Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading.
Twitter: @MissLiberty
Penguin Random House Audio, A Chilling New Riley Sager Thriller
In Riley Sager’s chilling new thriller WITH A VENGEANCE—a story of justice, revenge, and what happens when the hunted becomes the hunter—Anna Matheson lures her enemies onto a luxury train to make them pay for what they did to her family. But when one of them turns up dead, justice turns into survival. The clock is ticking. The bodies are piling up. Can Anna catch the killer before the train reaches Chicago? Narrated by Erin Bennett, WITH A VENGEANCE by Riley Sager is available now wherever books and audiobooks are sold! Listen now—before time runs out.
Hello, armchair travelers! Summer is upon us, which means it’s an excellent time to pick up a thriller to take with you to the beach, on a big trip, or even outside on your lunch break. Page-turners are great for the hot weather, and there’s nothing like a locked-room thriller to get your pulse pounding, especially when they’re set on transportation. The added intensity of mystery and danger set inside a plane or train, where the suspect pool is limited and there’s no escape (without hurtling yourself out a door), makes for such fun reads!
Whether they’re set 40,000 feet above sea level or hurtling down the tracks at 150mph, these six excellent thrillers set on planes and trains will help you get away, no matter where you are. Mysteries set on planes and trains have been around for almost as long as modes of transportation. Agatha Christie has had massive hits with mysteries set on both planes and trains (and boats, too).
The books below are much more thrilling than classic mysteries. They have high-speed action, murder, and life-threatening situations that must be solved in a short period, or confessions and information about crimes that must be stopped. You wouldn’t want any of the events in these books to happen to you, but they sure are fun to read about.
Airframe by Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton was a master at suspense, whether his novels dealt with dinosaurs, disease, or disaster. No dinosaurs are on the planes in this book, but there is plenty of disaster. When an airplane suffers damage mid-flight, it is first attributed to a mechanical malfunction. But a closer look into the accident reveals cover-ups, counterfeit parts, corporate malfeasance, nepotism, and scandal. A quality assurance employee at the airline must figure out how to get to the truth and keep her life.
Nowhere to Land By Teretha Houston
If you like a little horror with your high-stakes thrillers set high in the sky, this book is for you! Eden Stone is excited for her first flight as captain of a Boeing 747. But shortly after the transatlantic flight takes off, horrible things happen. It becomes evident that something is moving about in the plane, and it’s something…not human. With no place to land and no way to escape, Eden and Air Marshal Quentin Kane must figure out how to stop it before there are no survivors.
Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka, Sam Malissa (translator)
When the train carries deadly assassins, all with their own agendas and assignments, you know the trip will be deadly! There’s a former hitman seeking revenge who becomes ensnared in the trap of another; an odd pair of killers with a suitcase full of ransom money on their way back to their boss; and an unlucky hitman, who has been directed to steal the suitcase money on the train, but finds the job to be more complicated when his nemesis interrupts his plans.
Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
Stakes on a plane! While aboard the 20-hour nonstop journey from London to Sydney, flight attendant Mina gets an anonymous note. It’s a threat against her daughter and husband, demanding that Mina help stop the plane from reaching its destination. At first, Mina doesn’t know what to do. Is it a horrible prank? But when a passenger dies, and then another dies shortly after, she knows that the anonymous source of the note means business. Now Mina has to make a terrible decision: save her family or the passengers on the plane?
Falling by T. J. Newman
This is also a story of a member of the airline being put in an impossible situation. After a passenger plane to New York takes off, the pilot gets (secret) word that his family has been kidnapped. The kidnappers have one demand: either crash the plane or his family will die. Unsure who he can trust, Captain Bill Hoffman must make an unimaginable decision. Newman’s thrillers are terrifying, bolstered by the fact that she once worked as a flight attendant, so she knows the ins and outs of air travel.
Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger
While commuting from work, Selena Murphy starts to chat with a stranger on the train. As they pass the time talking, the stranger reveals that her husband is having an affair with the nanny. It’s a shocking secret to share with a stranger (say that three times fast), but they’ll probably never meet again, right? But then Selena learns that a nanny has gone missing, and maybe that stranger on the train wasn’t there by accident. As she looks into the disappearance, Selena finds connections, drawing her deeper into the mystery and unraveling her quiet life.
And for more thrilling recommendations, check out 5 of the Best Mystery & Thriller Beach Reads and 8 Delightfully Page-Turning Revenge Thrillers.
English (US) · 