The Telegraph presents the greatest thrillers ever written
Best thrillers of all time (clockwise from left): Stephen King; Jaws book cover; Telegraph employee reading Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl; The Spy Who Came In From the Cold book cover Photo: PA; Rii Schroer
The Hunt for Red October
Tom Clancy (1984)
At the height of the Cold War the captain of a Russian nuclear submarine that cannot be detected defects to the west, bringing his craft – Red October – with him. The Russians try to stop him. The Americans and the hero Jack Ryan try to stop them. Incredibly tense and superbly claustrophobic.
Killing Floor
Lee Child (1997) When ex-army loner Jack Reacher gets off a bus in a one-horse town in the American South he is instantly arrested and charged with murdering his own brother. But boy have they picked the wrong man to pick on…
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Ian Fleming (1963)
It might almost have been any of them, but Fleming’s tenth Bond book reveals the spy in a softer, more humane light, even falling in love and getting married – though not for long – while battling with Ernst Blofield in his high alpine fastness.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
John le Carré (1963) “What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs?” No! They are, among other things, vain fools and le Carré’s third novel, a marvellously bleak take on the Cold War, shows them at their morally repugnant worst.
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