THRILLERS

  ONE HUNDRED MUST-READS

  THRILLERS

  100 MUST-READS

  David Morrell

  and

  Hank Wagner

  Copyright © 2010 by International Thriller Writers

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN 978-1-933515-56-4

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing Longboat Key, Florida

  Visit our Web site at www.oceanviewpub.com and the International Thriller Writers Web site at www.thrillerwriters.org.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The editors are indebted to Stephen Jones and Kim Newman for the example of their influential 1988 volume Horror: 100 Best Books and its follow-up,Horror: Another 100 Best Books. Mr. Jones provided invaluable advice about how to organize this complex project.

  Various thriller reviewers offered helpful suggestions, in particular Larry Gandle, Ali Karim, and David Montgomery. Agent Henry Morrison drew our attention to E. Phillips Oppenheim’s The Great Impersonation. Nonetheless, the editors of this volume are solely responsible for the final selections.

  Hank Wagner thanks his wife, Nancy, along with his daughters, Leigh, Melissa, and Sarah, for making daily life a thrill, and to Theo and Ella for providing comic relief.

  David Morrell thanks the many ITW members who contributed to this volume. Without a second thought, they generously donated their time and talent to this educational project. Their commitment to the community of authors and readers is inspiring.

  CONTENTS

  Welcome to the World of Thrillers by David Hewson

  One Hundred Must-Read Thrillers by David Morrell/Hank Wagner

  1 Theseus and the Minotaur (1500 B.C.)

  Lee Child

  2 Homer’s The Iliad and the Odyssey (7th Century B.C.)

  William Bernhardt

  3 Beowulf (between 700 and 1000 A.D.)

  Andrew Klavan

  4 William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1605 – 1606)

  A. J. Hartley

  5 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719–1722)

  David Liss

  6 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818)

  Gary Braver

  7 James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

  Rick Wilber

  8 Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)

  Katherine Neville

  9 Alexandre Dumas’The Count of Monte Cristo (1845)

  Francine Mathews

  10 Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1860)

  Douglas Preston

  11 Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island (1874)

  D. P. Lyle

  12 H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885)

  Norman L. Rubenstein

  13 Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1886)

  Sarah Langan

  14 Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1894)

  Michael Palmer

  15 Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)

  Carole Nelson Douglas

  16 H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898)

  Steven M. Wilson

  17 Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1901)

  Tom Grace

  18 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901)

  Laura Benedict

  19 Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902)

  H. Terrell Griffin

  20 Erskine Childers’s The Riddle of the Sands (1903)

  Christine Kling

  21 Jack London’s The Sea Wolf (1904)

  Jim Fusilli

  22 Baroness Emma Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)

  Lisa Black

  23 Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes (1912)

  W. Craig Reed

  24 Marie Belloc Lowndes’s The Lodger (1913)

  James A. Moore

  25 John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)

  Janet Berliner

  26 E. Phillips Oppenheim’s The Great Impersonation (1920)

  Justin Scott

  27 Richard Connell’s "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924)

  Katherine Ramsland

  28 W. Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden or The British Agent (1928)

  Melodie Johnson Howe

  29 P. G. Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning (1929)

  R.L. Stine

  30 Edgar Wallace’s King Kong (1933)

  Kathleen Sharp

  31 Lester Dent’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1933)

  Mark T. Sullivan

  32 James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

  Joe R. Lansdale

  33 Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938)

  Allison Brennan

  34 Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1939)

  David Morrell

  35 Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios (1939)

  Ali Karim

  36 Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male (1939)

  David Morrell

  37 Helen Macinnes’s Above Suspicion (1941)

  Gayle Lynds

  38 Cornell Woolrich’s "Rear Window" (1942)

  Thomas F. Monteleone

  39 Vera Caspary’s Laura (1943)

  M. J. Rose

  40 Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock (1946)

  Lincoln Child

  41 Graham Greene’s The Third Man (1950)

  Rob Palmer

  42 Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train (1950)

  David Baldacci

  43 Mickey Spillane’s One Lonely Night (1951)

  Max Allan Collins

  44 Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me (1952)

  Scott Nicholson

  45 Ernest K. Gann’s The High and the Mighty (1953)

  Ward Larsen

  46 Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955)

  James Rollins

  47 Hammond Innes’s The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956)

  Matt Lynn

  48 Ian Fleming’s From Russia, with Love (1957)

  Raymond Benson

  49 Alistair MacLean’s The Guns of Navarone (1957)

  Larry Gandle

  50 Richard Condon’s The Manchurian Candidate (1959)

  Robert S. Levinson

  51 Len Deighton’s The IPCRESS File (1962)

  Jeffery Deaver

  52 Fletcher Knebel & Charles W. Bailey’s Seven Days in May (1962)

  James Grady

  53 Lionel Davidson’s The Rose of Tibet (1962)

  Milton C. Toby

  54 Richard Stark’s (Donald E. Westlake’s) The Hunter aka Point Blank (1962)

  Duane Swierczynski

  55 John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)

  Denise Hamilton

  56 Wilbur Smith’s When the Lion Feeds (1964)

  W. D. Gagliani

  57 Evelyn Anthony’s The Rendezvous (1967)

  Sandra Brown

  58 Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain (1969)

  Josh Conviser

  59 James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970)

  Terry Watkins

  60 Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal (1971)

  F. Paul Wilson

  61 Brian Garfield’s Death Wish (1972)

  John Lescroart

  62 David Morrell’s First Blood (1972)

  Steve Berry

  63 Trevanian’s The Eiger Sanction (1972)

  Lee Goldberg

  64 Charles McCarry’s The Tears of Autumn (1974)

  Hank Wagner

  65 Peter Benchley’s Jaws (1974)

  P. J. Parrish

  66 William Goldman’s Marathon Man (1974)

  Hank Wagner

  67 James Grady’s Six Days of the Condor (1974)

  Mark Terry

  68 Jack Higgins’s The Eagle Has Landed (1975)

  Zoë Sharp

  69 Joseph Wambaugh’s The Choirboys (1975)

  James O. Born

  70 Clive Cussler’s Raise the Titanic! (1976)

  Grant Blackwood

  71 Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil (1976)

  Daniel Kalla

  72 Robin Cook’s Coma (1977)

  CJ Lyons

  73 Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle (1978)

  Tess Gerritsen

  74 Ross Thomas’s Chinaman’s Chance (1978)

  David J. Montgomery

  75 John D. MacDonald’s T he Green Ripper (1979)

  J. A. Konrath

  76 Justin Scott’s The Shipkiller (1979)

  Lawrence Light

  77 Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity (1980)

  Linda L. Richards

  78 Eric Van Lustbader’s The Ninja (1980)

  J. D. Rhoades

  79 Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon (1981)

  Bev Vincent

  80 Jack Ketchum’s Off Season (1981)

  Blake Crouch

  81 Thomas Perry’s The Butcher’s Boy (1982)

  Robert Liparulo

  82 Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October (1984)

  Chris Kuzneski

  83 F. Paul Wilson’s The Tomb (1984)

  Heather Graham

  84 Andrew Vachss’s Flood (1985)

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  Barry Eisler

  85 Stephen King’s Misery (1987)

  Chris Mooney

  86 Nelson DeMille’s The Charm School (1988)

  J. T. Ellison

  87 Dean Koontz’s Watchers (1988)

  Lee Thomas

  88 Katherine Neville’s The Eight (1988)

  Shirley Kennett

  89 Peter Straub’s Koko (1988)

  Hank Wagner

  90 John Grisham’s The Firm (1991)

  M. Diane Vogt

  91 R.L. Stine’s Silent Night (1991)

  Jon Land

  92 James Patterson’s Along Came a Spider (1992)

  Mary SanGiovanni

  93 Stephen Hunter’s Point of Impact (1993)

  Christopher Rice

  94 John Lescroart’s The 13th Juror (1994)

  Karna Small Bodman

  95 Sandra Brown’s The Witness (1995)

  Deborah LeBlanc

  96 David Baldacci’s Absolute Power (1996)

  Rhodi Hawk

  97 Gayle Lynds’s Masquerade (1996)

  Hank Phillippi Ryan

  98 Lee Child’s Killing Floor (1997)

  Marcus Sakey

  99 Jeffery Deaver’s The Bone Collector (1997)

  Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  100 Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003)

  Steve Berry

  Index

  WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF THRILLERS

  David Hewson

  Storytellers began thrilling their audiences before human beings learned to write. When a poet-singer called Homer entranced his listeners in the Mediterranean almost three thousand years ago, one of his staples was a tale that could fit on any airport shelf today: Odysseus fighting against extraordinary odds to return home from war to save his threatened wife and son.

  Today, thrillers provide a rich literary feast embracing a wide variety of worlds—the law, espionage, action-adventure, medicine, police and crime, romance, history, politics, high-tech, religion, and many more. But old or new—and this vibrant field never remains still—all thrillers share certain characteristics. Like Homer trying to keep his audience captive while telling his tale in ancient Greece, thriller authors are constantly aware that their readers want them to provide the sudden rush of emotions: the excitement, suspense, apprehension, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly, with peaks and lulls, sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace. By definition, if a thriller does not thrill, it is not doing its job.

  But thrillers are also intensely human stories, allegories that find truths in fiction in order to tell us more about the world we inhabit and the kind of people we are. Sometimes, the protagonist will be a classical hero, focused on the challenge ahead, and perhaps a little damaged by his or her destiny in facing it. Other times, the protagonist will simply be an ordinary man or woman on the street, finding a steely thread of heroism inside, one that provides the strength to confront the challenge ahead.

  That challenge may be personal, like that of Odysseus. Or, in our modern world, it will often be global, such as averting a pandemic or war or act of terrorism. It may even be both, seeking to crystallize a broader story by focusing on how it impacts the individuals who matter most to the protagonist. Whatever the canvas chosen by a thriller author, it must feel real, often through scrupulous research into science, crime procedures, or history.

  Its authenticity will be found, too, through richly rounded characters who rise to challenges in the fictional world that mirror those we face in the real one: how to meet our responsibilities as human beings, even when there is a cost; how to lead a good life in a world where the line between right and wrong can sometimes be hard to discern. Being real means being honest, too. The best thrillers pull no punches. Happy-ever-after endings are, as in life, never guaranteed.

  Odysseus, a battle-damaged warrior desperate to save his family. Beowulf, a king determined to protect his people, even at the cost of confronting a creature from hell. Robinson Crusoe, a shipwreck victim alone on a remote island, struggling to find the means of survival, but one day finding something else: footprints. The thriller is the oldest kind of story— rooted in our deepest hopes and fears, for ourselves, those we love, and the world around us.

  David Hewson’s books have been published in more than a dozen languages. The sixth novel in his Rome-based Nic Costa series,The Garden of Evi l, was voted best mystery of 2008 by the American Library Association. His first novel,Semana Santa, won the WHSmith First Choice Prize for debut book of the year and became a movie starring Mira Sorvino. David is now a regular speaker at writing schools around the world, including International Thriller Writer’s annual Craft-Fest and the Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference in Corte Madera, California. He left school at the age of seventeen to become a cub reporter on one of the smallest evening newspapers in England, in his native Yorkshire. Later he worked as a journalist for the London Times and Sunday Times before becoming a full-time author.

  ONE HUNDRED MUST-READ THRILLERS

  David Morrell and Hank Wagner

  In October 2004, at the Bouchercon conference in Toronto, Canada, a group of authors celebrated their common interest by creating the International Thriller Writers organization. ITW has grown considerably since then, but its goals continue to include educating readers about thrillers and encouraging ITW members to explore the creative possibilities of the form. Accordingly, ITW sought recommendations from various knowledgeable members and asked advice from several noted thriller reviewers in an effort to compile a list of one hundred thrillers that made a difference. That number was arbitrary. Obviously, more than one hundred important thrillers were published prior to 2000. We could easily have tripled the list, sometimes adding numerous titles by the same author, but practicality forced us to stop at one hundred, and individual contributors often decided which book by a prolific author would be included.

  Books were chosen on the basis of the impact each had on the genre. Did the author contribute a new subject, direction, character, and/or technique that had a lasting effect? Did a work make such an impression that it was frequently imitated? After the final list was determined, ITW members were invited to choose a favorite thriller from the list and write an essay that analyzes the work’s importance.

  Some authors, such as Sandra Brown, had a favorite that they asked to be included. In her case, the book was Evelyn Anthony’s The Rendezvous (1967), a work that greatly influenced Brown’s fiction but that is no longer in the public’s mind. Other “lost” novels—E. Phillips Oppenheim’s once widely read The Great Impersonation (1920), for example—are also on the list, filling gaps in thrilller history. R.L. Stine requested that P. G. Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning (1929) be included, using the interesting premise that a comedy could also be a thriller.

  Brown and Stine are among twelve essayists who also have must-read titles of their own on the list. The others include: David Baldacci, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, James Grady, John Lescroart, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, Katherine Neville, Justin Scott, and F. Paul Wilson. In addition, several essayists have a strong relationship with the topic of the novel they chose to write about. For example, Raymond Benson, author of many James Bond novels, analyzed Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love. A. J. Hartley, a Shakespeare professor whose work includes some Shakespeare-based thrillers, wrote about Macbeth. Professional pilot Ward Larsen discussed Ernest K. Gann’s aviation thriller,The High and the Mighty. Emergency physician CJ Lyons wrote about Robin Cook’s medical thriller, Coma. Attorney M. Diane Vogt analyzed John Grisham’s legal thriller,The Firm. Sailor Christine Kling provided her thoughts about Erskine Childer’s nautical thriller,The Riddle of the Sands. Law enforcement officer James O. Born gave his views on Joseph Wambaugh’s police thriller,The Choirboys. Max Allan Collins, a friend of Mickey Spillane, discussed Spillane’s One Lonely Night. In many cases, the essayists also composed the biography of the author whose book they discussed. Those brief biographies should be considered part of the essay, providing essential background.

  Where to begin the list? When first conceived, this project began with Wilkie Collins, whose contemporaries credited him with inventing “the novel of sensation” when he wrote The Woman in White in 1860. But sensational works obviously predate that novel. Next, we thought that Edgar Allan Poe seemed a good place to start. It was intriguing to consider that the creator of the mystery story might also have created the thriller in his only novel,The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Later discussions led us further and further back until, at Douglas Preston’s suggestion, we began the list with Homer’s Odyssey. But then Lee Child made the case that the ancient story of Theseus and the Minotaur (with its labyrinth, monster, and secret weapon of a ball of string) might own that distinction.