Secondhand Crime Fiction & Thriller Bargain Book Box SP2718

A broad and satisfying thriller collection ranging from legal drama to spy fiction, Scandinavian crime to religious conspiracy, war journalism to Bond. The headline find is Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care — the official James Bond continuation novel written for Fleming's centenary — alongside the film-adapted The Rhythm Section, the acclaimed Swedish crime standout Quicksand, and Simon Toyne's debut Sanctus, one of the most gripping religious thrillers of recent years. Plenty here for readers who like their plots fast, their stakes high, and their characters tested to the limit.

1. Copycat — Gillian White. A psychological thriller from the author of Refuge, following the disturbing dynamics of obsession and imitation. White writes with a cool, precise understanding of how women can be threatened by those closest to them — unsettling and compulsively readable.
2. The Timer Game — Susan Arnout Smith. A CSI procedural thriller featuring investigator Grace Descanso, from the bestselling author of Want to Play? Fast-paced, technically detailed, and with the propulsive momentum that made Arnout Smith a favourite of thriller readers who like their forensics authentic.
3. Live Bait — P.J. Tracy. Tracy's Monkeewrench series was one of the breakout crime series of the 2000s, and Live Bait continues the sharp, witty, genuinely chilling story of the software firm whose programs keep intersecting with murder. Tracy blends humour and horror more deftly than almost anyone in the genre.
4. Watershed — Jane Abbott. "Do unto others. And take care of your own." A thriller set against an Australian backdrop, following the brutal logic of vengeance and survival. Abbott writes with raw energy and a moral seriousness that lifts the book above standard genre fare.
5. Bloody Harvests — Richard Kunzmann. A South African crime thriller featuring detective Harry Mason navigating the terrifying world of muti murders — ritual killings that draw on traditional medicine — in post-apartheid Johannesburg. Dark, deeply researched, and set in a world most crime fiction never visits. "Even your soul isn't safe in death."
6. Critical Mass — Steve Martini. The latest Paul Madriani legal thriller from the New York Times bestselling author — a nuclear conspiracy, a missing physicist, and courtroom drama at its most propulsive. Peter James called Martini "the best, in my opinion" of the American legal thriller writers, and this is vintage Martini.
7. Shadow Over Edmund Street — Suzanne Frankham. A psychological thriller set in the quietly menacing territory of suburban secrets and family darkness. Frankham writes with atmospheric precision and a gift for the slow build of dread.
8. That Old Black Magic — Mary Jane Clark. A Piper Donovan mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Look of Love, set in the atmospheric world of New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Clark's mysteries are as much about place as plot, and New Orleans — voodoo, music, masks — is irresistible territory.
9. Devil May Care — Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming. The official James Bond continuation novel, commissioned to mark the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth and written by Sebastian Faulks — one of Britain's most distinguished literary novelists. Set in 1967, with Bond facing a villain who makes even Blofeld seem restrained, Faulks captures Fleming's voice with remarkable fidelity while bringing his own novelist's instincts to the adventure. A genuine collector's item for Bond enthusiasts.
10. The Dossier — Pierre Salinger and Leonard Gross. Salinger was President Kennedy's press secretary and ABC's Paris bureau chief — a man who spent decades at the intersection of power and secrets — and The Dossier draws on that insider knowledge to create a thriller of international conspiracy with real depth behind the plot. The provenance alone makes this worth reading.
11. Ultimate Weapon — Chris Ryan. Ryan is the former SAS soldier whose real-life escape during the Bravo Two Zero mission became the subject of his memoir, and his thrillers carry the unmistakable authority of someone who has actually done these things. Fast, brutal, technically impeccable.
12. Quicksand — Malin Persson Giolito. Named Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, and a word-of-mouth phenomenon that went on to become a major Netflix series. A young woman sits in the dock charged with a mass shooting at her school — the novel unfolds backwards through the events that led there, exploring privilege, coercion, and the terrifying gaps in how we understand violence. One of the genuinely important crime novels of the decade.
13. Sanctus — Simon Toyne. The explosive debut that launched a major trilogy, following a monk who throws himself from an ancient Turkish citadel — live on global television — setting off a chain of events that threatens to unravel a secret the world's oldest Christian order has protected for millennia. Toyne combines Da Vinci Code energy with genuine theological imagination. Addictive.
14. High Rollers — Jack Bowman. Featuring aircraft accident investigator Tom Patrick — a thriller built around aviation disasters and the dark forces that can lurk behind what looks like mechanical failure. Bowman writes with specialist knowledge, and the warning on the cover — "Caution: do not read this book on a plane" — tells you exactly what you're in for.
15. Sandstealers — Ben Brown. "War is one hell of a story." Brown is an award-winning war journalist, and this debut novel draws directly on his experience to follow a group of foreign correspondents whose lives unravel in the aftermath of a betrayal in the desert. Authentic, morally complex, and shot through with the adrenaline and guilt of war reporting.
16. The Rhythm Section — Mark Burnell. The novel that became a major film starring Blake Lively and Jude Law. A woman whose family was killed in a plane bombing transforms herself into an assassin to hunt down those responsible. "She has nothing to lose. All that's left is revenge." Burnell writes Stephanie Patrick with grit and psychological depth that the thriller genre rarely achieves.
17. The Vanished Child — Sarah Smith. A Victorian mystery praised by the New York Times Book Review as "stunning," following the investigation into a child who disappeared — and the man who may or may not be him — decades later. Smith writes with literary sophistication and plots with the tension of the best crime fiction.
18. Shadows — Paul Finch. From the Sunday Times bestselling author — "Do you know who's watching you?" Finch is one of the most reliable names in British crime fiction, and Shadows delivers exactly what his fans expect: taut plotting, a strong detective voice, and the kind of darkness that keeps you reading past midnight. Peter James called him "a born storyteller."