Why am I passionate about this?
Inspired by my dad–a fan of Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean, and the like–and two older brothers, I discovered Desmond Bagley as a teenager. My passion for his style of action-adventure has never dwindled. As the crime thriller genre appears to move relentlessly in the direction of dark, gritty, serial-killer territory, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something to be said for the now less-fashionable escapist worlds these writers created. Thanks to HarperCollins, I was given the chance to work on Bagley’s last posthumous novel, Domino Island, and my own original books inevitably followed.
Michael's book list on action-adventure books that are not crime thrillers
Why did Michael love this book?
I can never understand why so many critics and readers are snooty about Dan Brown. For me, he does what every good storyteller should do: takes you on a page-turning journey. And his style is both readable and erudite, whatever the snobs might say.
Although this could technically be described as a crime thriller, it remains perhaps Brown’s best action-adventure so far, and regardless of whether Tom Hanks is your idea of Professor Robert Langdon or not, the thrills just keep on coming as you follow breathlessly through the streets and landmarks of Paris, London and beyond. Stylish and swaggering.
11 authors picked The Da Vinci Code as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes.
As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.
Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the…