Contributor: 
Jon LandMarch 6, 20252 min read
Featuring authors like James Rollins and Gregg Hurwitz, Jon Land shares the best thrillers of the past month in the latest edition of The Thrill List.
Battle Mountain by C.J. Box
Both C.J. Box and his hero Joe Pickett are as fresh and fun as ever in the 25th book in this seminal series, Battle Mountain, which finds Pickett and the ever-reliable Nate Romanowski both much the worse for wear, thanks to their earlier encounter with Axel Soledad and Dallas Yates.
Both need time to heal and a place to do it. For Pickett, that becomes the Sierra Madre Mountains near Battle Mountain in Southern Wyoming, well away from his usual haunts. Then he gets the news that the governor’s son is missing in that very area and takes up the hunt in tandem with novice game warden Susan Kany. That’s a big enough task all on its own, even without crossing paths with none other than Axel Soledad again who, it turns out, is not done wreaking havoc on Pickett’s life, even as he targets the entire country.
“Battle Mountain” rivetingly captures that struggle, along with the one Joe and Nate are both fighting within themselves. That’s reminiscent in some ways of the great William Faulkner quote, “The greatest conflict is the human heart at war with itself.” Box’s latest is a masterpiece in that respect, as Pickett is tested as he’s never been tested before. Twenty-five books in, he’s as fresh and vital a character as ever and the story itself is one of Box’s best.
Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger
Lisa Unger’s bold and bracing Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 is already a leading contender for 2025’s most original and innovative thriller.
In the grand tradition of the classic short story “A Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Richard Branson-like billionaire/adventurer Maverick Dillan lures a group of unsuspecting strangers to his private island for a high-stakes (as in money) game of what amounts to hide-and-seek for adults. Not surprisingly, almost nothing as it appears to be, a fact that dawns on our hero Adele who battles both a killer storm, the other competitors, and the terrible truths behind a game she is determined to win. But first she’ll have to survive.
In a genre world where everyone seems to keep serving up the same thing only different, Unger serves up something truly different and refreshing. “Close Your Eyes and Count to 10” is a heady mix of an action and psychological thriller, with that raging storm thrown in for good measure. It’s essentially one long extended sequence that races along at breakneck speed from beginning to end.
A Dragon of Black Glass by James Rollins
In a recent column, I called James Rollins the greatest storyteller writing today. I’m going to double down on that assessment in this column thanks to the scintillating A Dragon of Black Glass, his third book in the Moonfall series.
The heroic and stalwart Nyx is back, on the trail this time of a long missing weapon that might be the only way to triumph over an omnipresent evil and save her people. Only beneath the black glass of the title, a desert actually, lies something even more deadly than the weapon she seeks. This, as war rages the world over in a manner that will remind genre faithful of “The Lord of the Rings” and its various offshoots.
“A Dragon of Black Glass” is epic fantasy of the highest order, part of the only such series to tantalize and entertain on the order of George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones.” The worldbuilding is exceptional, the characters colorful and committed, and the writing stellar. If this is your genre, you can’t go wrong here. A stunning success almost certain to be coming to a streaming service near you.
Nemesis by Gregg Hurwitz
The reasons why Gregg Hurwitz might very well the best action-thriller writer of our time, this generation’s answer to Alistair MacLean, David Morrell or Robert Ludlum, are all on display in Nemesis.
The tenth book in the Orphan X series finds Evan Smoak conflicted over the actions of his best friend and weapons purveyor Tommy Stojack, which crossed the moral line of our deadly assassin with a heart. Tommy, though, has good reason to risk venturing over to the dark side, specifically a promise he made to help the son of a late friend whose own life is being threatened as well. He may not possess the deadly skills of Smoak, but what he lacks in brawn, he more than makes up for in brains. Of course, that only scratches the surface of the complications both men encounter on their parallel quests, raising the stakes to much more than a mano a mano conflict.
“Nemesis” follows the grand tradition of the series by layering one surprise after another to the point where we truly have no idea what’s coming next. Hurwitz has found his niche as a modern master of pitch perfect pacing and suspense.
The Usual Silence by Jenny Milchman
Jenny Milchman is back with an outstanding psychological thriller in The Usual Silence, a book I somehow missed upon its release.
Psychologist Arles Shepherd specializes in treating troubled children, something she knows all too well because she was a troubled child herself, though repressed memories have kept the details from her consciousness. Then she begins treating a young boy who’s never uttered a word. That boy, his mother and Arles are somehow connected to a missing twelve-year-old girl in an altogether different part of the country. I’m not giving anything away by telling you the key to the truth lies in the past and the fun here lies in the crisscrossing paths the characters take to get there.
There’s nothing usual about The Usual Silence. It’s a psychological thriller extraordinaire, perfectly conceived and beautifully realized. At the outset, it reminded me of Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series. As solid as those books are, Milchman’s latest goes them one better by fashioning a brilliant puzzle we get to watch being assembled.
Head Cases by John McMahon
John McMahon’s Patterns and Recognition Unit of the FBI is like a cerebral version of the Magnificent Seven injecting fresh life into the procedural form that continues in the supremely effective and aptly named Head Cases.
The team’s leader, Gardner Camden, never met a puzzle he didn’t like or couldn’t solve, but this time out he finds himself on the apparent trail of whoever killed one of his past quarries. It turns out that’s not a coincidence at all, and it’s really Camden and the entire PAR team that’s been targeted, even as the program itself is threatened with disbandment. And the villain doesn’t stop there either, playing his own deadly game against the man he sees as his equal. Good thing Camden and company are up to the task.
Head Cases is procedural writing at its very best, no technical stone left unturned in what becomes a twisted cat-and-mouse game between Camden and his deadliest adversary yet. This dialogue-heavy tale reads like George Higgins or Jim Thompson on steroids, a terrific slice of neo-noir that clicks on every level.
Assume Nothing by Joshua Corin
Joshua Corin’s Assume Nothing grabs us from page one and never lets go or up.
The third psychological thriller in this month’s Thrill List offers an ambitiously original setup. A woman who loves mysteries gets to team up with one of the world’s foremost detectives to solve one. Kat McCann has been obsessed with Austria’s version of Sherlock Homes, Alik Lisser, ever since he solved her mother’s murder. Little does she know that the case they’re going to work on together, to immortalize in a book as many of Lisser’s cases are, strikes terrifyingly close to home.
Corin has crafted a Hitchcockian thriller where the twists and turns spring from the most unexpected places, leading to a final, mouth-dropping reveal. The first-person narration crackles with authenticity and the dialogue is terrific. Assume this about “Assume Nothing”: You don’t want to miss it!
Out in the Cold by Steve Urszenyi
Just a few books in, Steve Urszenyi has already scaled great heights among those penning thrillers where the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, and Out in the Cold only furthers his street creds.
This time out, the (really) bad guys are targeting the NATO alliance, hoping to set the stage for a global conflagration. Our returning sniper hero Alex Martel just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a yacht crammed full of dignitaries is taken hostage. Before you can say “Die Hard,” Finland finds itself in the crosshairs of a plot that spills to America’s shores on a glide path toward World War III.
You might call “Out in the Cold” Tom Clancy-light in that it captures everything to love about his books without the extra bulk. But that would be doing a disservice to Urszenyi who has his own great feel for both characters and the technology at their disposal. His latest reads like a stunningly effective hybrid of John le Carre and Frederick Forsyth at their level best, resulting in an extraordinary genre achievement.
English (US) · 