The Best Modern Page-Turning Thrillers

by Ian Coates
|
8 books
Love exciting thrillers that set your pulse racing? Here are some of the best modern thrillers that you’ll find unputdownable. Filled with tension and action, they’ll keep you hooked to the very last page.
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Tracer

A gripping thriller full of intrigue and suspense
Jason Dean, 2021
Tracer is a beautifully written thriller that’s packed with action, has a unique protagonist, and has characters who come alive on the page. The hero--a professional salvage hunter--is blackmailed into finding cargo that’s disappeared from a hijacked plane. I particularly liked the way the plot follows a logical progression as he investigates the hijack and starts to uncover those involved, leading the reader to a thrilling finale in the Guyanese jungle.

Run for Home

Dan Latus, 2013
Run For Home is a modern standalone spy story set mainly in Prague. Harry Gibson is part of a small spy ring based there, but it appears that someone wants to silence the whole team. Harry alone survives and calls on old acquaintances and enemies from the Cold War period in Prague to help him stay alive long enough to uncover what’s happening. My desperation to find out what was going to happen to Gibson kept me turning the pages into the small hours.

Don't Look for Me

Mason Cross, 2019
Don’t Look For Me is an exciting and well-executed story with plenty of action to keep the adrenaline going, as well as a few surprises and an intriguing puzzle that slowly unfolds along the way. Sarah’s neighbour has disappeared overnight without a word, along with all her belongings. When Sarah uses a spare key to check the rented house, she finds a notebook dropped behind the bed. What she reads leads her to Blake, a professional people-finder, who has his own reasons for wanting to help discover what’s happened. I loved the main characters and really enjoyed the thriller’s twists and turns as the pair try to track her down. It was a really satisfying read.

Anthrax Island

D. L. Marshall, 2022
This is probably the most exciting and tense thriller I can remember reading. It’s a fact that Gruinard Island in the North-West of Scotland was used by Porton Down scientists towards the end of World War II to experiment with the weaponisation of a virulent strain of Anthrax. Fortunately, the war ended before it was ever used, and the island had to be decontaminated afterwards. The story that follows in the modern day is fiction, when a multi-national group of scientists is sent to do a further decontamination when deadly spores reappear. When one of the scientists is murdered, MI5 send operative John Tyler undercover to investigate. Anthrax Island could be described as a well-crafted meld of classic crime setups and all the elements of a tense and very exciting thriller. There’s a locked-room mystery, murder, and a frantic car chase. It’s set to get the heart racing and the brain puzzling.

Killer Intent

A. E. Kent, Tony Kent, 2017
An assassin on a rooftop with a sniper rifle prepares for his shot. As the action commences, he succeeds in only part of his mission, the final element thwarted by Joe Dempsey, part of a team assigned to the day’s security. Not completing the mission has many consequences. Killer Intent is a cleverly constructed story that’s well written, with an underlying conspiracy that’s slowly revealed as Devlin calls on family friends to help him, pushing the story to its adrenaline-fuelled conclusion. Killer Intent is full of excitement and action all the way through; a great read.

The Hunter

Tom Wood, 2011
This is the first in the Victor Assassin series, and its adrenalin-fuelled excitement gripped me from the first sentence to the final word. It’s very reminiscent of Robert Ludlum’s original Jason Bourne thrillers – the highly skilled assassin who ends up on the hit list of his original government employers. There’s a believable and intriguing plot going on behind the scenes, which is slowly revealed as we move through the novel and leads to an exciting and very dramatic conclusion.

Fast Track

The 18th Spider Shepherd Thriller
Stephen Leather, 2021
Fast Track is a brilliant thriller with a good balance of action and detective work and a twist that deepens the mystery that “Spider” Shepherd is sent to investigate. Who was responsible for a terrorist bombing in Trafalgar Square in which hundreds died and a blast later in the day that killed the head of MI6 at a safe house? It’s nice to read a thriller that so cleverly mixes high action with an investigation. Its intelligent underlying plot is slowly revealed as the reader is drawn through the story. This is thriller writing at its best.

Eavesdrop

Ian Coates, 2014
This was my own debut thriller, but I’ve dared to include it in my list because Amazon reviewers have described it as “an impressively gripping thriller” with “well constructed, believable characters”, adding “You definitely cannot put this one down until the end of the last page.”