The best crime novels with a cinematic sensibility

NPR put it best when they said of Don Winslow’s border trilogy, “This is all basically Shakespeare. Not Shakespearean, mind you. But Shakespeare. As in, 300 years from now, when our children’s children’s children want to understand the defining conflict of the late 20th and early 21st century—when they want it presented with full lights and fireworks, costumed in gold chains and polo shirts, writ hugely in the way that only fiction can be—there’s a fair chance that this is what they will read.”

The Power of the Dog is the first novel in Don Winslow’s border trilogy and in my opinion, one of his best novels. (The Force and The Winter of Frankie Machine are close runners-up). The novel begins in 1975 and spans approximately thirty years of America’s War on Drugs, alluding to actual historical events through the heightened lens of fiction. The writing is gritty and lean, yet the story is epic. It’s also just a kickass Cartel story in the vein of Sicario or Netflix’s Narcos.

Blacktop Wasteland is kind of like The Fast and the Furious only, you know, good. I felt transported to the criminal underbelly of rural Virginia. I loved the novel’s noir sensibility and I was fascinated by its exploration of moral ambiguity and identity. As a novelist and screenwriter, I often write about father-son relationships and much of Blacktop Wasteland is about our hero, Beauregard, trying (and failing) to escape his father’s criminal identity. But what’s truly great about Blacktop Wasteland is how it transcends the familiar “one last heist gone awry” paradigm. Daniel Nieh of The New York Times put it best when he wrote, “Beauregard can’t badass his way out of the traps of racism, poverty and absentee parenting. Such an escape would require different skills. It might even require a different America.”

I love a good page-turner. I love to write them and I love to read them. I strive to write novels that the reader will binge. Novels as addictive as a drug. I want each chapter I write to be like another hit—a re-up that floods the reader’s brain with dopamine. Tell No One by Harlan Coben is a novel that I binged. It keeps you guessing until the end. And while some of the payoffs may seem a little over-the-top, I am able to overlook it because this novel (like much of Coben’s work) is just so damn addictive!

This ballsy, initially self-published debut novel from the late, great Vince Flynn asks: What if unknown, highly-skilled assassins began killing off politicians until Washington agrees to set aside partisan politics and restore power to the people? It’s basically draining the swamp with a rifle barrel. It’s a controversial premise, but a hell of an entertaining read and even though the novel was written in 1997, it feels timely as ever. Personally, I love when novels explore social issues in entertaining ways. This is something I strive to accomplish in each of my novels. Term Limits pulls it off with flying colors.

Gone Girl is another addictive page-turner, but what truly sets it apart is its structure. I love it when novels surprise you and Gone Girl uses point-of-view to do just that. As a screenwriter, I value structure and I employ the principles of three-act structure in each of my novels. If you haven’t read the novel (or seen the film), the less you know going in, the better. That said, Gone Girl is a crime thriller that explores the dynamics of marriage in a very unique and entertaining way.