The end of the year is finally upon us, but 2018 is going out with one final bang before readers everywhere turn their attention to January—which, by the way, might be the best month of 2019 for thriller fan with new releases from Brad Taylor, James Rollins, Nick Petrie, and so many others on the way.
December might not be as rich as past months, but there are five legit, really great thrillers set to come out, which I’ve listed below. Whether you’re looking for a globe-trotting adventure with shades of fantasy elements or a Clancy-like Naval thriller, there’s a little something for everyone—including a hauntingly good thriller that’ll have you ready to abandon all technology (more on that below).
Keep an eye out for my January 2019 column in the coming weeks, it’s going to be my biggest list of must-read books yet. Until then, happy reading! 
Deep War by David Poyer
Release Date: December 4th (St. Martin’s Press)
America is still battling China in David Poyer’s latest military thriller, and things aren’t going the United States’ way.
Following the events of Hunter Killer, there’s a smorgasbord of wars being fought around the world, and it’s not all just the U.S. and China. North Korea continues to invade South Korea, but they’re hardly the only ones at odds.
Still, America is the center of the story and, as a country, they’re reeling. The People’s Empire of China has already dealt them several crippling blows, including a devastating nuclear strike in Hawaii that wiped out Navy battleships and more than 10,000 people. Armed with plenty of nukes themselves, the U.S. opts to forego a counter punch in kind, knowing such an attack would only cause things to escalate further when they’re already vulnerable thanks to a massive cyber-attack that—aside from destroying communication satellites and devices—has made it impossible to get their badly wrecked naval vessels back online. Panic fills the country, and anxiety only rises when food shortages break out, adding to the many terrifying problems.
Worse yet, Dan Lenson, the longtime hero of this series, is stranded on a deserted island. America needs him to get back into the fight, but even the battle-tested Lenson has never seen such a war, as the Chinese continue to use various high-tech means of attack.
With multiple storylines playing out in riveting fashion, David Poyer’s latest offering will leave readers desperately flipping pages as the story unfolds, racing to see how things end. While he’s long been a solid storyteller and an underrated contributor to the naval thriller genre, Poyer ups his game with this one, elevating his writing to match the bold, high-stakes scenarios found here, all told with authentic details and stunning realism. It’s long been said that a thriller writer’s job is to beat headlines, and while it’s hard to say that Poyer’s plot could one day play out exactly as he’s imagined here, it’s plausible that the next World War, whenever that may be, might very well look a whole lot like Deep War.
Not since Tom Clancy was in his heyday has there been a thriller with this many moving parts, this deep a cast of characters, this smart of a concept, and this much action. David Poyer has never been better … Deep War is a must-read for fans of Clancy, Larry Bond, and Rick Campbell.
The Mansion by Ezekiel Boone
Release Date: December 4th (Atria/Emily Bestler)
When a powerful, evil, Alexa-like artificial intelligence begins glitching in disastrous ways, a tech giant is forced to turn to his former partner for help in Ezekiel Boone’s (Zero Day, 2018) nail-biting new standalone thriller.
Two decades ago, Billy Stafford and Shawn Eagle left college, retreated to the woods in upstate New York near the Eagle family’s abandoned mansion, and hammered out what would later become known as Eagle Logic, a sophisticated computer code. After a long run together, the duo eventually had a falling out—which had much to do with a woman named Emily—and parted ways. Billy gets the girl, later marrying Emily Wiggins, which likely would have served as the ending of a typical chick-flick or feel-good movie.
Of course, Boone, known for his apocalyptic The Hatching series, doesn’t write those kinds of stories. And here, the split is really just the beginning.
Billy ends up miserable and hits the bottle, racking up all kinds of debt over the years. Shawn, meanwhile, becomes the next Mark Zuckerberg. A tech giant with a company bigger than Apple and Google, Shawn is living the life–that is, until he tries to put the finishing touches on “Nellie,” an old AI program that he and Billy had worked on twenty years before. Things don’t go according to plan, though, paving the way for the former friends and partners to reunite after Shawn offers Billy a job to help work out the kinks.
Moving back across the country, Billy returns to New York, where Shawn has totally rebuilt the old house that once belonged to his family. The mansion now serves as a prototype smart house for Eagle’s company, and Shawn’s goal is to work out the bugs in Nellie’s system so that they can brand and distribute the system to consumers around the world. To do that, Billy and Emily move into the house to get a better feel for Nellie and her capabilities as they look over the coding and try to figure out where things are off. Instead, they realize that Nellie is able to do far more than she was designed for, though they can’t figure out why.
From killer spiders to a killer AI, Ezekiel Boone’s latest offering reads like a cross between Stephen King’s The Shining and one of John Connolly’s more recent Charlie Parker books. It does move a bit slow in the beginning, which is fairly standard as standalone novels typically require more backstory and fleshing out of the characters than series books do, and Boone recovers nicely with a gory final act that morphs from thriller to horror in terrifying fashion.
Ezekiel Boone’s latest novel is a total trip to read . . . just make sure you leave the lights on and turn all your devices off before cracking it open.
The Three Secret Cities by Matthew Reilly
Release Date: December 4th (Gallery Books)
Last year, Jack West Junior threw the Four Legendary Kingdoms for a loop when he won the Great Games—now he’s forced to deal with the fallout.
Picking up right where the last book left off, Jack is now home at his farm recovering from his epic battle in the underworld. While West is busy resting, his comrades from his last adventure all head their separate ways—each of them oblivious to the fact that things in hell aren’t going so well.
Down below, Hades is being overthrown by the people of Four Kingdoms, as forces work to strip him of his role, no longer making him King of the Underworld. Even worse for him, a mysterious figure known as the Slave King has been dispatched to imprison the disgraced demonic leader as a form of punishment. Hades, however, knows things are about to get worse, as new trials are coming—ones that only he knows certain information about. Survival will depend on the ability to obtain the Three Immortal Weapons, which must be used at three different secret cities, and there’s only one man who has the ability to obtain them before it’s too late . . .
With certain doom on the horizon, Jack West Junior must once again race to save the world—a task that involves dodging assassins, solving puzzles, and traveling to mythical places before time runs out on all of humanity.
For those who’ve never read one of Matthew Reilly’s books before, you probably don’t want to start here. Also, if you like your thrillers to have any realism whatsoever, this series might not be for you. Not only are they not believable, but Reilly’s books are so over-the-top that they make George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series read more like nonfiction than fantasy—dragons and all. That said, Reilly has built up a loyal following for a reason. He’s a natural storyteller who understands pacing and character development, and there is something that’s just helplessly fun about his work.
Longtime fans will appreciate that Jack West Junior is back to his globe-trotting ways in this one, and The Three Secret Cities is Matthew Reilly’s most explosive novel to date.
Liar’s Paradox by Taylor Stevens
Release Date: December 18th (Kensington)
Spies aren’t born, they’re made … and twins Jack and Jill have been raised to kill by their mother, Clare, who they assume is crazy once they’re old enough to realize just how not normal their lives were growing up.
Now in their mid-twenties and living separate lives, the twins learn that their mother’s secret compound has been destroyed and that Clare is missing. Though feuding, Jack and Jill work together to find out what happened to their mother, and while setting aside their differences proves hard, things become infinitely more difficult when they realize the hard way that their mom might not be some delusional lunatic after all.
In a flash, the two realize that their whole lives—the weird upbringing that saw them move from country to country, including stays with strangers who helped them hone new skills and constant psychological games—have been preparing them for this moment. Finding Clare is key to understanding what’s going on, but to do that they’ll have to outrun and outkill a number of assassins closing in on them from all sides as they hunt for the one thing they’ve always longed for … the truth.
Though Stevens is best known for her Vanessa Munroe series, this exciting series launch is some of her finest work to date. While there are a lot of pages dedicated to backstory, the plot never feels slow—partly because the twins’ past is so intriguing, and partly because Stevens does a fine job picking and choosing when to work such details into the story. Moreover, those past moments are critical in the present day, as they explain how Jack and Jill are able to do what they do from an action standpoint—and why they’re wired to think like seasoned operators, capable of staying one step ahead of those coming after them. Gayle Lynds has long been the queen of spy thrillers, but Stevens offers a fresh and compelling new voice—and a very promising new franchise to build on going forward.
Just when you expect Taylor Stevens to zig, she zags, unleashing one brutal twist after another to deliver an action-packed thriller that begs for a sequel.
Verses for the Dead by Preston & Child
Release Date: December 26th (Grand Central)
FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast returns for his 18th adventure in the latest thriller from the New York Times bestselling writing duo of Preston & Child.
After years of taking on the toughest, most dangerous assignments his bosses at the New York City field offices can throw at him, Agent Pendergast is finally given the one thing he’s feared most: A partner.
Walter Pickett, the man behind Pendergast’s forced partnership with a new character by the name of Coldmoon, is the latest assistant director to be assigned to the New York office—and he brings with him a whole new style of doing business. Gone are Pendergast’s days as a maverick lone wolf with a tendency for big, and costly, action-oriented adventures that seem to always negatively blow back on his superiors. So, to keep him in check, Pickett has tasked Coldmoon with keeping an eye on Pendergast, and the two kick off their working relationship by heading to Florida to investigate a gruesome crime scene.
Near Miami Beach, a devious new serial killer left a human heart on the gravesite of Elise Baxter, a young woman who killed herself years prior. Alongside the organ is a note, which quickly proves to be the first of many—as the killer strikes again, seemingly choosing their victims at random. Pendergast, however, refuses to believe there is anything random about the killer or their taunting methods, and insists on digging into Baxter’s case to make sense of it all. In doing so, Pendergast discovers there’s more to the killer than they first realized—forcing him to question everything and everyone around him, including his new partner.
After several so-so novels over the past few years, Preston & Child seem to have finally regained their footing with this series by pulling out a number of tricks and surprises designed to keep readers off balance and re-energize a fanbase that had grown tired of predictable, formulaic plots. Verses for the Dead does just that, shaking things up for the beloved Pendergast, and longtime readers will surely enjoy seeing him adjust to life with a new partner and boss who want nothing more than to hold him accountable. While the story itself might not be as high-flying as previous titles, the authors seem to have found a much better balance this time around, which should be more sustainable moving forward.
With Verses for the Dead, Preston & Child put an end to any doubt that their most popular franchise is losing steam … Agent Pendergast is here to stay, and there’s plenty of reasons to be excited about the future of this series.
