My Top Ten Favorite Thriller/Mystery writers...and others.

My favorite thriller writers. All men, which is a bit alarming.

1.) Richard Stark (Donald Westlake.)

2. Thomas Perry

3. James Lee Burke

4. Stephen Hunter

5. Michael Connelly

6. Robert Crais

7. Lee Child

8. John Sandford

9. Lawrence Block

10. Daniel Silva

11. Elmore Leonard.  (Can't leave him of the list.)

 

There's a good list of ten more authors who either have become distractedly dated or whose later books I didn't like much.

 

1.) John LeCarre. (Great writer, but his last few books have been far too downbeat for me.)

2.) Dennis Lehane. (Same. But I liked his earlier, less pretentious books.)

3.) James Ellroy.  (Has written a couple of my all-time favorites, The Big Nowhere and L.A. Confidential, but his current style has lost me.

4.) Raymond Chandler. (Read them long ago--liked them, I remember.)

5. John Grisham. (All very competent, but nothing really stands out.)

6. Harlan Coben. (I'll read him in a pinch.)

7. John D, MacDonald. (Unfortunately too dated to get through.)

8. Patricia Cornwell. (Liked her early books, didn't much like her later books.)

9. Nevada Barr. (Just got tired of her main character, I guess.)

10. Tony Hillerman. (If he was still writing, he'd probably be on the above list.)

11. Dashiell Hammett. (Again, someone I can't leave off.)

Ten more authors who I simply can't get into, for whatever reason.

1. James Patterson.

2. Sue Grafton.

3. Stuart Woods

4. Jeffrey Deaver

5. Nelson DeMille

6. Robert Parker

7. David Baldacci

8. Clive Cussler

9. Tom Clancy

10. Robert Ludlum. (I admit, I read quite a few of the last two authors.)

11. Dan Brown (Couldn't ignore him, can't stand him)

Ten more Old-Timey Authors who I dip into occasionally or read heavily in the past.

1. Agatha Christie. (Read so many I'm not sure which ones I didn't read.)

2. Dorothy L. Sayers.

3. Josephine Tey.

4. Arthur Conan Doyle. (Read about 90% of the Sherlock Holmes stories.)

5. Rex Stout

6. James L. Cain

7. Georges Simenon

8. Patricia Highsmith

9. Jim Thompson 

10. Ian Fleming. (Loved them, but they're extremely dated now.)

11. Ellis Peters.

Ten Authors I've liked but left off the above lists.

1.) Walter Moseley

2.) Jonathan Kellerman

3.) George Higgins

4.) Thomas Harris

5.) Frederick Forsyth

6.) Michael Chrichton

7.) Scott Turow

8.) Gregory McDonald

9.) Len Deighton

10. Graham Green

11.) Jack Higgins.