Ten Essential Literary Thrillers

In those first sleepless months of motherhood, I listened to a lot of audiobooks. They were perfect for long walks with the baby. The literature did not have to be of the highest quality, but the plot had to be there, ready to grab my hand and tug until I was running alongside. Thrillers do this brilliantly, pulling you forward, sometimes doing it so well that the reader or listener happily buries all of the book’s potential weaknesses in order to simply enjoy the high. Now that I sleep more than two hours at a stretch, I need a thriller to fully develop character and sense of place. The urgency of an exciting plot remains but the psyche of its people and place must