Audience Picks: Top 100 'Killer Thrillers'

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It's been a cliffhanger, but now the final page can be turned.

The NPR audience nominated some 600 novels to our "Killer Thrillers" poll and cast more than 17,000 ballots. The final roster of winners is a diverse one to say the least, ranging in style and period from Dracula to The Da Vinci Code, Presumed Innocent to Pet Sematary. What these top 100 titles share, however, is that all of them are fast-moving tales of suspense and adventure.

And menace. Critic Maureen Corrigan, who served on the advisory panel of experts for this project, was surprised by how dark many of your choices are. "Even the [Agatha] Christie pick, And Then There Were None, is one of her creepier novels."

Co-panelist, novelist and critic Patrick Anderson was more impressed with the overall quality of the choices: "The vast majority of these are very good books or classics ... Thomas Harris, Dennis Lehane, Patricia Highsmith — this audience knows good writing."

Of course, there will be arguments about whether some of these books truly count as "thrillers." (You know who you are, Shogun.) The many 19th-century novels, in particular, may raise eyebrows. But David Morrell, novelist and co-editor of the recent anthology Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, defends such choices. "A lot of people see 'thriller' and think 'spy book,' " Morrell says. But a book like The Last of the Mohicans is "unquestionably a thriller — filled with chases and derring-do." Morrell also mentioned Dracula ("take away the supernatural elements and it's a serial-killer novel") and The Count of Monte Cristo. "As long as you have that breathlessness and sense of excitement," Morrell says, "then they're in."

Who is the NPR audience's favorite thriller writer? It's the King, of course — Stephen King, who landed six titles in the top 100. Lee Child comes next, with four winning books. And, at three titles each, Michael Crichton, Dennis Lehane, Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson tie for third.

Polls can help us understand an audience — and even make predictions about it. Based on the some 100,000 votes cast in this survey, the following prediction seems a safe one: Armed with the list below, none of us will need to consult a psychic, supersleuth or Harvard "symbologist" to unearth pulse-quickening vacation reads during the rest of this summer and for many months to come.

1. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

3. Kiss the Girls, by James Patterson

4. The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum

5. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

6. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown

7. The Shining, by Stephen King

8. And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie

9. The Hunt tor Red October, by Tom Clancy

10. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

11. Dracula, by Bram Stoker

12. The Stand, by Stephen King

13. The Bone Collector, by Jeffery Deaver

14. Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton

15. Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown

16. A Time to Kill, by John Grisham

17. The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton

18. Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane

19. The Day of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth

20. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

21. Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett

22. It, by Stephen King

23. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas

24. The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson

25. Jaws, by Peter Benchley

26. The Alienist, by Caleb Carr

27. Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris

28. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow

29. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett

30. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson

31. No Country For Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy

32. Gone Baby Gone, by Dennis Lehane

33. Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith

34. Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin

35. Subterranean, by James Rollins

36. Clear and Present Danger, by Tom Clancy

37. Salem's Lot, by Stephen King

38. Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane

39. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John Le Carre

40. The Poet, by Michael Connelly

41. The Boys from Brazil, by Ira Levin

42. Cape Fear, by John MacDonald

43. The Bride Collector, by Ted Dekker

44. Pet Sematary, by Stephen King

45. Dead Zone, by Stephen King

46. The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon

47. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John Le Carre

48. The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith

49. Tell No One, by Harlan Coben

50. Consent to Kill, by Vince Flynn

51. The 39 Steps, by John Buchan

52. Blowback, by Brad Thor

53. The Children of Men, by P.D. James

54. 61 Hours, by Lee Child

55. Marathon Man, by William Goldman

56. The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

57. 206 Bones, by Kathy Reichs

58. Psycho, by Robert Bloch

59. The Killing Floor, by Lee Child

60. Rules of Prey, by John Sandford

61. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

62. In the Woods, by Tana French

63. Shogun, by James Clavell

64. The Relic, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

65. Intensity, by Dean Koontz

66. Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming

67. Metzger's Dog, by Thomas Perry

68. Timeline, by Michael Crichton

69. Contact, by Carl Sagan

70. What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman

71. The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

72. The Cabinet of Curiosities, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

73. Charm School, by Nelson DeMille

74. Feed, by Mira Grant

75. Gone Tomorrow, by Lee Child

76. Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay

77. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

78. The First Deadly Sin, by Lawrence Sanders

79. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

80. The Brotherhood of the Rose, by David Morrell

81. Primal Fear, by William Diehl

82. The Templar Legacy, by Steve Berry

82. The Hard Way, by Lee Child [tie]

84. The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper

85. Six Days of the Condor, by James Grady

86. Fail-Safe, by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler

87. Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith

88. The Eight, by Katherine Neville

89. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown

90. Goldfinger, by Ian Fleming