Five Faves: Thrillers

FIVE FAVE THRILLERS

I always like a good thriller, my escapist genre of choice.  Thrillers I distinguish from mysteries in a fuzzy, overlapping sort of way.  Thrillers involve chasing a known bad guy, not figuring out who committed a crime.  Thrillers move faster and are usually more exciting than a mystery.  But I could make the argument that any of the books on this list could be called a mystery rather than a thriller, by my guidelines or any others.

My list includes only one by a particular author, so I can't say these are my all-time top thrillers, just five that I really liked.

• Cathedral by Nelson DeMille (I really do think this is the best of the genre)

• The Killing Floor by Lee Child (this is his first and still my favorite)

• Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett (I screamed when I read the book)

• State of Fear by Micheal Crichton (or a couple of his others)

• The Pelican Brief by John Grisham (I preferred this to The Firm)

What are some of your favorite thrillers?

FIVE FAVES

There are times when a full-sized book list is just too much; when the Top 100, a Big Read, or all the Prize winners seem like too daunting an effort. That's when a short little list of books grouped by theme may be just the ticket.

Inspired by Nancy Pearl's "Companion Reads" chapter in Book Lust – themed clusters of books on subjects as diverse as Bigfoot and Vietnam – I decided to start occasionally posting lists of five books grouped by topic or theme. I call these posts my Five Faves.

Feel free to grab the button and play along. Use today's theme or come up with your own. If you post about it, please link back to here and leave the link to your post in a comment. If you want to participate but don't have a blog or don't feel like posting, please share your list in a comment.