72 books like John Clark

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 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.

While many of John Grisham’s novels are legal-based courtroom thrillers, this is not. As a result, I personally think this is one of his most interesting thrillers.

With a cadre of selfish family members circling the waters after the suicide death of their eccentric patriarch billionaire, the plot shifts to the wilds of the primitive Amazon rainforest as a recovering alcoholic attorney tries to track down the real heir to the vast family fortune.

I loved the vivid description of the water-filled jungle that made you feel right in the middle of the journey. His intense description of the protagonist fighting to overcome his lurking addiction while on his mission to make things right made you want to keep turning the pages until you reached the startling ending.

As a skilled mystery/thriller author, Dick Francis always wrote stories with interesting protagonists fighting uphill against all odds, and this fascinating story is no different.

I personally loved this attention-grabbing plot set in the Scottish highlands about an offbeat young painter who gets drawn into a complex family drama. As the most unlikely character chosen to protect his ancient family heritage, I found the ever-changing story with an unexpected ending a sheer delight to consume rapidly.

From the author of the successful Gabriel Allon series, I feel that this thrilling novel about the exciting, action-filled life of an Israeli spy is one of his best.

I believe this fast-paced plot, with its unique character descriptions, is one of the best examples of the thriller genre, mixing the worlds of international art restoration with the global forces of criminal power.

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.

This is the novel that birthed television icon Steve Austin of The Six Million Dollar Man. It represents everything that makes the merger of man and technology worth reading about. As a young boy, I loved The Six Million Dollar Man—to the point that I wanted to write something like it. But as a young writer, I was enthralled by the technological expertise and human psychology that author Martin Caidin brought to the novel. This is the standard by which the melding of man and machine should be measured in literary fiction.

Steve Austin is practically the best that mankind has to offer: athlete, intellectual, astronaut, and test pilot. And while flight testing a sub-orbital lifting body, Austin is horribly injured. With skull and skeletal damage, the loss of both legs, an arm, an eye, and numerous other injuries, his life is essentially over. And it is only… show more.

What I loved most about this was the story within the story. A famous author is travelling back from a convention in Brazil when his plane goes down. The only other survivor is a young boy, not quite in his teens. In order to reach safety, they must battle not only Colombian drug runners and other nefarious characters, but the jungle itself.

I bought this book after meeting the author, a down-to-earth Lancashire lad. When I started reading about an American cop, I had to check that I’d picked up the right book. I had, and the story he wove had me enthralled. The atmosphere was authentic, like Houghton had been there, done that. I went on to read everything he’s written.

In Adam Black, Karl Hill has created a strong, believable character, full of angst and anger. Black is ex-SAS, a former captain turned lawyer. Out jogging from his home in a Scottish village, Black comes across trouble in the form of some gangster types hell-bent on violence. Believe me when I say they chose the wrong man.