Exceptional thrillers that deserve a wider audience

Stepn: Could not be better or tighter.

SomeGuyInVirginia: You'll give your heart to this serial killer.

Stepn: Beautifully written too.

Stepn: Vivid female protagonist, in a story written from conviction.

SomeGuyInVirginia: Does not let up until the final word.

SomeGuyInVirginia: I think this is my favorite mystery.

Stepn: A classic of espionage.

SomeGuyInVirginia: Psychopathic horror laced with the blackest humor.

Stepn: Reads like Stephen King but without the relief of the supernatural.

SomeGuyInVirginia: When you think about it, really very creepy.

Stepn: Britain`s only great shamus .

SomeGuyInVirginia: Horrific.

Stepn: Britain`s only other only great shamus.

Stepn: Dark and cold and bright and illuminating.

SomeGuyInVirginia: Eew eew eew eew eew! I'll never be able to look at feral, ravenous pigs the same way ever again.

Stepn: The Third Man for Jack Higgins fans .

SomeGuyInVirginia: My favorite of this forgotten author.

SomeGuyInVirginia: Depraved, in the best sense.

Stepn: Ah...mr Bond, we`ve been expecting you...

SomeGuyInVirginia: You should hum the opening bar to the Addams Family theme every time you open this book.

Stepn: A fine balance of novel and thriller.

SomeGuyInVirginia: I loved this weird book.

Stepn: A pursuit as smooth as any Dick Francis novel.

SomeGuyInVirginia: A perfect example of the modern gothic, it even ends by a body of water (as all good gothics must.)

Stepn: Lew Archer in Parma? Yes.

SomeGuyInVirginia: This one is an idiosyncratic choice; it takes place in DC.

Stepn: Something nightmarish...

Stepn: A blind beauty and a monstrous villain. Buried treasure and desert flight. Swords in the sand and a duel to the death that begins with the single line- "So..."

SomeGuyInVirginia: Like The Deadly Percheron, starts as a comedy, ends...badly.

Stepn: He`s a complicated man and...

SomeGuyInVirginia: Grand guignol as social satire.

SomeGuyInVirginia: This book played out in my head with the gang of Scooby Doo.

SomeGuyInVirginia: All of Baxt's celebrity murder books are great fun.

SomeGuyInVirginia: The anti-Miss Jane Marple.

Stepn: Crisp and fascinating.

Stepn: Should have been filmed.

SomeGuyInVirginia: A thriller set in a boarding school over the Christmas holidays, called 'The Perils and Dangers of this Night'? Get out your wallet.

Stepn: Slowly, slowly lulling story (with sex and violence).

SomeGuyInVirginia: She walked her toddler daughter to her first day at the exclusive preschool, but now the teachers say little Bunny never showed up.

Stepn: Massive and immersive.

SomeGuyInVirginia: The downside to fighting demons is, well, demons.

Stepn: It`s fast - and it`s Quiller!

SomeGuyInVirginia: Is her sister just a moody teen, or is she possessed?!

Stepn: Gothic espionage - and the climax is gangbusters.

SomeGuyInVirginia: Orthodox and canonical, like the movie Scream or the John Sandford thriller 'The Rules.'

Stepn: Very nearly inspirational.

SomeGuyInVirginia: At heart she's a good girl. No, that's not right, at heart she's crazy as a bed bug.

Stepn: Considering it`s Reginald Hill, this is very under-rated.

SomeGuyInVirginia: Some dogs chew up the sofa, this one does so much more.

SomeGuyInVirginia: May well be the perfect American noir gasper.