78 books like Jason Bourne

This book is the book that made me decide to become an author. I was always a voracious reader and crazy about all things technological—space exploration, airplanes, naval warfare, you name it. In my mind, there was no way anyone would want to read a book about my interests—until Tom Clancy showed it absolutely could be done and singlehandedly created a new genre of fiction with one book.

His research was so accurate that he was accused of spilling classified information about our submarine capabilities and tactics. But no, he was just an insurance agent from Owings, Maryland, who touched a 220-volt wire in my soul that made me decide, “Someday I’m going to do that, too!”

This was the first fantasy book that made me afraid for its characters and helped me understand that fantasy is allowed to feel realistic.

Up until this point, the types of books I was reading were very paint-by-numbers, but here the stakes felt real because no one was safe... not even the ones who seemed typical fantasy rules were untouchable.

What stuck with me wasn’t the true-to-form fantasy bits (dragons/battles), but how human the characters felt. In this world, loyalty is a death sentence... love is dangerous, and power always comes with a price.

I loved The Rockford Files TV show, and Sam Strait reminds me a little of Jim Rockford. I love how there’s a lightness to this book (and its sequels) but it still contains an edgy and compelling mystery.

The dialogue is fun, as are the “rules” Sam Strait lives by… the first of which is to never live anywhere you can’t wear flip-flops, thus the moniker of The Flip-Flop Detective series.

Of all five books I’ve chosen, this is the lightest fare and an excellent palate cleanser between Stark or Quinnell without entirely leaving the genre. Conway writes some darker books as well – PI and police procedurals – but Sam Strait is the most fun.

I saw the 1987 film adaptation of this novel starring Scott Glenn before I read the book, which is set decades earlier.

I loved the progression of this hard-bitten, psychologically damaged mercenary coming to love this little girl that he is charged with protecting. It’s such a pure emotion for him and the fact that she returns it so completely, as only a child can, is heart-wrenching.

Both the 1987 and the 2004 film adaptations do a good job capturing the magic of this drama, but as is usually the case, the novel does it best. If someone loves The Mandalorian, it is worth trying Man on Fire, which the former has many parallels with.

This book starts in the same moment as Slayground, but follows Alan Grofield as he flees the scene, instead of Parker.

Grofield is more of a grifter than a straight-out thief, and his roles in the thieving scams tend to reflect that. I love that his true love is acting and him taking scores is simply a means to allow him to pursue that passion.

I enjoy the slightly lighter tone of the Grofield novels, though they are still what I’d call gritty. And I love how Stark created a “Parker-verse” long before the idea of an IP universe was commonplace.

This is somewhat of an underground, little-known novel that I came across deep in the midst of a rural second-hand bookshop a few years back.

Set in 1958, the novel follows its deputy sheriff protagonist on a journey from the mid-west to Los Angeles via the famous Route 66. It has elements of noir, suspense, romance, adventure, and a good-guy vs mafia dynamic, all while tipping its hat to the American Road genre.

As a reader, you feel like you’re just another guy along for the ride, passing through state lines, watching the story unfold.  

This book by Tom Clancy has the distinction of being the author’s only book focusing on the origin story of a “secondary” (or recurring) character throughout his Jack Ryan series of novels. That secondary character, who becomes John Clark, is former Navy Seal John Kelly.

While this novel isn’t as integrally plotted as the Jack Ryan “techno-thrillers,” it is more character-driven than Clancy’s previous works. In light of the character’s stoic history (or, with this being a “prequel” of sorts, the character’s future), I think it was probably a bit difficult to write in terms of balancing the character’s emotions. 

I found this to be a fascinating study. The emotive aspects of a character who is typical of a “John Wayne,” black or white, good or bad temperament, are not easily understood or conveyed to readers unfamiliar with historically traditional roles of masculinity. Or, to put it another way, the… show more.

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… show more.

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… show more.

An ill-timed robbery and a mysterious ghost train—both from 1914—and the present day CIA and MI6: All are perfectly normal, abnormal elements to this Clive Cussler novel.

I especially like this book for its ties to recent American history. It flirts with elements of espionage and the crackerjack job of merging a confounding prologue with a mystery that needs solving. There is a combination of Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels that have influenced my own story-telling, and this one is among them.

Cussler penned an entire series around his National Underwater and Marine Agency Projects Director, Dirk Pitt. Nearly every one of the novels begins with an event of the distant past that culminates in the present. This novel follows that pattern but involves political concerns regarding the North American Continent. While Cussler’s characters only occasionally rise to the challenge of emotionally involving me, his plots—the twists, turns, and historical antecedents—always… show more.