Action-Packed Thrillers to Heat Up Your Summer
Looking for fast-paced mysteries and thrillers to keep you reading this summer? These new mystery thriller books are action-packed and are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. You won’t want to put these thrillers down until you reach the very last gripping page.
Imagine an alternate version of America in 1958. President Joseph McCarthy has been elected through catering to—and fueling—populist xenophobia in the country. In this hostile America where a secret police force hunts down un-American activities and Hollywood is forced to churn out anti-communist propaganda, LAPD detective Morris Baker is called to the scene of a horrific double homicide: film director John Huston and up-and-coming journalist Walter Cronkite. On one of the dead men, Baker finds a note that says, “beat the devils,” along with the name “Baker.” Beats the Devils is a fast-paced crime thriller is a chilling look at an alternate 1950s America that is unsettlingly similar to the America of today.
Related: Read Real Stories: When Dark Secrets Turn Into Chilling Crimes
The Match is the thrilling follow up to Harlan Cobin’s The Boy from the Woods. Wilde knows almost nothing about his true identity or his family. All he knows is that he was discovered as a small child, living feral in the Ramapo mountains of New Jersey. But when Wilde starts to investigate his family history through DNA websites, something strange happens. He soon gets caught up in a secret online community and a serial killer who wants them all dead.
Killer View
by Roy Johansen
Foreword by Iris Johansen
In Killer View, bestselling author Roy Johnsen offers up a thrilling story about a fearless heroine for hire. Kendra Michaels was blind before she gained her sight via a revolutionary surgical procedure. Now, her razor-sharp senses are just what her friend Jessie Mercado needs to solve her latest case. Owen Blake has hired Jessie to find his missing business partner. But when your business is preparing wealthy people to go to prison, the suspect list gets quite interesting. As witnesses start turning up dead, Jessie and Kendra learn just how far someone is willing to go to keep this man hidden.
Related: Read Thrilling Page-Turners Featuring Strong Female Leads
The Sorority Murder
Allison Brennan
The Sorority Murder is a chilling thriller about Lucas Vega, who starts a podcast to examine the horrifying murder of Candace Swain, who left a sorority party one night and was never seen alive again. Two weeks later, her body is found, but three years later, the case has gone cold. What happened in the last hours of Candace’s life? As Lucas podcasts about the case, he calls upon listeners to call in with what they know. The podcast is going great, and Lucas thinks they might actually be uncovering something, and that’s when one of the podcast callers ends up dead.
End of Days
Brad Taylor
From former special forces officer Brad Taylor comes the action-packed thriller End of Days. Taskforce operators Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill are stuck in Charleston, South Carolina, during the COVID-19 pandemic. So when terrorist hunters Aaron and Shoshana show up on their doorstep with a new mission, they jump at the chance. This is the latest installation in the exciting Pike Logan series, and it does not disappoint.
Steal is the third novel in James Patterson and Howard Roguhan’s Instint series. When Carter von Oehson, a sophomore in Dr. Dylan Reinhart’s Abnormal Psychology class, announces on Instagram that he is planning his suicide, everyone is shocked. And after 24 hours, Carter is nowhere to be found. Then Carter’s sailboat is found rolling back in with the tide, without him or anyone else on it. Did Carter complete his plan and die by suicide? Or is there another explanation?
City of the Dead
Jonathan Kellerman
City of the Dead is the 37th novel in bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series, and the stakes just keep getting higher. In psychologist Alex Delaware’s latest adventure, the past comes back to haunt him as he and Detective Milo Sturgis investigate a double homicide involving a woman Alex met while working a child custody case. As Alex and Milo dig deeper into the case, they uncover a horrifyingly unspeakable motive.
It was meant to be a simple family vacation. When Heather and Tom take their family to a remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors, they thought they were just going on a fun adventure. But as soon as they set foot on the island, everything goes wrong. And then a shocking accident sets the family off into a nightmare. Read the propulsive thriller The Island by Adrian McKinty to find out if they’ll make it out alive.
Related: Read 8 Twisted True Crime Stories Filled With Mayhem and Intrigue
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Emily Martin has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi. She’s a contributing editor at Book Riot and blogs/podcasts at Book Squad Goals.