thriller, the hero has to thwart a crime. Another difference is that thrillers have a strong time element and a race-against-the-clock aspect that mysteries don't usually have. With that in mind, here are some of our favorite thrillers (and the prices dealers are asking for first editions today) :
“The Lock Artist” by Steve Hamilton focuses on a young man who was traumatized at the age of eight. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can do better than anyone else: pick any lock. He falls in with a bad crowd, but falls for a good girl. Will she be able to save him? ($15-20)
“The Relic” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. A homicide detective and an anthropologist try to destroy a South American lizard-like god, who's on a people-eating rampage in a Chicago museum. Also the debut of Aloysius X.L. Pendergast, Special Agent for the FBI, a great character who appears in later Preston and Child books. ($60-80)
“Savages” by Don Winslow. "Savages" revolves around Ben and Chon, two Americans running a lucrative marijuana operation out of Laguna Beach, California. Their business thrives until members of the Mexican Baja Cartel decide they want to enter the same business. When their girlfriend is kidnapped, Ben and Chon have to figure out a way to save her and their business. ($15-20)
"I Am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes. "Pilgrim" is an American former intelligence agent and author who becomes involved in a case in New York City where a mysterious woman uses his book to commit untraceable murders in the aftermath of 9/11. "Saracen" is a Saudi who becomes radicalised by watching his father's beheading. He later trains as a doctor and fights in the Soviet–Afghan War. Pilgrim is recalled to the intelligence community when they uncover a threat involving the Saracen, who has created a vaccine-resistant strain of a deadly virus. One of the best thrillers in recent years, in our opinion. ($60-100)
"Black Sunday" by Thomas Harris. Harris is probably best known for "The Silence of the Lambs," but his debut novel, "Black Sunday," was a top-notch thriller: A disaffected veteran who happens to pilot a blimp over football games is used by terrorists to explode a bomb over the Super Bowl. Will an Israeli intelligence officer be able to stop it? ($15-20)
"Eye of the Needle" by Ken Follett. A Nazi spy discovers the secret deception campaign for D-Day and only has to get that information back to the Germans to thwart the landings, and only a woman with a disabled husband on a remote island can stop him. (A scarce book. We located only two copies -- one for $10 and one for $200!)
"The Bomb Maker" by Thomas Perry. The intricacies of how bombs are made (and diffused) propel this thriller, as a retired bomb squad honcho is called out of retirement to stop a most proficient killer. ($15-20)
