Wicked Wednesday–Thrilling Suspense

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by Barb, in Key West where we’re thrilled to be here everyday, and the only suspense is where are we going for dinner?

Publishers and retailers love to put readers into rigid categories in terms of the subgenres they read but that isn’t my experience with the Wickeds or our blog readers. Several of the Wickeds are thriller and/or suspense readers. Wickeds, tell me what you love. Authors, books, sub-subgenres like domestic suspense or spy thrillers or serial killers or hitmen. (Hitpeople?) Specific recommendations more than welcome!

Julie: Excellent discussion, Barb! Publishers are much more rigid that readers. I enjoy mashups myself, which are more common in YA than adult fiction, though horror and sci-fi embrace genre combining. The Russell/Holmes series by Laurie R. King defines the books are novels of suspense, and I suppose they are, though they do have mystery elements. Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn was a suspense thriller, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Kellye Garrett writes domestic suspense, and I can’t wait to read Missing White Woman. I don’t like dark, but I do love a good suspense or thriller, or suspense thriller.

Sherry: I LOVE spy novels and have been reading a lot of them this year. So many I wrote a post about them and added to my TBR pile reading the comments! I think the Slough House books kicked off my renewed interest in them. Like Julie, I’m looking forward to Missing White Woman!

Liz: Dark is my jam! I have always been a huge fan of suspense and thriller, or both combined. I just read Edwin Hill’s The Secrets We Share and it was phenomenal. I also love atmospheric books like Tana French writes. And I’m not sure what genre it is, but I have been loving the Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano. Finlay is the best! Funny and relatable and there’s tons of action in the books. Highly recommend.

Edith/Maddie: I don’t like too dark, but I’ll read anything by Kellye Garrett, Edwin Hill (the new book awaits on my coffee table!), and Joanna Schaffhausen. Hallie Ephron’s domestic suspense novels are fabulous. In terms of crossing genre lines, I would say Rhys Bowen’s standalone historical wartime novels are more suspense than mystery, but because they’re historical that’s how they’re shelved/marketed. I stay away from thrillers, and for the most part I don’t like unreliable narrators.

Barb: Sherry got me into Mick Herron’s Slough House books. One of Hallie Ephron’s domestic suspense books kept me up until three in the morning because I absolutely had to find out what happened. I write cozies and I usually read traditional mysteries, but I also love big, bold bestsellers like Gone Girl, The Da Vinci Code, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Readers: What about you? Thrillers and suspense, yay or nay? Give us some recommendations.

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Published by Barbara Ross

Barbara Ross is the author of twelve Maine Clambake Mystery novels and six novellas. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Portland, Maine. Readers can visit her website at www.maineclambakemysteries.com

34 Thoughts

  1. My main reading is cozy mysteries but I do read a few thrillers, suspense, and traditional mysteries. I love books by Edwin Hill and Joanna Schaffhausen. Elle Cosimano is another favorite. I am not a fan of books that are dark.

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    2. Wonderful recommendations, ladies! I don’t read much thriller or suspense. I can’t handle the stress. LOL
      A few years ago, I read Martin Booth’s A Very Private Gentleman and loved it.

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  2. I’m taking notes.

    I do love suspense/thrillers along with traditional mysteries. Mash them all together and you’ve hooked me!

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    1. It’s always funny to me how books are marketed. They’ll call a traditional mystery a thriller if they think men will read it, and “women’s fiction” if they think book clubs will read it. Ultimately has nothing to do with the structure of the story inside.

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  3. I’ll read almost anything in the entire spectrum of subgenres in the thriller or mystery field.

    I’m a little more resistant to psychological thrillers since I usually find them to revel in non-linear storytelling or more plainly, game playing, which I’m not a fan of. I like my story laid out, start to finish.

    Recommendations: Well, how about THE YEAR OF THE LOCUST by Terry Hayes? It just came out and it is getting fantastic reviews. I’ve got my copy and will be starting it soon.

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  4. I do like suspense/thrillers! I read james Rollins’ Sigma Force series, which I think falls into this category. I’ve got to research the other authors names you all mentioned.

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  5. I love a good thriller or suspense. Liz, I really enjoyed THE SECRETS WE SHARE.

    I’ve read all of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s books and I have ONE WRONG WORD waiting. Also loved all of Rhys Bowen’s standalone historicals.

    I want to read Tess Gerritsen’s latest, which is a spy novel KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE.

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  6. I’m all over the place with the genres and sub-genres I read, with westerns being darn near the only thing I don’t read. As for suspense/thrillers, my all time fave is domestic suspense, and the best in that field is Lisa Scottoline. I love reading about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

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  7. I read fiction mostly (like Elizabeth Strout), interspersed with mysteries. I like my mysteries historical and cozy. Last summer I read Red Widow by Alma Katsu and loved it! It was a very suspenseful spy story. I do not care for unreliable narrators, or anything too intense, or violent. A book I did not like was Tangerine by Christine Mangan.

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  8. I like Lisa Gardner’s books very much, particularly when she writes about her home state, New Hampshire. Darkish, but not too much. Barb, when I was writing travel articles I interviewed a restaurant owner in Key West. She said “Living here is like being in kindergarten. Everyday we wear our shorts, ride our tricycles, and in the afternoon we take our naps.”

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  9. I love thrillers and suspense, mild horror, historical romance. I especially love cozies. Also love multi-generational sagas. I read almost anything except fantasy, scifi or paranormal. aprilbluetx at yahoo dot com

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  10. The books in my TBR pile include several cozies (the Wickeds), Middle Eastern suspense (Daniel Silva), military/political thriller (Jack Carr), western suspense (Craig Johnson & C.J. Box), traditional mysteries, assassin thrillers (Gregg Hurwitz), opioid crisis nonfiction (Eric Eyre), historical nonfiction (David Grann). I just finished binge-reading new-to-me Lissa Redmond’s Cold Case Investigation series, with endings so neatly done that I just had to get the next one right away. I do read sci-fi as long as it’s character centered and not too techy. Big NO to horror and books with blood & gore on every other page. Give me a great story with wonderful characters to bring it home, no matter what the genre.

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  11. Think I’m more of a suspense than thriller person. However, I’ve seen some books described as thriller/suspense that I have enjoyed. Guess it’s a matter of description. I read covers and research reviews – especially if I have doubts. I don’t mind being pushed to the limit, but I don’t care to read extremely gory details.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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  13. I love thrillers and suspense novels (as well as traditional, classic, and cozy mysteries.) Dan Brown, Daniel Silva, David Baldacci, Brad Meltzer, Steve Berry, and the incomparable Helen MacInnes! John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, and Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands.
    There are so many, some might be more detective/mystery than thriller/suspense….but the ones I list above are what first come to mind.

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  14. I enjoy some suspense, but others drives me crazy. This is especially true if I feel the author is purposely dragging things out to keep us from know the truth. That artificial suspense does nothing for me.

    I do enjoy Gregg Hurwitz. He’s more thriller than anything else. I feel like his Orphan X series isn’t as good as it was at the beginning, but I’m still enjoying it and have the latest on my stack for March.

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  15. I used to love so many genres but as I aged, my choices narrowed and changed. I do love Terry Brooks Shannara novels that are of the same ilk as Tolkien (whom I love). I loved The Hunger Games trilogy; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy (haven’t read the ones that came after); Dan Brown’s books, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux; David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter mysteries; the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy; John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee; Ian Fleming’s 007; Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone; Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum; Lucy Score’s Riley Thorn; Lee Child’s Jack Reacher and so many more. I did not like Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train. I now dislike horror though I used to read them all. I have listened to and read Hemingway, Dashiell Hammett, Baldacci, Michael Connelly, Nelson DeMille, James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club, Robert Randisi, Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder, Scott Turow, Craig Johnson’s Longmire, John Grisham, Jan Karon, and so many more. I though really am now enjoying cozy mysteries a lot. There are so many great authors and characters out there TBR. I wish I was in Key West. We haven’t been since 2015 or 2016. Having gone there for 13 years in a row, I miss it and the same with NOLA as we used to go there every year for 7 years in a row. I loved Randy Wayne White’s Florida mysteries and T. G. Herren’s A Streetcar named Murder is very good.

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  16. My only requirement is good writing, so yay to thrillers and suspense, and also to any good ol’ mystery. I’m reading Edith’s MURDER UNCORKED right now, along with Shari Lapena’s EVERYONE HERE IS LYING and Tara Laskowski’s THE WEEKEND RETREAT.

    Thanks for the shout out, Liz! You made my day!

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