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.
- Theseus and the Minotaur (1500 B.C.) - Lee Child
- Homer’s The Iliad and the Odyssey (7th Century B.C.) - William Bernhardt
- Beowulf (between 700 and 1000 A.D.) - Andrew Klavan
- William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1605–1606) - A.J. Hartley
- Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719–1722) - David Liss
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818) - Gary Braver
- James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (1826) - Rick Wilber
- Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) - Katherine Neville
- Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) - Francine Mathews
- Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1860) - Douglas Preston
- Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island (1874) - D. P. Lyle
- H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885) - Norman L. Rubenstein
- Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1886) - Sarah Langan
- Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) - Michael Palmer
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) - Carole Nelson Douglas
- H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) - Steven M. Wilson
- Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1901) - Tom Grace
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901) - Laura Benedict
- Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) - H. Terrell Griffin
- Erskine Childers’s The Riddle of the Sands (1903) - Christine Kling
- Jack London’s The Sea Wolf (1904) - Jim Fusilli
- Baroness Emma Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) - Lisa Black
- Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes (1912) - Craig Reed
- Marie Belloc Lowndes’s The Lodger (1913) - James A. Moore
- John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) - Janet Berliner
- E. Phillips Oppenheim’s The Great Impersonation (1920) - Justin Scott
- Richard Connell’s "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924) - Katherine Ramsland
- W. Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden or The British Agent (1928) - Melodie Johnson Howe
- P. G. Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning (1929) - R.L. Stine
- Edgar Wallace’s King Kong (1933) - Kathleen Sharp
- Lester Dent’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1933) - Mark T. Sullivan
- James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) - Joe R. Lansdale
- Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938) - Allison Brennan
- Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1939) - David Morrell
- Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios (1939) - Ali Karim
- Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male (1939) - David Morrell
- Helen Macinnes’s Above Suspicion (1941) - Gayle Lynds
- Cornell Woolrich’s "Rear Window" (1942) - Thomas F. Monteleone
- Vera Caspary’s Laura (1943) - M. J. Rose
- Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock (1946) - Lincoln Child
- Graham Greene’s The Third Man (1950) - Rob Palmer
- Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train (1950) - David Baldacci
- Mickey Spillane’s One Lonely Night (1951) - Max Allan Collins
- Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me (1952) - Scott Nicholson
- Ernest K. Gann’s The High and the Mighty (1953) - Ward Larsen
- Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955) - James Rollins
- Hammond Innes’s The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956) - Matt Lynn
- Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love (1957) - Raymond Benson
- Alistair MacLean’s The Guns of Navarone (1957) - Larry Gandle
- Richard Condon’s The Manchurian Candidate (1959) - Robert S. Levinson
- Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File (1962) - Jeffery Deaver
- Fletcher Knebel & Charles W. Bailey’s Seven Days in May (1962) - James Grady
- Lionel Davidson’s The Rose of Tibet (1962) - Milton C. Toby
- Richard Stark’s (Donald E. Westlake’s) The Hunter aka Point Blank (1962) - Duane Swierczynski
- John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) - Denise Hamilton
- Wilbur Smith’s When the Lion Feeds (1964) - W. D. Gagliani
- Evelyn Anthony’s The Rendezvous (1967) - Sandra Brown
- Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain (1969) - Josh Conviser
- James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970) - Terry Watkins
- Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal (1971) - F. Paul Wilson
- Brian Garfield’s Death Wish (1972) - John Lescroart
- David Morrell’s First Blood (1972) - Steve Berry
- Trevanian’s The Eiger Sanction (1972) - Lee Goldberg
- Charles McCarry’s The Tears of Autumn (1974) - Hank Wagner
- Peter Benchley’s Jaws (1974) - P. J. Parrish
- William Goldman’s Marathon Man (1974) - Hank Wagner
- James Grady’s Six Days of the Condor (1974) - Mark Terry
- Jack Higgins’s The Eagle Has Landed (1975) - Zoë Sharp
- Joseph Wambaugh’s The Choirboys (1975) - James O. Born
- Clive Cussler’s Raise the Titanic! (1976) - Grant Blackwood
- Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil (1976) - Daniel Kalla
- Robin Cook’s Coma (1977) - C J Lyons
- Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle (1978) - Tess Gerritsen
- Ross Thomas’s Chinaman’s Chance (1978) - David J. Montgomery
- John D. MacDonald’s The Green Ripper (1979) - J. A. Konrath
- Justin Scott’s The Shipkiller (1979) - Lawrence Light
- Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity (1980) - Linda L. Richards
- Eric Van Lustbader’s The Ninja (1980) - J. D. Rhoades
- Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon (1981) - Bev Vincent
- Jack Ketchum’s Off Season (1981) - Blake Crouch
- Thomas Perry’s The Butcher’s Boy (1982) - Robert Liparulo
- Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October (1984) - Chris Kuzneski
- F. Paul Wilson’s The Tomb (1984) - Heather Graham
- Andrew Vachss’s Flood (1985) - Barry Eisler
- Stephen King’s Misery (1987) - Chris Mooney
- Nelson DeMille’s The Charm School (1988) - J. T. Ellison
- Dean Koontz’s Watchers (1988) - Lee Thomas
- Katherine Neville’s The Eight (1988) - Shirley Kennett
- Peter Straub’s Koko (1988) - Hank Wagner
- John Grisham’s The Firm (1991) - M. Diane Vogt
- R.L. Stine’s Silent Night (1991) - Jon Land
- James Patterson’s Along Came a Spider (1992) - Mary SanGiovanni
- Stephen Hunter’s Point of Impact (1993) - Christopher Rice
- John Lescroart’s The 13th Juror (1994) - Karna Small Bodman
- Sandra Brown’s The Witness (1995) - Deborah LeBlanc
- David Baldacci’s Absolute Power (1996) - Rhodi Hawk
- Gayle Lynds’s Masquerade (1996) - Hank Phillippi Ryan
- Lee Child’s Killing Floor (1997) - Marcus Sakey
- Jeffery Deaver’s The Bone Collector (1997) - Jeffrey J. Mariotte
- Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003) - Steve Berry
How many of these books have you read?
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!
ReplyDeleteI'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.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but notice that a lot of these books have been made into awesome movies!