I love reading and my bookcase is full of various suspense and thriller novels. Who are your favourite authors that write stories under either genre? Mine include:
Tess Gerritsen
Mark Edwards and Louise Voss
Peter James
Clive Barker
Stephen King
Although I'm not a huge fan of suspense/thrillers, there are some good stories out there. I like Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, and James Patterson is usually pretty good.
I don't like when they are gruesome - that really turns me off. There was only one Stephen King book I ever enjoyed, the rest I quit reading early in the book.
I also like Tess Gerritsen, and dislike very gruesome books.
I really like Phil Rickman's books. Amongst others he's written a series of suspense novels set on the England / Wales border. They feature a female Anglican priest called Merrily Watkins, who is also the exorcist for the diocese. The cases she investigates are kept very low key - nothing that crosses the line from suspense to horror - and they're real page turners.
My daughter likes Tess Gerritsen although I've never read any of her books. I have read a number of books from Oceanview Publishing that are suspense thrillers. If you are interested, search the publisher and you will find some great stories.
Tess Gerritsen is great, but so are Vince Flynn, Patricia Cornwell, Daniel Silva, David Baldacci, Jonathan Kellerman, and Michael Connelly, to name a few. I don't like overly violent or graphic novels either, so some of James Patterson's novels are out, but his Alex Cross series and Women's Murder Club series are great fast reads. Jeffery Deaver writes good stand alone books, and his Lincoln Rhyme series is exceptional. And for Satirical thrillers, Carl Hiaasen is a master. John Grisham's legal thrillers are suspensful and facinating; Phillip Margolin writes good Legal thrillers, too. Faye Kellerman writes Jewish Crime thrillers with very likeable characters and terrible villains. Steig Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tatoo trilogy is also not to be missed. I'm afraid life is too short to read all the good stuff out there.
If Stephen King is also considered a suspense author does that mean that Dean Koontz too is one?
I grew up reading Robert Ludlum works.
I'm not into thrillers but right now i am reading The Order by Daniel Silva. I did read The Lincoln Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer which was excellent.