Surprise release - Thrillers: 100 Must Reads



Last month, I read about Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, an International Thriller Writers publication edited by author David Morrell, co-founder of ITW and journalist Hank Wagner.   The book is 100 essays written by well known thrill writers talking about which books influenced and have had the greatest impact on the genre.  I love thrillers and  pre-ordered the book which was set for a release date of July 2010. You can imagine my surprise when I received an email from Amazon letting me know it had been shipped.       The book covers from practically the beginning of time starting with Lee Child's essay on Theseus and the Minotaur (1500 BC) to Francine Matthews thoughts on Alexander Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) to  ending with Steve Berry's reflection of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (2003).  

Cool book, very cool book.  I've been reading through the essays and it makes me want to read all of the books.   The titles in bold I have read and there are several on our shelves I just sadly haven't gotten around to such as The Illiad and the Odyssey, Beowulf, Macbeth, and The Count of Monte Cristo.   There are a few I've seen the movie versions of such as Strangers on the Train, The Thirty Nine Steps, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Marathon Man which made me want to read the books.  Thrillers: 100 Must Reads is excellent and if you like thrillers, you'll love reading this book.  I certainly am. 


  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) -  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)  - C J 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 The 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) - 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

How many of these books have you read? 

 

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the detailed post! I love thrillers, and I'm going to order this book. I see Publishers Weekly didn't think much of it, but it sure sounds like fun to me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've read The Da Vinci Code, Laura, The Bourne Identity, Eight, And Then There Were None, The Scarlet Pimpernell, Hound of the Baskervilles, The Prisoner of Zenda (great book, btw!), The Count of Monte Cristo, Frankenstein, and Beowulf. I've tried to read Rebecca several times and just can't do it.

    I can't help but notice that a lot of these books have been made into awesome movies!

    ReplyDelete

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