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I know a lot about “ripped from the headlines” news stories because I’ve been around a lot of news stories and headlines most of my life. I’m a longtime New York City journalist who has worked as a top editor at both the NY Post and the NY Daily News. Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of wild headlines in these places (e.g., Headless Body in Topless Bar!). So you can understand why I now like ripping from news headlines for fiction books as an author.
Okay, this might seem like a bit of a strange choice to be included in a list of best “ripped from the headlines” crime novels, but it really isn’t. I mean, the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, is probably the most famous big news headline of our times.
I was totally blown away by King’s brilliant concept of using that legendary date in history to write this fascinating thriller about what “might have been” if someone could somehow go back in time and stop it from ever happening.
Like the other four books on my list, King takes a major real-life news story and uses it to create a fascinating work of fiction. I just love books like this!
Now a major TV series from JJ Abrams and Stephen King, starring James Franco (Hulu US, Fox UK and Europe, Stan Australia, SKY New Zealand).
WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11.22.63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless . . .
King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of…
In my years on the crime beat, I often met good people who did bad things and criminals with good intentions and good hearts. We tend to draw a line between good and evil, putting ourselves on the good side. From that perspective, we sit in judgment, believing we are incapable of evil because it’s “over there.” Inaccessible. Unfathomable. But that line is fictional. We redraw it constantly to feel good about ourselves and avoid empathizing with the worst of human nature. What I love about these five novels is that they expose that truth. The twists remind me that even my own line is blurred and ever-shifting.
First, I found the writing in this book phenomenal, especially the dialogue. I feel like each bit of dialogue revealed something new about the character or pulled me deeper into the plot. It’s witty and dark. Honest would be a good word to describe it.
The characters felt so human to me–simultaneously loveable and deplorable, true to human nature. But it was the twist midway through the novel that really drew me in—the shift in reality. It changed the book for me, molding it into something unique, something I’d never read before.
It’s a novel I come back to time and time again, especially when I need inspiration.
THE ADDICTIVE No.1 BESTSELLER AND INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON OVER 20 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE THE BOOK THAT DEFINES PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
Who are you? What have we done to each other?
These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on…
I know a lot about “ripped from the headlines” news stories because I’ve been around a lot of news stories and headlines most of my life. I’m a longtime New York City journalist who has worked as a top editor at both the NY Post and the NY Daily News. Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of wild headlines in these places (e.g., Headless Body in Topless Bar!). So you can understand why I now like ripping from news headlines for fiction books as an author.
Riley Sager has become one of my favorite new authors, and his latest book is marvelously inspired by one of the most famous news stories of all time: The infamous Lizzie Borden murders of her parents in Fall River, Mass. back in 1892.
Like most people, I can still remember the famous lyric chanted from that long-ago crime: “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks; when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”
In this book, I loved the way Sager used this idea to create a modern-day story of a Lizzie Borden-type character, even though the book really has nothing else to do with the original case. I found it all absolutely fascinating!
I know a lot about “ripped from the headlines” news stories because I’ve been around a lot of news stories and headlines most of my life. I’m a longtime New York City journalist who has worked as a top editor at both the NY Post and the NY Daily News. Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of wild headlines in these places (e.g., Headless Body in Topless Bar!). So you can understand why I now like ripping from news headlines for fiction books as an author.
I loved the movie with Nicole Kidman, and I loved the book by Joyce Maynard, too!
It’s not exactly a true factual account of how New Hampshire school teacher Pamela Smart got her teenage lover to murder her husband in 1990. But the book is clearly inspired by that sensational news event. Sex, murder, betrayal, adultery–this book has it all.
It's an even better fictional story than the real story it came from.
"A seductive page-turner" about a murderously ambitious cable-news star by the New York Times-bestselling author of Labor Day (The New York Times Book Review).
Local weather reporter Suzanne Maretto craves nothing more than to transcend life at her suburban cable television news station and follow in the footsteps of her idol: Barbara Walters. When she concludes that her unglamorous husband is getting in the way of her dream of stardom, the solution seems obvious: Get rid of him. She seduces a fifteen-year-old admirer, Jimmy, and persuades him to do her dirty work. Mission accomplished, Suzanne takes to the airwaves in…
At an early age, I became a fan of tightly plotted mysteries that play fair with the reader. This led to my career in mystery games and videos and a dozen books of short mysteries. It also led to my TV career. When the creator of Monkrealized he needed some twisty plots, he visited a bookstore, found my books, and tracked me down. Since then, I’ve been plying my trade on the small screen as well, working with some very talented people, like Steve Martin, who needed a mystery guy to come in and add some structure to their ideas.
Although a suspense novel rather than a mystery, this one utilizes plenty of tricks to keep you enthralled and guessing. It starts with a “Strangers on a Train” kind of premise, the exchanging of murders by people who just met. Then it takes off, morphing into unexpected incarnations, each one exciting and satisfying. If you become a fan, and I’m betting you will, be warned. Swanson uses similar plot developments in his other books. This is by far his best one.
You should never talk to strangers...Gone Girl meets Strangers on a Train in this year's must-read psychological thriller. "Extremely hard to put down". (Sophie Hannah). "Chilling and hypnotically suspenseful". (Lee Child). 'Hello there.' I looked at the pale, freckled hand on the back of the empty bar seat next to me in the business class lounge of Heathrow airport, then up into the stranger's face. 'Do I know you?' Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar. Over cocktails they tell each other rather more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched - but…
I have always been fascinated by medicine and the people who are there to care for us when needed. I have worked as a nurse and midwife, and the thought that someone, anyone, could actively harm those in their care is horrific. But it happens. At first, I read medical thrillers as I would have read any murder mystery, but now, post-Shipman et al., I also want to know why they kill. I think that these books give us some ideas about this, but we can still never really know what goes on in the mind of a murderous doctor or nurse, and that’s what makes these books so thrilling.
Robin Cook is the Grandaddy of medical thriller writers, and I read this not long after it first came out. It is the chilling story of a medical student who investigates why normally fit and healthy patients are suddenly lapsing into coma.
There is a strong and intelligent female protagonist, which is important to me. Yes, she can cry and even fall into the arms of a man, but she needs to be intelligent and stay strong, and Susan does that here. At the time, I was impressed by the level of authenticity but didn’t believe that anyone in the medical profession would ever deliberately hurt or kill their patients. Now, of course, we know better.
I re-read it before writing this and can honestly say that this book stands the test of time and is still relevant today.
The blockbuster bestseller that kickstarted a new genre--the medical thriller--is now available in trade paperback for the first time. They called it "minor surgery," but Nancy Greenly, Sean Berman and a dozen others--all admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital for routine procedures--were victims of the same inexplicable, hideous tragedy on the operating table. They never woke up. Susan Wheeler is a third-year medical student working as a trainee at Boston Memorial Hospital. Two patients during her residency mysteriously go into comas immediately after their operations due to complications from anesthesia. Susan begins to investigate the causes behind both of these alarming…
I grew up in Boston and New York and currently live in Montreal. I have worked primarily in writing performance texts and plays. I founded the performance company Bluemouth Inc., with whom I have written and staged over a dozen works. In 2018, I completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Concordia University, where I was awarded the Dean of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Creative Writing. As for my expertise in compiling this list, I am the daughter of a strong force-of-nature woman who fought for what she had and taught her kids they can get through anything as long as they have humor, music, and books.
When it comes to ass-kicking, take-no-prisoners, the female protagonist of this book is as fierce as they come. I loved having my heart broken by this book that was simultaneously an action-packed thriller and a thoughtful, unflinchingly honest work of historical fiction.
I grew up just outside of Boston, and it is so often that books or movies get Boston wrong, but not Dennis Lehane. Nailed it.
“Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment.” — Stephen King
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River—an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.
In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to…
I am a pediatric emergency physician turned author, and I am passionate about sharing an insider’s view of the emergency room, as well as addressing larger health issues that should be more visible to the general public. The emergency room is a world unlike any other, filled with humor, drama, emotions, and energy twenty-four hours a day, and I like to bring that energy to my stories. I’ve worked in many different medical settings, and every day, I find a new story that is worth sharing.
This is another story that takes me back to my medical training days. A young member of the surgical team makes an impulsive decision that leads to an ethical dilemma and a web of deception.
This story is not only a thriller but addresses important issues related to the ethics of the transplant system. It’s a great read to get a look at the inner workings of the medical system.
'Suspense as sharp as a scalpel's edge. A page-turning, hold-your-breath read' Tami Hoag
HEART-STOPPING TERROR
Dr Abby Di Matteo has made the best - and the worst - decision of her career. Instead of giving a donor heart to the wealthy patient it's been reserved for, she uses it to save a dying boy's life.
Luckily, a new heart appears that's perfectly suited to the original patient, and the furore dies down. But then Abby discovers that the organ has been obtained illegally. Defying the hospital's commands, she starts her own investigation...
And uncovers a murderous conspiracy that will threaten…
I’ve loved reading novels about strong, quirky women since childhood (Nancy Drew, Ramona Quimby, Harriet the Spy, the heroines of Judy Blume novels, just for starting examples!). As I grew into writing my own stories, I also started studying women’s history. I merged these two interests to begin writing historical novels with strong women protagonists. I love the challenge of researching to figure out the details of women’s day-to-day lives–so many unrecorded stories!–and I love to advocate for the idea (fortunately not as revolutionary as it once was) that a woman can be the hero of her own story and that each woman’s story is important to tell.
I loved this book for being historical fiction at its finest, and I loved the main character, Mary Deerfield, for being a woman who did not fit within her own time.
It’s 1660s Boston, and Mary is married to an abusive man. Determined not to die at his hand, she must fight against everything in her society to free herself from her marriage.
I loved how this book so insightfully explored the dynamics of an abusive relationship while also bringing to vivid life a distant time and place.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Flight Attendant: “Historical fiction at its best…. The book is a thriller in structure, and a real page-turner, the ending both unexpected and satisfying” (Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the Outlander series, The Washington Post).
A young Puritan woman—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel of historical suspense.
Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But…
I love romance, a true romantic from the day I was born. I also love crime/thriller/twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting to turn the page. As a writer, it was the most natural choice to combine all of these to bring to you as a reader love, passion, danger, shady criminal underworld, and jaw-dropping cliffhangers mixed in with twists you never saw coming. A love story that has you hopelessly entwined with them. A beautiful backdrop of the highlands of Scotland that creates its own unique story –mystical, mighty, and carrying its own hidden dangers.
Eli is a broken man, running from his own demons and past and looking for a safe haven at Whiskey Beach (just like the character from my book, Sophia).
He believes he has nothing to give, certainly not as a writer... until Abra comes into his life. Yet dangers are lurking near and they are both being watched. Love, danger, and a beautiful setting.
Eli Landon seems to have the perfect life. A beautiful wife, a wonderful house, a dazzling legal career. But when his wife is brutally murdered after confessing to an affair, Eli is named prime suspect. After a year-long ordeal the case is dropped for lack of evidence, but Eli's world is in tatters.
Abandoned by his friends, hounded by the media and a detective with a grudge, Eli retreats to the small-town sanctuary of Whiskey Beach. Camping out in his grandmother's atmospheric house by the sea he meets Abra Walsh - compassionate, courageous and hiding secrets of her own.
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