Secondhand Crime Fiction & Thriller Bargain Book Box SP2749

Eighteen books spanning the breadth of crime and thriller fiction, from Ed McBain's foundational 87th Precinct procedurals to sun-baked Botswana noir and the morally weighty political thrillers of Gerald Seymour. The box's sleeper find is Deadly Harvest by Michael Stanley — the fourth instalment in the Detective Kubu series, set in Botswana, which is doing things with place and character that most of the genre doesn't attempt. La Plante's Cold Shoulder opens her Lorraine Page series at its most unsparing, Deighton's Goodbye Mickey Mouse brings his characteristic precision to WWII aviation fiction, and Ilaria Tuti's Painted in Blood offers a sharp window into contemporary Italian crime writing.  A strong, varied box that earns its range.

1. The Intruder — Peter Blauner — Blauner won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel with Slow Motion Riot, and this 1996 follow-up confirms the promise of that debut. Set in New York, this novel traces the escalating consequences of a chance encounter between a professional man and a dangerous drifter who becomes fixated on his family. Taut, socially alert, and harder to put down than it has any right to be.
2. Exchange Alley — Michael Walsh — Walsh is a former Time magazine critic who brings considerable background in intelligence history and political complexity to his thriller fiction. This novel is the second in Walsh's series and works in the tradition of the densely researched American espionage thriller, with the kind of insider detail about intelligence operations that comes from genuine research. Satisfying for readers who like their conspiracies properly sourced.
3. Widows — Ed McBain — This 1991 entry in McBain's 87th Precinct series, which he began in 1956 and ran to 55 novels, offers a representative example of why the series is foundational to modern crime fiction. This novel finds Detective Steve Carella and his colleagues working multiple connected murders, with McBain's characteristic deadpan New York atmosphere and gift for ensemble character work on full display. A series that rewards reading in any order.
4. Sanctuary — Raymond Khoury — Khoury is a Lebanese-British thriller writer who debuted with The Last Templar and established a loyal following for his blend of historical conspiracy and contemporary action. This novel, the second in the Sean Reilly series, pulls an FBI agent and an archaeologist into an ancient mystery with present-day stakes. Tightly plotted and confidently delivered.
5. Day of Confession — Allan Folsom — The 1998 follow-up to Folsom's door-stopper debut The Day After Tomorrow, this novel opens in Rome with the assassination of a cardinal and keeps an American lawyer at the centre of Vatican intrigue and Italian political conspiracy. The Roman setting is well-drawn and the pace rarely drops. A solid entry in the tradition of European-set political thriller fiction.
6. The Art of Drowning — Frances Fyfield — Fyfield practised as a Crown Prosecutor for years before turning to crime fiction, and that professional background gives her novels an unusual acuity about power, vulnerability, and the law. This novel centres on a woman being slowly drawn under by the influence of a dangerous man, and Fyfield's prose is careful and precise in a way that makes the unease accumulate quietly. Literary crime fiction at its more unsettling end.
7. Final Target — Iris Johansen — A standalone thriller from Johansen built around a traumatised child who has witnessed something that has left her catatonic, and the gifted woman brought in to reach her. This novel moves at the pace Johansen's readers expect, balancing psychological puzzle with thriller momentum. Fast, accessible, and cleanly plotted.
8. Painted in Blood — Ilaria Tuti — Part of Tuti's acclaimed Inspector Teresa Battaglia series, which has earned significant international attention since its English translation. Battaglia is an ageing, formidably intelligent detective managing her own cognitive decline while pursuing killers — a character who is both commanding and genuinely moving. Atmospheric Italian crime at its most accomplished.
9. Heart of the City — Robert Rotenberg — Rotenberg is a practising Toronto criminal defence lawyer, and the Ari Greene series draws genuine authority from that background. This novel, the fourth in the series, is set against the layered social world of Toronto's Kensington Market and brings the procedural and courtroom detail that distinguishes Rotenberg's work. Canadian crime fiction that deserves a wider Australian readership.
10. The Catalyst — Helena Coggan — A YA fantasy novel from Coggan, pitched at older teen readers and included here as a crossover title. This novel is set in a world divided between the magically Gifted and the powerless Ashkind, following a teenager concealing a dangerous secret about her own nature. What makes it additionally remarkable is that Coggan published this novel at the age of fifteen.
11. Cold Shoulder — Lynda La Plante — La Plante created Prime Suspect, and this 1994 novel launches a very different kind of series. This novel introduces Lorraine Page — a disgraced, alcoholic former LAPD detective at the bottom of her life — as she gets drawn back into a serial killer case in Los Angeles while still barely holding herself together. La Plante at her most unsparing, and Lorraine is one of the sharper protagonists in 1990s crime fiction.
12. Wicked Appetite — Janet Evanovich — The opening novel in Evanovich's Lizzy and Diesel series, a spin-off from the Stephanie Plum books set in Salem, Massachusetts, with a light paranormal dimension added to the romantic comedy crime formula. This novel is lighter fare than much of the box, but Evanovich's pacing and comic timing make it highly readable. A good palate cleanser.
13. Deviant Ways — Chris Mooney — Mooney's 2000 debut thriller, introducing FBI agent Jack Casey as he pursues a serial killer who targets entire families. This novel is taut and psychologically well-observed, and announced Mooney as a genuine talent before he went on to create the Darby McCormick series. It holds up as a strong debut.
14. Someone Else's Son — Sam Hayes — A domestic psychological thriller from Hayes built around a television presenter whose son becomes implicated in a school shooting, and the questions of identity and parenthood that follow. This novel works in the tradition of British domestic noir, with a sharp awareness of media, class, and the gap between public persona and private reality. Unsettling and well-constructed.
15. Gatekeeper — Philip Shelby — Shelby writes compact American political thrillers, and this novel involves a conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of government. It delivers the genre's pleasures — pace, insider detail, high stakes — with professional competence. Solid mid-range thriller that moves quickly.
16. Goodbye Mickey Mouse — Len Deighton — Deighton is best known for his spy fiction — Harry Palmer, the Bernard Samson novels — but this 1982 novel turns to WWII and the American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany from their English base. This novel is meticulous in its research and deeply human in its focus, following young men through the brutal mathematics of wartime survival. One of the finest WWII aviation novels in British fiction.
17. Deadly Harvest — Michael Stanley — Michael Stanley is the pen name of two South African writers, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, working in a very specific and underexplored corner of the crime genre. This novel, the fourth in the Detective Kubu series, is set in Botswana and involves murders connected to muti killings — traditional medicine that uses human body parts — handled without sensationalism and with genuine respect for context and place. Detective Kubu himself — large, opera-loving, devoted to family and good food — is a wholly original creation, and the series is a find.
18. A Song in the Morning — Gerald Seymour — Seymour spent years as an ITV News correspondent covering conflicts from Belfast to Tehran before turning to fiction, and his novels carry that weight of witness. This 1986 novel is set in apartheid South Africa, built around a British political prisoner on death row and the diplomatic and human attempts to intervene. Politically serious and morally complex in a way that the thriller genre rarely sustains.