10 Best High-Tension Guaranteed! Action Mystery Books:
Are you one of those readers who craves the high-octane blend of thundering adrenaline and intense whodunnit intrigue? Well, then lean in closer. I've combed shelves, swiped e-readers, and spent countless hours diving into the zigzagging thrill of both acclaimed and hidden-gem novels to curate the ultimate list of action mystery books for you. These ten selections promise a hair-raising cocktail of high-speed chases, unpredictably twisted plotlines, pulse-quickening reveals, and protagonists who teeter on the razor's edge of danger. They blur the tantalizing line between the diabolical and the heroic, leaving you biting your nails and constantly flipping pages (or tapping screens). Expect heart-thumping car chases, shadowy conspiracy theories, and the relentless pursuit of truth weaving between the lines of these stories. Whether you're a brave detective on paper, or a budding action enthusiast, these adrenaline-fueled mystery tomes guarantee an escape from normalcy and a heavy dose of entertainment. Grab your favorite comfy spot, a trusty source of light, perhaps a blanket for the chills, and prepare to glimpse into the shadowy corners of narrative suspense. Welcome to your exciting journey into the realm of action mystery books. Good luck, reader. You're going to need it.
『The Woman in White』
As the inscription on his tombstone reveals, Wilkie Collins wanted to be remembered as the “author of The Woman in White,” for it was this novel that secured his reputation during his lifetime. The novel begins with a drawing teacher’s eerie late-night encounter with a mysterious woman in white, and then follows his love for Laura Fairlie, a young woman who is falsely incarcerated in an asylum by her husband, Sir Percival Glyde, and his sinister accomplice, Count Fosco. This edition returns to the original text that galvanized England when it was published in serial form in All the Year Round magazine in 1860. Three different prefaces Collins wrote for the novel, as well as two of his essays on the book’s composition, are reprinted, along with nine illustrations. The appendices include contemporary reviews, along with essays on lunacy, asylums, mesmerism, and the rights of women.
Author | Wilkie Collins |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Broadview Press |
Release Date | Apr 20, 2006 |
Source | Google Books |
『Crime and Punishment: A New Translation』
A celebrated new translation of Dostoevsky’s masterpiece reveals the “social problems facing our own society” (Nation). Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and on our modern world. Declared a PBS “Great American Read,” Michael Katz’s sparkling new translation gives new life to the story of Raskolnikov, an impoverished student who sees himself as extraordinary and therefore free to commit crimes—even murder—in a work that best embodies the existential dilemmas of man’s instinctual will to power. Embracing the complex linguistic blend inherent in modern literary Russian, Katz “revives the intensity Dostoevsky’s first readers experienced, and proves that Crime and Punishment still has the power to surprise and enthrall us” (Susan Reynolds). With its searing and unique portrayal of the labyrinthine universe of nineteenth-century St. Petersburg, this “rare Dostoevsky translation” (William Mills Todd III, Harvard) will captivate lovers of world literature for years to come.
Author | Fyodor Dostoevsky |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | Liveright Publishing |
Release Date | Nov 21, 2017 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Leavenworth Case』
One of New York City’s richest retirees is found dead in his library, making his family and closest friends the focus of the investigation. This is a classic case of whodunit that forces the reader to expect the unexpected. Horatio Leavenworth was a successful merchant fatally shot in his own home. His murder is brought to the attention of Inspector Ebenezer Gryce and Leavenworth’s attorney, Everett Raymond. Due to the victim’s wealth, many people stand to benefit from his premature death. Gryce and Raymond compile a list of suspects, including family members set to inherit the bulk of the estate. Together, the men look at the evidence to uncover the identity of the real killer. The Leavenworth Case is one of Anna Katharine Green’s most engaging novels. It’s a realistic detective story filled with complex clues and nuanced characters. It is a unique mystery where its questions are just as compelling the answers. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Leavenworth Case is both modern and readable.
Author | Anna Katharine Green |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | Graphic Arts Books |
Release Date | May 10, 2021 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Hound of the Baskervilles』
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the tale of an ancient curse suddenly given a terrifying modern application. The grey towers of Baskerville Hall and the wild open country of Dartmoor hold many secrets for Holmes and Watson to unravel. The detective is contemptuous of supernatural manifestations, but the reader will remain perpetually haunted by the hound from the moor. The editor of this volume, W.W. Robson, was Emeritus David Masson Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and author of Modern English Literature. The general editor of the Oxford Sherlock Holmes, Owen Dudley Edwards, is Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh and author or The Quest for Sherlock Holmes: A Biographical Study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Author | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Oxford Paperbacks |
Release Date | Aug 14, 2008 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Murder of Roger Ackroyd』
Voted by the British Crime Writers’ Association as the best crime novel ever written — and said to be Christie’s favorite of her novels — this suspenseful whodunit is the third book following detective Hercule Poirot, still stumping readers over ninety years after its initial publication.
Author | Agatha Christie |
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Price | $7.36 |
Publisher | Courier Dover Publications |
Release Date | Jan 31, 2022 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Crime at Black Dudley』
"A house-party with a glittering guest-list. An imposing country estate with endless shadowy staircases and unused rooms. The breathless period between the two world wars ... The guests take some time to be grateful for Campion's presence; he is a bit peculiar, and they have more than enough distractions, what with various complicated love affairs, a curious ritual involving a jewelled dagger, and a deadly game of hide-and-seek ..."--Page 4 of cover.
Author | Margery Allingham |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Felony & Mayhem |
Release Date | Jan 01, 2006 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Maltese Falcon (Special Edition)』
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A special edition of this coolly glittering gem of detective fiction that has haunted three generations of readers, from one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. Featuring an introduction by James Ellroy. A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett's iconic, influential, and beloved The Maltese Falcon. A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Special Edition
Author | Dashiell Hammett/Josephine Hammett Marshall |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Vintage Crime/Black Lizard |
Release Date | Aug 09, 2022 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Dry』
I just can't understand how someone like him could do something like that. Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn't rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty. Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. As questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, Falk is forced to confront the community that rejected him twenty years earlier. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret, one which Luke's death threatens to unearth. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, secrets from his past and why he left home bubble to the surface as he questions the truth of his friend's crime.
Author | Jane Harper |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | |
Release Date | Jan 12, 2017 |
Source | Google Books |
『Razorblade Tears』
*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer • New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books of 2021 • Washington Post’s Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year • TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 • New York Public Library’s Best Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • Book of the Month’s Book of the Year Finalist “Provocative, violent — beautiful and moving, too.” —Washington Post “Superb...Cuts right to the heart of the most important questions of our times.” —Michael Connelly “A tour de force – poignant, action-packed, and profound.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance. Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father's criminal record. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys. Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption. “A visceral full-body experience, a sharp jolt to the heart, and a treat for the senses...Cosby's moody southern thriller marries the skillful action and plotting of Lee Child with the atmosphere and insight of Attica Locke.” —NPR
Author | S. A. Cosby |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | Flatiron Books |
Release Date | Jul 06, 2021 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Conjure-Man Dies』
An unmissable entry in the esteemed Library of Congress Crime Classics, an exciting new classic mystery series created in exclusive partnership with the Library of Congress to highlight the best of American crime fiction When the body of N'Gana Frimbo, the African conjure-man, is discovered in his consultation room, Perry Dart, one of Harlem's ten Black police detectives, is called in to investigate. Together with Dr Archer, a physician from across the street, Dart is determined to solve the baffling mystery, helped and hindered by Bubber Brown and Jinx Jenkins, local boys keen to clear themselves of suspicion of murder and undertake their own investigations. This groundbreaking mystery is the first ever to feature a Black detective and all Black characters, written by Black author Rudolph Fisher, who was a principal writer of the Harlem Renaissance.
Author | Rudolph Fisher |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | Sourcebooks, Inc. |
Release Date | Apr 05, 2022 |
Source | Google Books |
In wrapping things up, I gotta tell you folks - these high-octane books are like a rollercoaster ride without the safety bars. The breathless pacing, the hairpin plot twists, and the addictively complex characters in these stories are guaranteed to leave you on the edge of your seat. Don't look to these narratives for a quiet, peaceful read. No, no. This is a world where every turn of the page could be a deadly surprise or an exhilarating, heart-pounding chase. Reading these action mystery novels is like chugging a double espresso — they'll wake you up and keep you wired. Supercharge your imagination with pure unadulterated adrenaline. Today we discover that bullets aren’t the only thing characters need to dodge in this mind-bending realm of car chases, cryptic clues, and relentless pursuit of truth. The stakes have never been higher, and the suspense, never so palpable. Man, you're in for a wild ride. So buckle up, buttercup, it's going to be one hell of a trip through these pages!
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