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$20.14The Story
Secondhand Crime Fiction & Thriller Bargain Book Box (18 Books)
Eighteen novels for readers who like their fiction with a racing pulse. This collection covers the full spectrum of the genre — naval warfare and nuclear brinkmanship, forensic pathology and serial killers, WWII espionage and cold-war intrigue, a P.D. James locked-room mystery and a Douglas Preston thriller that asks whether science has just made contact with God. There are reliable heavyweights (Gerritsen, P.D. James, Kathy Reichs) alongside some genuinely underrated finds. If you want to lose a weekend, this is the box.
1. Power Curve — Richard Herman Jr. A female US President. A crisis in the South China Sea. A military establishment that doesn't take her seriously. Herman writes political and military thrillers with real insider knowledge, and this one moves like a jet on full afterburner.
2. Cross Bones — Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan is handed a skeleton and told it might be the remains of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is Reichs at her most propulsive — forensic science, ancient conspiracy, and the kind of plot that makes it genuinely difficult to go to sleep.
3. The Traitor — Guy Walters WWII espionage from one of the genre's most meticulous researchers. A British officer who had the courage — or the weakness — to betray his country. Walters writes moral complexity into his thrillers without ever losing the pace.
4. A Song at Twilight — Bryan Forbes A Cold War thriller from the British filmmaker and novelist, set against a backdrop of Moscow's golden domes and the quiet, lethal world of intelligence. Forbes had a gift for character that most thriller writers sacrifice for plot — here you get both.
5. Catch Me — A.J. Holt A female FBI profiler on the trail of a killer who seems to be one step ahead at every turn. Sharp, fast, and darker than it looks — Holt knows how to get under your skin.
6. China Lake — Anthony Hyde From the author of The Red Fox, one of the great Cold War spy novels. Hyde brings the same intelligence and atmosphere to this thriller set against the bleak beauty of the California desert. Smarter than most of what shares its shelf space.
7. The Sinner — Tess Gerritsen A brutal murder in a convent. A victim no one will identify. Rizzoli and Isles at their most unsettling — Gerritsen draws you in with the forensics and keeps you there with the creeping dread that something much older and darker is at work.
8. Venom — Joan Brady Brady won the Whitbread Prize for Theory of War and brings that same ferocious intelligence to this thriller about betrayal — the deadliest poison of all, as the cover notes. Not your standard genre fare.
9. Scimitar SL-2 — Patrick Robinson A rogue submarine. A tidal wave that could devastate the US coastline. Robinson's naval thrillers are the gold standard of the genre — technically precise, geopolitically shrewd, and genuinely impossible to put down once the countdown begins.
10. Street Boys — Lorenzo Carcaterra From the bestselling author of Sleepers. Naples, 1943 — the Nazis are withdrawing but they plan to leave nothing standing. A group of abandoned street children decides to fight back. Based on a true story, and one of the most gripping WWII novels you haven't read.
11. Slash and Burn — Matt Hilton Joe Hunter — ex-Special Forces, morally complicated, extremely good at violence — is back. Peter James called Hilton "a sparkling new talent" and he's right. Fast, brutal, and satisfying in exactly the way this kind of thriller should be.
12. Blasphemy — Douglas Preston The world's most powerful particle accelerator is switched on beneath a sacred Navajo mountain in New Mexico. Then it starts sending messages. Preston takes a genuinely terrifying premise and runs with it — part techno-thriller, part meditation on faith and science, entirely gripping.
13. The Berkut — Joseph Heywood A stunning what-if: what if Hitler didn't die in the bunker? A Soviet special unit — the Berkut — is tasked with finding him. Heywood's research is impeccable and the novel moves between post-war Europe and the halls of the Kremlin with real authority.
14. The Lying-Down Room — Anna Jaquiery A French crime novel featuring Commander Morel — elegant, literary, and atmospheric in the way that the best French crime fiction always is. Old women found dead in Paris apartments, each laid out with strange, deliberate care. Disturbing and beautifully crafted.
15. Redemption Road — Lisa Ballantyne From the author of The Guilty One, a novel that proved Ballantyne understands guilt and redemption better than almost anyone writing in this space. Here she returns to those themes with even more control — "forgiveness is the sweetest form of revenge" is a promise the book keeps.
16. The Raft — Alan Mills A survival thriller in the tradition of Cape Fear. Every parent's nightmare, as the cover says — and it means it. Mills builds dread slowly and then doesn't let up. For fans of primal, stripped-back tension.
17. In the Name of the Father — A.J. Quinnell Quinnell gave us Man on Fire — one of the greatest revenge thrillers ever written. This later novel brings the same intensity and moral weight to a story rooted in religious and political conflict. Underread and overdue for rediscovery.
18. Original Sin — P.D. James Adam Dalgliesh investigates a murder at a prestigious London publishing house. James is operating at the height of her powers here — the mystery is intricate, the characters are fully alive, and the prose is so good it makes you slow down even when the plot is urging you to speed up. A masterclass.
Description
Secondhand Crime Fiction & Thriller Bargain Book Box (18 Books)
Eighteen novels for readers who like their fiction with a racing pulse. This collection covers the full spectrum of the genre — naval warfare and nuclear brinkmanship, forensic pathology and serial killers, WWII espionage and cold-war intrigue, a P.D. James locked-room mystery and a Douglas Preston thriller that asks whether science has just made contact with God. There are reliable heavyweights (Gerritsen, P.D. James, Kathy Reichs) alongside some genuinely underrated finds. If you want to lose a weekend, this is the box.
1. Power Curve — Richard Herman Jr. A female US President. A crisis in the South China Sea. A military establishment that doesn't take her seriously. Herman writes political and military thrillers with real insider knowledge, and this one moves like a jet on full afterburner.
2. Cross Bones — Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan is handed a skeleton and told it might be the remains of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is Reichs at her most propulsive — forensic science, ancient conspiracy, and the kind of plot that makes it genuinely difficult to go to sleep.
3. The Traitor — Guy Walters WWII espionage from one of the genre's most meticulous researchers. A British officer who had the courage — or the weakness — to betray his country. Walters writes moral complexity into his thrillers without ever losing the pace.
4. A Song at Twilight — Bryan Forbes A Cold War thriller from the British filmmaker and novelist, set against a backdrop of Moscow's golden domes and the quiet, lethal world of intelligence. Forbes had a gift for character that most thriller writers sacrifice for plot — here you get both.
5. Catch Me — A.J. Holt A female FBI profiler on the trail of a killer who seems to be one step ahead at every turn. Sharp, fast, and darker than it looks — Holt knows how to get under your skin.
6. China Lake — Anthony Hyde From the author of The Red Fox, one of the great Cold War spy novels. Hyde brings the same intelligence and atmosphere to this thriller set against the bleak beauty of the California desert. Smarter than most of what shares its shelf space.
7. The Sinner — Tess Gerritsen A brutal murder in a convent. A victim no one will identify. Rizzoli and Isles at their most unsettling — Gerritsen draws you in with the forensics and keeps you there with the creeping dread that something much older and darker is at work.
8. Venom — Joan Brady Brady won the Whitbread Prize for Theory of War and brings that same ferocious intelligence to this thriller about betrayal — the deadliest poison of all, as the cover notes. Not your standard genre fare.
9. Scimitar SL-2 — Patrick Robinson A rogue submarine. A tidal wave that could devastate the US coastline. Robinson's naval thrillers are the gold standard of the genre — technically precise, geopolitically shrewd, and genuinely impossible to put down once the countdown begins.
10. Street Boys — Lorenzo Carcaterra From the bestselling author of Sleepers. Naples, 1943 — the Nazis are withdrawing but they plan to leave nothing standing. A group of abandoned street children decides to fight back. Based on a true story, and one of the most gripping WWII novels you haven't read.
11. Slash and Burn — Matt Hilton Joe Hunter — ex-Special Forces, morally complicated, extremely good at violence — is back. Peter James called Hilton "a sparkling new talent" and he's right. Fast, brutal, and satisfying in exactly the way this kind of thriller should be.
12. Blasphemy — Douglas Preston The world's most powerful particle accelerator is switched on beneath a sacred Navajo mountain in New Mexico. Then it starts sending messages. Preston takes a genuinely terrifying premise and runs with it — part techno-thriller, part meditation on faith and science, entirely gripping.
13. The Berkut — Joseph Heywood A stunning what-if: what if Hitler didn't die in the bunker? A Soviet special unit — the Berkut — is tasked with finding him. Heywood's research is impeccable and the novel moves between post-war Europe and the halls of the Kremlin with real authority.
14. The Lying-Down Room — Anna Jaquiery A French crime novel featuring Commander Morel — elegant, literary, and atmospheric in the way that the best French crime fiction always is. Old women found dead in Paris apartments, each laid out with strange, deliberate care. Disturbing and beautifully crafted.
15. Redemption Road — Lisa Ballantyne From the author of The Guilty One, a novel that proved Ballantyne understands guilt and redemption better than almost anyone writing in this space. Here she returns to those themes with even more control — "forgiveness is the sweetest form of revenge" is a promise the book keeps.
16. The Raft — Alan Mills A survival thriller in the tradition of Cape Fear. Every parent's nightmare, as the cover says — and it means it. Mills builds dread slowly and then doesn't let up. For fans of primal, stripped-back tension.
17. In the Name of the Father — A.J. Quinnell Quinnell gave us Man on Fire — one of the greatest revenge thrillers ever written. This later novel brings the same intensity and moral weight to a story rooted in religious and political conflict. Underread and overdue for rediscovery.
18. Original Sin — P.D. James Adam Dalgliesh investigates a murder at a prestigious London publishing house. James is operating at the height of her powers here — the mystery is intricate, the characters are fully alive, and the prose is so good it makes you slow down even when the plot is urging you to speed up. A masterclass.
