The best action thrillers to keep you awake far past a reasonable hour

This is the spy thriller that started it all! I was a huge fan of the Matt Damon trilogy and had always been an avid reader, so naturally, I gravitated toward the original novel, which was far better than the film.

Popular action thrillers tend to suffer from one of two diseases: “soldier syndrome,”—meaning the author knows what he or she is writing about but isn’t a master of the language—or from “poser-itis,” which is when the writer is good with a pen but would be too scared to use it to gauge out an eye if he or she had to.

So it’s a rare wordsmith who can understand the deepest, most primal parts of the human psyche and then put it into a literary form that delights the eyes and ears. Ludlum is one such writer.

After reading all the original Lee Child books, I thought I would never admire another writer more. Even Clive Cussler, whose works were my initiation into the world of adult action fiction, had come in second place. Then, I picked up my first Baldacci. This is one of the best of his popular series, and this, the first in the series, deserves to be ranked as one of the top novels in the genre.

Baldacci spins tightly plotted yarns. Everything is realistic: the physical conflict, the romance, the psychology, and the technical details especially. His vocabulary and grammar are professional. But what really gets me is his command of the rhythmic, lyrical aspects of the language. So, as I read about a former assassin named “Oliver Stone” and the other three members of this club, all of whom are fascinating characters in their own right, I was pulled into the story and not released until the immensely satisfying conclusion.

I remember binging Bond movies with my brother as a boy. In the early eighties, the glorious days of VCR tapes, the first big-screen TVs, with not a cell phone in sight. I’ve seen them all now, and as an author myself and a reader all my life, I’ve read every one as well. All of Fleming’s originals plus ten or twelve of the newer ones. Those are good, too, and more modern. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

As usual, the book is better than the movie, but very different, and not just in terms of plot. The first glimpse of action occurs at the 57% mark. The pace does quicken after that, leading to an exciting finale, yet this is a work of art, a piece of literary fiction with carefully crafted passages meant to be read twice, not a macho romp with explosions and violence on every other page.

As I did with the first twenty-four books by Lee Child, I have read all of Cussler’s original works, not those that were supposedly “co-written.” I loved them, and I remember this as being the one that I loved best. I always enjoyed how these grand action thrillers began with a prologue that seemed to have nothing to do with the plot until later, when the reader would think, “Oh wow. That was a brilliant connection!”

I recall Dirk Pitt as a tall and strong hero with no extra weight on his body, a resourceful, likable man who couldn’t do without his tough and loyal sidekick, Al Giordino. After one of these international adventures, Pitt would always stagger back to his car museum, have a tequila on ice, a roll in the hay with his lady friend, sleep for 24 hours, and then it was back to the battlefield. And I bet that’s how Cussler saw himself, the way he lived, although he’d document it in a fictionalized, amplified, page-turning way.

As I indicated earlier, I am a Lee Child superfan. I’ve read all his original books. A thick (and expensive) biography. A long essay he wrote on heroism. All his short stories. You get the idea. So it was fun to re-read this book, his first.

It wasn’t what I remembered, that’s for sure! Yes, the action scenes are vivid and instructive (Child writes about the utility of a headbutt versus the risk of breaking your hand with a punch), and the action is what I remember most. But there’s more to this book than fights: there’s a major romance, which the author writes with gusto and in detail, heavy on feelings, not on private parts; the prose is better than solid, with imagery that really makes it come alive; and the story is plausible and tightly woven, with plenty of surprises.