As 2019 comes to a close, it’s time to finally look back on the year’s best thrillers—and oh, what a year it’s been. No doubt about it, 2019 will go down as one of the best years for hard-hitting new releases we’ve seen in a long time.
Before we turn the page to 2020, I’m looking back at the very best of the best, highlighting the 10 most exciting, action-packed thrillers of the year. Browse my picks below, then leave me a comment and let me know which books cracked your list of favorites in 2019.
Happy reading!
Backlash by Brad Thor
Everything he’s ever done . . . everything he’s been through over the course of his career as a counterterrorism operative. . . has led to this moment.
Following the most crucial operation of his storied career, someone’s come after Scot in a way few have ever dared. Cut off from any and all support, Harvath suddenly finds himself alone behind enemy lines, the lone survivor of a devastating plane crash. Armed with two decades of experience and little else, Scot must find a way to battle through the frigid, sub-zero temperatures and fight his way through a gauntlet of bad guys if he hopes to survive long enough to go after the one thing he craves more than anything.
Revenge.
Brad Thor has spent a long time dominating bestseller lists over the course of his career, and yet he always seems to find a way to get better each time out. Whereas a lot of writers peak and then enter a decline by this point in their careers, Thor keeps getting stronger, and his latest—which is unlike anything he’s done before—is the best thing he’s ever written. Sure, there’s some familiarity with the cold weather elements (The Lions of Lucerne, 2002), and we’ve certainly seen Harvath’s loved ones under fire before (The First Commandment, 2007; Black List, 2012; etc.), but while those themes feel reminiscent of past books, they actually serve a bigger purpose. In a way, everything Harvath has been through up until now has been preparing him for this.
Tested in ways he couldn’t have previously imagined, he’ll have to summon every ounce of strength he has left to go after those who wronged him and his country . . . and nobody delivers a star-spangled ass-kicking better than Harvath, who’s finally unleashed on his enemies like never before.
Backlash is my pick for best thriller of the year. If you still haven’t read it, don’t wait a second longer.
Lethal Agent by Kyle Mills
After a long career of killing bad guys and taking names, Mitch Rapp is finally faced with a scenario he may not be able to prevent when a dangerous bioterrorism attack threatens the United States of America.
A couple of books back, Rapp thought he killed Mullah Sayid Halabi, the leader of ISIS and the most wanted terrorist on the planet. But now new intelligence suggests that Halabi is still alive, and when readers meet back up with Rapp in this one, the CIA man is in Yemen, bear crawling through another cave in hopes of finishing the job once and for all.
Instead, Halabi proves too elusive once again, and slips away just in time.
Things worsen when intelligence reports suggest that ISIS kidnapped a brilliant French microbiologist and is forcing him to weaponize a form of anthrax. While focusing on the looming threat that Halabi’s survival creates for America, CIA Director Dr. Kennedy is also forced to deal with an arrogant politician who intends to make enemies of both her and Rapp, further complicating matters at the worst possible time.
Senator Christine Barnett, her party’s frontrunner for the upcoming presidential election, which is quickly proving to be the most divisive in recent memory, is no fan of the CIA. Kennedy, along with everyone else in Washington, knows that her time as director is coming to a close if Barnett wins the Oval Office, and as things stand, there is no peaceful transfer of power on the horizon. Realizing they’re working on borrowed time, Kennedy tasks Rapp with finding Halabi at all costs, and stopping whatever he has planned.
From the caves of Yemen to the political underbelly in Washington, D.C., to war-torn Somalia and the cartel-infested jungles of Southern Mexico, Mitch Rapp races around the world in pursuit of the man looking to emerge from the shadows with a bang—and all bets are off when Rapp realizes they’ve been duped and that something much more sinister is lurking, ready to strike a blow to America like never before . . .
Now five books in, Kyle Mills has done an amazing job filling in for series creator Vince Flynn, who passed away in 2013. Apparently, some fans were split on last year’s Red War, which deviated a bit from the formula they’re used to. While I still think Red War is one of the better Rapp books to date, there should be no debate among longtime fans this year, as Lethal Agent reads like a combination of Executive Power and Memorial Day, two franchise bests and favorites among diehard Flynn fans.
Taking the series back to its roots, Mills dials up the action, throwing Mitch into one impossible situation after another, constantly raising the stakes with each turning page. Even if you think you know how this one will end, it’s still a ton of fun watching Mitch Rapp do Mitch Rapp things, and several scenes—including one involving him picking a lock—will have readers talking long after turning the last page.
Kyle Mills delivers a classic Mitch Rapp novel that reads like a throwback to Vince Flynn’s earlier work, proving once again that he’s the only writer capable of stepping into Flynn’s shoes and keeping this franchise among the very best the thriller genre has to offer.
The New Girl by Daniel Silva
One year after producing what might be the best spy novel since John le Carre’s The Spy who Came in from the Cold, Daniel Silva delivers another riveting, twisting tale of espionage that further cements his legacy as one of the greatest novelists the genre has ever known.
Opening in Geneva, Silva’s 19th Allon novel introduces Jihan—the mysterious new girl at a very exclusive boarding school—who arrives each day via a motorcade fit for a king. Her classmates wonder about her past, as do her teachers, but it’s not until she vanishes one afternoon that her true identity is revealed.
Jihan, it turns out, is the daughter of Khalid bin Mohammed, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Once known as a social reformer who set out to modernize his religiously intolerant country, Khalid bin Mohammed—or KBM for short—has since become a controversial figure for all the wrong reasons due to his role in the killing of a journalist named Omar Nawwaf.
Now, with few friends to turn to, the distraught crown prince seeks out former CIA officer turned art curator Sarah Bancroft, whom he’d used as an unofficial advisor of sorts when purchasing various works of art in the past. Longtime readers of the Allon series will recall Bancroft’s—who first appeared in Silva’s 2007 Barry Award-winning novel The Messenger, before returning in other books throughout the years—close relationship with Gabriel and his wife, Chiara, something KBM was fully aware of, and counting on, when he reached out to her.
After her calls go unanswered, Bancroft travels from New York to Tel Aviv, where she presents Gabriel with an interesting opportunity. Soon thereafter, Gabriel meets with KBM, who vows to continue his crusade to break the bond between the Saudi Kingdom and radical Islam—sparking an unlikely alliance, as Allon agrees to help find and recover his daughter. However, though things initially seemed straightforward enough, Gabriel quickly realizes they are anything but, as KBM receives impossible demands from his daughter’s kidnappers—which is nothing compared to the shocking endgame Allon uncovers as the story unfolds.
Realizing he’s stumbled into a dangerous secret war, Gabriel Allon must navigate his way through the conflict while looking over his shoulder for both the enemies he’s made throughout his career and those after Khalid bin Mohammed. With the stakes higher than ever and countless lives on the line, it’s once again up to the wayward son of Israeli intelligence to find a way to save the day, and one wrong move could mean devastating consequences throughout the Middle East . . .
Reading Daniel Silva’s expertly crafted novels is to witness a master at work. He’s one of the all-time greats for a reason, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The New Girl is, hands down, the best spy thriller of 2019, topping new offerings from John le Carre, Alan Furst, and Joseph Kanon.
Mission Critical by Mark Greaney
Mark Greaney reignites the Cold War in his latest must-read thriller featuring the infamous Gray Man.
Back with the CIA in an unofficial capacity, Courtland Gentry, better known as the Gray Man, is given orders by his handler, Suzanne Brewer, to return to Washington. As it turns out, an agency plane happens to be in the region, and Court’s able to hitch a ride–but it’s not a direct flight to D.C. Their first stop is in Luxembourg City, where another group of operators boards the Gulfstream IV with a prisoner en route to England.
After touching down at a small airfield in the West Midlands, Court realizes something is off. Though he’s told nothing about the other mission his assignment is piggybacking, he’s able to discern that it’s obviously a prisoner swap. What he doesn’t know is that the armed men lining the secluded runway are MI6 agents tasked with interrogating the prisoner about a possible mole inside of Langley as part of a joint effort with CIA. However, just before the exchange goes down, Gentry catches movement in the distance and his instincts tell him the drop is an ambush, a theory that is quickly confirmed when bullets fly moments later.
When the smoke clears, only Court is still alive, and the prisoner is gone.
In full damage-control mode, Brewer has Gentry go after the prisoner while calling in additional help (in the form of another fan-favorite character) to help identify and press potential traitors within the agency. As things unfold, an all-out mole hunt emerges, and it becomes clear that both sides have been penetrated, leaving them racing to plug the leaks before it’s too late.
Mark Greaney continues to leave his mark on the thriller genre, pumping out another smart, hard-hitting thriller. The Cold War era has long been considered the golden age of spy thrillers, paving the way for John le Carre and others to dominate the genre. Here, Greaney modernizes things, offering a fresh and timely take that reignites the Cold War with a high-stakes plot that’ll appeal to a wide range of readers and fans of everyone from le Carre and Forsyth to Vince Flynn and Daniel Silva.
If you like action-slammed, well-researched geopolitical thrillers that are both timely and entertaining, Mission Critical is for you.
Daughter of War by Brad Taylor
New York Times bestselling author Brad Taylor presents another chilling, all-too-plausible plot in his latest nail-biting thriller.
In Monaco to stop the sale of stolen data between North Korea and Syria, Pike Logan and the rest of his Taskforce team have been ordered to make sure that the top-secret information, which supposedly contains vital intelligence on a number of important members of the United States government, never changes hands. Instead, Pike and company discover that they’ve got the mission all wrong.
The good news is that North Korea isn’t hawking info stolen from the Chinese, after all. The bad news, though, is that they’re moving something much worse: a deadly chemical called Red Mercury.
Extremely poisonous and nearly untraceable, Red Mercury poses a very real and present danger to America and the rest of the world. The story takes another turn, however, when Amena, a young Syrian refugee who relies on her skills as a petty thief to feed herself and her brother, accidentally lifts a new iPhone that contains the details of the attack from the pocket of a Syrian intelligence officer. Suddenly, everyone from the North Koreans to the Syrians and even the Russians are in pursuit of Amena, who has no clue that she’s in possession of the one thing that could cause the murderous plot to fail.
With the clock ticking down and bad guys closing in on her from every direction, it’s once again up to Pike Logan to find Amena and save the day before it’s too late—and this time, he’s got his work cut out for him.
Armed with a strong prose and natural storytelling ability, Brad Taylor continues to dominate the military thriller genre, and it’s not close.
While Pike Logan is the star of the series, Taylor has done an exceptional job developing a deep cast of characters over the years to compliment him. More specifically, he has always written smart, kickass women into his thrillers, a trend that continues here with the introduction of Amena. Readers have already taken to Shoshana and Jennifer Cahill, and without giving anything away, there’s a solid chance that Amena, who steals every scene she’s in, becomes the next fan-favorite in a long line of strong secondary characters occupying Pike’s universe. That’s not to say that Logan doesn’t shine here, he does, but with other authors suddenly scrambling to write strong female characters in their respective series, it’s worth noting that Taylor has done it better and longer than nearly everyone else.
Nobody delivers quite like Brad Taylor. Ripped from the headlines and packed with plenty of suspense and nonstop action every step of the way, Daughter of War is easily among the very best thrillers of the year.
Rules of War by Matthew Betley
In the aftermath of Field of Valor, Betley’s last book, the director of the NSA is dead, and Joshua Baker, the United States’ vice president, is missing.
A traitor to his country, finding Baker is the number one priority for Task Force Ares, an elite unit within the FBI, and former Marine Logan West leads the manhunt. While his BFF and right-hand man John Quick recovers from a serious gunshot wound, it’s former CIA agent Cole Matthews who accompanies Logan this time around, as the duo heads to an Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.
Unbeknownst to Logan, though, someone is after him—which complicates matters significantly.
Chief Inspector Santiago Rojas of Bolivian National Intelligence has been tasked with finding and bringing Logan back to Venezuela. A widower, Rojas also has a sick child dying of cancer—her treatment contingent on his ability to produce Logan to his superiors. To save her, he’ll do anything, but after a brief encounter with Logan and Cole, the tables are turned yet again when the trio—Santiago, Logan, and Cole—are ambushed in Rojas’ hotel room and forced to fight their way out of the building.
Logan, who has always laid it all on the line, runnin’ and gunnin’ with the best of ’em, carries himself a bit differently in this one. Now an expected father, his perspective has changed. Empathetic to Rojas’ situation, he agrees to go to Venezuela so the man can secure the medical treatment for his daughter—and in doing so, finally connects the dots, revealing the real conspiracy playing out behind the scenes. With all the players finally unmasked, Logan West sets his sights on the former VP and everyone else who’s helped him along the way, and in doing so, opens the biggest can of whoop-ass Betley’s readers have seen yet.
A former Marine himself, action and quick-witted dialogue have been Matthew Betley’s calling card throughout his writing career. And while the action and laugh-out-loud-funny one-liners are plentiful, he doesn’t receive enough credit for his ability to manipulate readers’ emotions. After showing flashes of such skill in Valor, Betley—like everything else he does—takes it to the next level here, revealing a masterful touch in his handling of emotionally-charged scenes and a smooth prose to go with it.
Told with blazing speed, Rules of War is another fun, timely, action-filled thriller from Matthew Betley—who packs more gunfights and daring sequences into his books than anyone else in the business.
The Russian by Ben Coes
New York Times bestselling author Ben Coes kicks off a new spinoff series starring Rob Tacoma, who proves to be every bit as formidable as Dewey Andreas, and then some.
For Rob Tacoma, it’s personal. A former Navy SEAL and vital member of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, Tacoma was originally raised by his grandparents following the death of his parents, who were murdered at the hands of a couple of Russian mafia thugs. Now, he’s given a shot at retribution when the president of the United States issues a top-secret executive order designed to hit back at the Russians.
Decades prior, after the fall of the Soviet Union, a wave of criminals made their way to America, where they’re now thriving—acting like kings of the violent underworld they helped build, their reach is a scary reality for all who oppose them, a point that’s proven when two powerful politicians are assassinated on the same night. Senator John O’Flaherty, known as the “Lion” of the Senate among his peers, was shot once in the head, while Governor Nick Black of Florida, the Democratic frontrunner for the upcoming presidential election, was poisoned. All clues point to the Russian mob being behind the high-profile killings, prompting President J.P. Dellenbaugh to take action.
Realizing that the enemy has invaded the United States, forcing America to fight back without its best soldiers and operators in the game, Dallenbaugh issues Executive Order 12-4b3, assembling a hit team of skilled men and women who are tasked with going into the shadows, infiltrating the crime world, and punching back against the mob. While Billy Cosgrove, head of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, is handpicked to head-up the team, Coll tabs Rob Tacoma, who is busy running RISCON, the private security team he founded and co-operates with his partner, Katie Foxx, to be his second in command.
Eager to spill Russian blood, Tacoma jumps at the chance provided him, but before their operation even gets off the ground, Cosgrove is murdered—his death a direct warning to everyone else involved. With the mafia onto them, Rob must find a way to track down the mob boss behind the trio of killings and make him pay before anyone else dies . . .
Ben Coes has made a living walking the literary line somewhere between John le Carre and Vince Flynn, constantly churning out high-octane, critically-acclaimed thrillers year after year. This time around, he’s left his comfort zone as a writer to wade into far more noir-like waters, producing a darker story that, while it flashes familiar themes and characters, is quite unlike anything he’s ever done before, and that risk pays off in a big way.
Think Clear and Present Danger meets John Wick . . . Ben Coes brings the heat with The Russian, a no-rules, no-limits, punch-to-the-gut of a thriller.
Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz
Evan Smoak, aka Orphan X (when he’s not going by the Nowhere Man), has spent years searching for the man who gave the order to have him terminated–after he broke from the off-the-books government program that made him a killer–hellbent on burning their operation to the ground.
Likewise, those in charge of the Orphan Program have been looking for Evan, the only asset to ever walk away, in an effort to tie up the exceptionally lethal loose end.
Over the years, Evan’s decision to retire as a government assassin has cost him dearly. From being forced to live a nearly hermit-like lifestyle in his tricked-out penthouse, unable to form any real, normal relationships with others, to seeing the few people he does care about killed because of his past, Evan longs for revenge. Now, he finally knows who’s behind everything after unmasking Jonathan Bennett as the highest predator on the Orphan food chain, and Evan has vowed to kill him. There’s just one problem . . .
Jonathan Bennett is the president of the United States of America.
Decades before occupying the Oval Office, the horribly corrupt Bennett was the undersecretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense. The Orphan Program was his brainchild, and he gave the mission orders, including an assignment in 1997 that proved to be especially problematic once his political career took off. In an attempt to erase any trace of that mission–and the Orphan Program as a whole–Bennett, who has strategically placed layers of insulation between himself and the operation, ordered the killings of anyone with direct knowledge, making Evan enemy number one.
As if taking out the most heavily guarded man on the planet wasn’t hard enough, things become more difficult for Evan when his RoamZone rings and a man named Trevon indicates that he needs help from The Nowhere Man, Smoak’s crime-fighting alter ego, after finding his entire family murdered. Unable to turn his back on Trevon, a fascinating new character who will steal reader’s hearts, Evan attempts to carry out both missions at once, splitting his focus and complicating things considerably. Also standing in his way is Naomi Templeton, the Secret Service agent in charge of protecting President Bennett. And readers will finally get to meet Orphan A, who, it turns out, has his own score to settle with Evan.
Still, none of that will stop Orphan X from attempting to carry out his mission.
Bennett has the advantage. Evan has plenty of motivation. Bennett is virtually inaccessible. Evan is highly trained. Bennett has the full command of the United States military at his disposal. Evan is a one-man army.
It’s a heavyweight fight for the ages, and the stakes couldn’t possibly be any higher.
Everything that’s happened over the last three books has been building towards this, and Hurwitz delivers with a stunning, action-packed plot that will leave readers breathless with anticipation and begging for more.
Out of the Dark is the kind of game-changing thriller that’ll have people talking about it long after turning the final page.
True Believer by Jack Carr
After being held up by the Department of Defense’s Office of Prepublication and Security Review for over six months, former Navy SEAL turned top-notch thriller author Jack Carr’s highly-anticipated second thriller finally came out this past summer . . . and Carr did not disappoint.
Following the explosive events of The Terminal List (2018), James Reece is the most wanted domestic terrorist on the United States’ watch list. Once a Navy SEAL commander, Reece previously uncovered a conspiracy that reached the highest levels of the American government, one that he set about exposing—which cost him everything he loved and cared about: his wife, their daughter, his teammates, and his career.
With nothing more to lose, Reece set out for revenge. After compiling a lengthy list of everyone and anyone who had a hand in the death of his family and his team, the highly trained, highly lethal commando went to work—crossing off every name on his list in the process.
Now, Reece is a broken man. Still dealing with a tumor that’s spidered its way into his brain, James finds himself alone on Bitter Harvest, a forty-eight-foot Beneteau Oceanis, bobbing his way across the Atlantic Ocean. Struggling to cope with everything that’s happened over the past several months, Reece stays off the grid, makes peace with his medical diagnosis, and spends the next four months slowly making his way to Mozambique, Africa, where he’s taken in by Rich Hastings, the uncle of James’ estranged best friend and former SEAL teammate, who runs a Safaris camp near Niassa.
Eventually, though he was careful and doing his best to lay low, Reece and some other members of Hastings’ crew have a run-in with some armed poachers, forcing Reece to flip the switch he’d spent the better part of a year trying to turn off. And when word travels that a badass nobody in the middle of the jungle threw down with some poachers, it doesn’t take long for Uncle Sam to track Reece down—only, instead of handcuffs, they’ve come knocking with an offer.
Unbeknownst to Reece, who hasn’t paid any attention to the news, a series of devastating terrorist attacks have rocked the Western world. It’s believed that the man behind the attacks is Mohammed “Mo” Farooq, an Iraqi commander who was once trained by American forces in the region. As it turns out, everyone who had a hand in dealing with Mo back in Iraq is now dead, except for Reece, who is offered a presidential pardon and a new job with the CIA in exchange for tracking him down and putting an end to the attacks.
Though he’s initially reluctant, Reece accepts the offer and heads out to complete his mission, which seems straightforward enough. Instead, all hell breaks loose, as he quickly discovers that things aren’t what they first seemed. Unsure whom he can trust, Reece travels around the globe chasing terrorists and, in the process, unearths another conspiracy that could set the world on fire . . . unless he can stop it.
Few authors over the last few decades have taken the genre by storm the way Jack Carr has. After releasing one of the best debut political thrillers in recent memory, Carr follows that up with another winner, though it’s a very different book than The Terminal List. Whereas his first book started fast—taking readers behind the scope as Reece fired his first shot of revenge—True Believer opens slower, following Reece as he learns to live again. Carr gives readers time to bond with his hero, in what ultimately proves to be the calm before the storm. And once the bullets start flying, you better hold on tight, because the action never lets up for a second—with Carr delivering the kind of adrenaline-inducing action sequences you’d expect from someone who knows that life intimately.
True Believer is no doubt one of the year’s hottest thrillers, and is perfect fit for fans of Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Daniel Silva.
The Persian Gamble by Joel C. Rosenberg
Rosenberg opens his latest thriller just moments from where his previous book, The Kremlin Conspiracy, left off–with former Secret Service agent Marcus Ryker free-falling through the skies somewhere over Northwestern Russia after jumping out of a private Gulfstream IV.
While the first pages are dedicated to catching readers up to speed on the events from the last book, explaining why Ryker is parachuting into Russia alongside Oleg Kraskin, the story quickly shifts as the two characters go on the run in an effort to stop a nuclear war from breaking out across the globe.
Kraskin, a former attorney who became an advisor to his father-in-law, Russian President Aleksandr Ivanovich Luganov, never meant to marry into the nation’s leading crime family. At the time of his wedding, Luganov was the head of the FSB. Now he’s one of the most powerful men in the world, ready to wage war by invading several NATO nations.
Oleg, in an effort to stop the war before it gets started, becomes a double agent, slipping Ryker sensitive, top-secret information about his father-in-law’s plans. The story takes a shocking turn though when Ryker realizes the invasion is little more than a smokescreen designed to distract from President Luganov’s dealings with North Korea, who has managed to construct a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking the United States. Their goal is to hand off the missiles and nuclear warheads to Iran, who will fire the first shot, no doubt prompting a response in similar force that would kick off a nuclear holocaust unlike anything the world’s ever seen.
With Russian forces quickly closing in on them and all-out war threatening to forever change the world as we know it, Marcus and Oleg must evade the authorities long enough to connect the dots, identify all the players, and find a way to stop the madness before it’s too late.
With the fate of the world resting on their shoulders, the stakes couldn’t possibly be any higher . . . and Rosenberg dials up the suspense like never before, delivering his most heart-pounding story yet.
While much of the thriller world continues to pivot away from Islamic terrorism to focus on Russia, Rosenberg was one of the first to circle back around and identify them as the next big threat. Known for his uncanny ability to predict world events before they take place, a skill that prompted U.S. News & World Report to call him a “modern-day Nostradamus,” Rosenberg offers up a terrifying glimpse of where the conflict between Russia and the United States could be headed.
With his ripped-from-the-headlines approach and stunning ability to survey the geopolitical landscape, Joel C. Rosenberg continues to mix his unique blend of prophetic fiction and nonstop action unlike anyone else working today.
