Here are 100 books that Robert Langdon fans have personally recommended once you finish the Robert Langdon series.
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I lived vicariously through Nancy Drew when I was young. I was naturally observant and curious, and my mom was known to tail a car through our neighborhood if she thought the driver looked suspicious. So, it’s not surprising that I developed a love for all things thrilling. While working in the oil and gas industry for fifteen years, I spent some time focused on a foreign deal that served as inspiration for my first novel. I worked with people seeking power; negotiations bordered on nefarious; the workplace became toxic. If you ever ponder the moral implications behind the pursuit of power, you’ll enjoy the books on this list!
I tell everyone I know that if they want a book with incredible character development, read The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.
This book is highly atmospheric. You can feel the biting cold, the fear, the pain. It also has characters with questionable ethics. It made me question how I feel about vengeance and retribution. Some of the content is very dark, yet it doesn’t feel sensationalized.
This is also a thriller with hints of a happy ending—at least, for some people—while also leaving some things uncertain or unresolved. I prefer a thriller to leave me hanging a little . . .
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly-knit but dysfunctional family.
He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.
I was sick as a child and bedridden for several months. This was before 24/7 TV and computers. I began to read A LOT. I read everything and anything that I could find, but my favorite topics were animals and nature. I also read science fiction and fantasy. It’s not a surprise that those topics merged into my writing and life. I currently live on five acres that I’ve left mostly for the wildlife. My nephew calls me his aunt who lives in the forest with reindeer. That is way cooler than my real life, so I’m good with that. All my books have nature and friendship as main themes.
The concept of this story is amazing, especially at a time when they are “bringing back” different species. I am often amazed at what scientists have been able to accomplish in real life, and it’s even more fun to read about it in fiction.
Another thing that I loved about this story is how it shows that nature cannot be contained. We can manipulate it, but we’d better not make too many assumptions about how things will progress because nature has its own way of doing things.
The characters were also great in both the book and the movie.
'Crichton's most compulsive novel' Sunday Telegraph 'Crichton's dinosaurs are genuinely frightening' Chicago Sun-Times 'Breathtaking adventure. . . a book that is as hard to put down as it is to forget' Time Out
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The international bestseller that inspired the Jurassic Park film franchise.
On a remote jungle island, genetic engineers have created a dinosaur game park.
An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now one of mankind's most thrilling fantasies has come true and the first dinosaurs that the Earth has seen in the time of man emerge.
I have long had an interest in government conspiracies and have spent hundreds of hours researching the many experiments our government has foisted upon an unsuspecting populous. When the Church Committee released info on Projects MK Ultra, Bluebird, Artichoke, and others, people were stunned to realize what had been going on. Movies such as The Matrix dealt with mind control and the attempt to create the perfect soldier, and I am convinced such research and experimentation continues today.
A government researcher disappears and the protagonist, Nick Randall, is battling reoccurring visions that are somehow intertwined. When assassins attempt to kill him, he is forced to go into hiding. I loved the use of Randall’s son, John, who discovers that he is part of a clandestine psychological project being overseen by the military.
As a father, I loved the use of Randall’s son, who is also searching for someone—his partner—in this fast-paced novel that uses very different locales.
A recurring frightening vision and the disappearance of a top government researcher are somehow tied to each other. Only Nick Randall solve the mystery.
Archeologist Nick Randall is haunted by a recurring nightmare that may be tied to his controversial research. As he searches for answers, assassins nearly kill him, forcing him into hiding.
Nick’s son, John, a talented bioengineer, faces his own mystery. Having developed a drug that erases traumatic memories, his research partner suddenly disappears.
While searching for him, John makes a terrifying discovery. He has been part of a secret, psychological, military project, and the shadowy figures…
Suspense thrillers were staple “reading food” in my college and young adult days, and my love for them continues. I always craved thrillers that are based on WWII, the Cold War, and secret scientific advances and that offered fresh historical perspectives and dared to challenge popular narratives while delighting the readers with dexterously woven fictional tales. And then, most importantly, it is the feeling the author has conducted genuine, painstaking research bringing out captivating, reasoned nuggets of history that I find most satisfying.
Can a memoir be a thriller? I say this one is. It is truly an amazing and inspiring account of an immigrant’s tenacious, fearless journey to success, from humble beginnings in a small town in India to earning a PhD in the US and becoming a multimillionaire entrepreneur.
While not exactly a historical thriller, The Blue Suitcase took me on a roller coaster ride full of fascinating cultural insights and nuances and the serendipities that shaped Thanedar’s journey.
Suspense thrillers were staple “reading food” in my college and young adult days, and my love for them continues. I always craved thrillers that are based on WWII, the Cold War, and secret scientific advances and that offered fresh historical perspectives and dared to challenge popular narratives while delighting the readers with dexterously woven fictional tales. And then, most importantly, it is the feeling the author has conducted genuine, painstaking research bringing out captivating, reasoned nuggets of history that I find most satisfying.
I wonder if anyone ever penned a book weaving together the American Revolution, the East India Company, and the British rule over India. Leena Bhatnagar has done it in this masterful debut thriller.
I was amazed at the incredible facets of the history of the epochal Boston Tea Party Bhatnagar rendered in this story of a staunch, gritty American woman caught in a predicament that might threaten and weaken the revolution itself.
Leading up to the Boston Tea Party, The Tea Merchant is the unexpected story of a city on the brink of revolution and the hidden threats the British East India Company brings from Bengal to the American colonies.
Boston, 1773 - The city is restless, torn between loyalty to England and a rising independent spirit. Caught uncomfortably in the middle, Constance Pruitt is the governor's cousin and a widowed tea merchant who struggles to sustain her business. Her family would prefer she relinquish any notion of liberty and settle down—preferably with a husband—but Constance turns to smuggling for the Sons…
Suspense thrillers were staple “reading food” in my college and young adult days, and my love for them continues. I always craved thrillers that are based on WWII, the Cold War, and secret scientific advances and that offered fresh historical perspectives and dared to challenge popular narratives while delighting the readers with dexterously woven fictional tales. And then, most importantly, it is the feeling the author has conducted genuine, painstaking research bringing out captivating, reasoned nuggets of history that I find most satisfying.
I love thrillers that meld ancient history and modern settings. This book is that rare page-turner wherein an amazing story takes place in Egypt that revolves around the pursuit and plunder of Pharaohs’ treasures buried in the pyramids.
Reading Sphinx, I immensely delighted in how the master storyteller and physician Robin Cook, taking a slight detour from his normal “medical/hospital” based stories, produced a mesmerizing tale that was as gripping as his other works.
New York Times bestselling author mines the mysteries of Egypt’s magnificent past to deliver a one-of-a-kind thriller packed with compelling realism and unrelenting suspense.
Traveling to Egypt is a dream come true for Erica Baron. An Egyptologist, she longs to walk among the temples and monuments of its long-dead civilizations. But when she stumbles upon a clue to a legendary treasure, the most fearful curse of the ancient world and the most savage menace of the modern one threaten to destroy her. It was the magic and mystery of an empire long past that drew Erica to explore, but now,…
Inspired by my dad–a fan of Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean, and the like–and two older brothers, I discovered Desmond Bagley as a teenager. My passion for his style of action-adventure has never dwindled. As the crime thriller genre appears to move relentlessly in the direction of dark, gritty, serial-killer territory, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something to be said for the now less-fashionable escapist worlds these writers created. Thanks to HarperCollins, I was given the chance to work on Bagley’s last posthumous novel, Domino Island, and my own original books inevitably followed.
It’s impossible to talk about action-adventure thrillers without recommending something by Graham Greene. It could have been any one of his great novels, but I’ve settled on this book as one of his shortest and most easily accessible stories.
It’s quirky without being obscure, full of atmosphere and intrigue, and wonderfully witty in its portrayal of its central characters. For sheer panache, this book is hard to beat.
'Manages to say more about love, hate, happiness, grief, immortality, greed and the disgustingly rich than most contemporary English novels three times the length' The Times
Doctor Fischer despises the human race. A millionaire with a taste for sadism, he spends his time and money planning notorious parties, entertainments designed to expose the shallowness and greed of his craven hangers-on. Black comedy and painful satire combine in a totally compelling novel.
Inspired by my dad–a fan of Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean, and the like–and two older brothers, I discovered Desmond Bagley as a teenager. My passion for his style of action-adventure has never dwindled. As the crime thriller genre appears to move relentlessly in the direction of dark, gritty, serial-killer territory, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something to be said for the now less-fashionable escapist worlds these writers created. Thanks to HarperCollins, I was given the chance to work on Bagley’s last posthumous novel, Domino Island, and my own original books inevitably followed.
This fantastic Desmond Bagley novel has a gripping opening line and never lets up the pace.
It’s one of the first Bagleys I read, and I was hooked as a fan from page one. I love every one of his 17 novels and keep going back to them; he really is the master at what he does: action-adventure, with "everyman"-type heroes thrust into dangerous and deadly situations.
For some reason, he’s fallen out of fashion, but I’m on a mission to change all that–alongside his publishers, HarperCollins, who have commendably kept his books constantly in print.
It all begins with a simple errand - a package to deliver. But for Alan Stewart, standing on a deserted road in Iceland with a murdered man at his feet, the mission looks far from simple. Set amongst some of the most dramatic scenery in the world, Stewart and his girlfriend, Erin, are faced with treacherous natural obstacles and deadly threats, as they battle to carry out the mission. The contents of the package are a surprise for the reader as much as for Stewart in a finale of formidable energy.
I am the ultimate dilettante. I consume huge amounts of history, literature, and current events. I am not interested in dumbing down what I write. I am endlessly curious and assume my readers are also. I started writing during the pandemic and have not quit. I have completed three novels and have been an avid reader my entire life. Join me!
I loved the imagination and inner thoughts of the dying protagonist.
I believe the central question Harding wants the reader to contemplate is: what is our reality–our past and memories we carry, or is it just the physical place at that one moment in time? I think the author makes a convincing case that we are so much more than we appear.
An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure.
I’m a storyteller who loves ‘oh my gosh’ ideas. Something that, the moment I hear about it, it captivates me. I also love characters who are deeply heart-warming and pleasurable to be around. For me, delving into the intimacy of a character’s mind and their shifting relationships with others is a pleasure. This is why I’m so attracted to contemporary domestic family issues or love stories with living, breathing characters. By pairing it with a puzzling or shocking wow of an idea to investigate, I can explore my character’s unique world and set it at odds with something that threatens that existence.
Yes, this is the published shooting script of the film.
When I read the premise of this story, I knew it would be special. I remember the author stating he got the idea of someone receiving a postcard through the post with the words "You have been deleted from X’s memory. Do not attempt to contact her" and how it intrigued him. From that idea, the entire idea of deleting the memory of a romantic relationship gone wrong, unfolded.
I love story ideas that stop me from breathing. The film (and script) is lovely, yet holds a twist or two up its sleeve. It is, underneath the science, a tragicomic love story. Genius.
In this illuminating script book, Charlie Kaufman, the Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, shares the logistical challenges of writing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in a fascinating interview.
Kaufman also provides commentary on stills from the movie, revealing remarkable details about the editing process, set construction, and shooting techniques that were used to tell this unconventional story.
In the film, Joel ( Jim Carrey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had her memories of their tumultuous relationship erased. Out of desperation, he contacts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard…
