As title says, list your best thriller novels..i want to have some :)
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As title says, list your best thriller novels..i want to have some :)
The Day of the Jackal is one of my favorites.
I've really enjoyed the works of Robert Ludlum ... warning for anyone picking up the Bourne books... 1) they were written about 30 years before the movies... and 2) in true Hollywood style, while the movies are based on the books, they don't follow it... not even close... the premise of a spy gone rogue is about as close as the two get. But they are good reads.
-tg
I read the Bourne novels years ago and I agree with tg.
Another interesting novel by Ludlum is "The matarese circle".
If you are willing to stretch the category to military science fiction, the Area 51 books by Robert Doherty (pseudonym of the author Robert Mayer) were pretty good. There are 7 novels in the main timeline and two more that are related (same characters, settings, and universe).
You can probably find the first one Area 51 used or at the library to see if it meets your tastes.
Sort of like the Stargate movie/TV franchise but without so much space travel, it relates to Earth mythology and history rather than being about little green men or abductions as you might think. All but a few background flashbacks occur "today."
If you're willing to combine adventure into the genre, then Clive Cussler and James Rollins write well.
Tony Hillerman is another of my favorite authors... his are more in the mystery are though... but take place on Navajo tribal lands in the southwest US. The earlier Clive Cussler's are pretty good...
-tg
thanks Abhijit, tg, dilettante for your answers :)
i took a quick review of 'the day of the jackal', 'The matarese circle' and i found these good..
i'll read these two first.
i'll take a look on other writers too that you guys told me.
Lord of the Rings takes the cake, as far as English thrillers I have read and remember go.
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I was thoroughly disappointed by the Bourne movies, but what could you expect considering the massive size of the original novels? Well, a few things could be expected. In the Bourne Identity, the gal was a PhD, whereas in the movie she was...what, a hooker? As far as I could tell, they kept nothing from the book other than the name, and everything else about the movie was massively dumbed down.
I wouldn't read very many Clive Cussler books. He started getting too seriously in love with his main character. The guy slowly became the smartest, toughest, most ageless, hero of all time. It's a trap that lots of writers fall into when they become enamored of any one protagonist.
There was a serial book written in the papers while I was down in South Florida. A bunch of Miami writers each agreed to write one chapter of a book. Dave Barry wrote the first chapter, which pretty much set the tone. Of course, it was set in the Miami area where insanity is the normal state, so the book fit in pretty well. One of the authors, though, was equally enamored of his down-on-his-luck, sad-sack, of a detective, so he wrote him into one of the early chapters. That was a mistake. The next author had the guy win many millions of dollars in the lottery and move to California, thereby turning him into a multi-millionaire and getting him entirely across the country. The moral of that story is clear: If you like your protagonist, don't let anybody else get ahold of them. Heck, just lock at Don Quixote.
Another, older, author that wrote lots of good, though very dated, books, is Alistair MaClean.
Dark Heart by Margaret Weis. Its a kinda mix between fantasy, detective story and horror/thriller.
I have no words to describe the frustration I got when watching Aragorn (who looked like someone mistakenly released from a mental facility) in the movie versions.
The terror of Sauron that strikes you when reading the book, sometimes subtle and sometimes overwhelming (like when the hooded riders hunt for Frodo, or the walk through the hills of the dead (?) or the rush of adrenaline as you visualize the Riders of Rohan emerging from the top of the hills) is something a visual cannot easily capture.
Out of all the movies I have seen which were based on books, the one I liked best is Slumdog Millionnaire. I actually bought the book after I saw the movie, but I think it was a mistake. The book sucks, so much that it's good Boyle didn't stick to it word by word.
I also read the trilogy about the girl with the tattoo. It's too wordy, but finally it does seem interesting. If the author could have restricted himself to just a single book, it might have gone several notches up in the quality department. Attention to too much (and too many) detail!
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@Niya: thanks :)
@Shaggy: I don't exactly like massive size novels but like novels that does arouse curiosity. I used to read short stories and novels most often. The most i liked were kidnapped and jane eyre.
@honeybee: yep Slumdog Millionnaire is good movie, i liked it too :) but didn't read its novel.
i'm thinking if get a novel like the 'kidnapped'.
The Silence of the Lambs(by Thomas Harris) for me is a good one...
would love to read its prequel and sequels too, but haven't found a copy yet...
this also have a movie, but i prefer the book.
"Thriller" is a very broad category. If you're looking for police thrillers, I would recommend the books by Stuart MacBride, which are dark, clever and frequently hilarious. For adventure-type novels, I'd agree with Shaggy's suggestion of Alistair MacLean or Desmond Bagley. Both of these authors are long dead, though, so their books aren't exactly modern.
For serial-killer thrillers, you could do a lot worse than the novels by Chelsea Cain. And if you want children's horror-thrillers, I would recommend the series of The Enemy, The Dead and The Fear by Charlie Higson.
TBH, I could go on and on here. Do you fancy narrowing the category?
Keep looking, they're well worth it. Agent Starling's final bit of plot in Hanibal didn't gel for me for me but it's still a good book and Red Dragon is really good. I haven't read Hanibal Rising, or seen the film for that matter, but all the other books are definitely worth a read.Quote:
The Silence of the Lambs(by Thomas Harris) for me is a good one...
would love to read its prequel and sequels too, but haven't found a copy yet...
thanks lehgzil, InvisibleDuncan, FunkyDexter for your answers :)