81 books like The Camel Club

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. 

I’ll be honest: I read this book out of pure nostalgia. David Baldacci’s novels have sold over 150 million copies, so I wanted to go back to his debut novel to see how it all started, and it didn’t disappoint. Though it had the luck of being released during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the novel lives well on its own merits.

At the time of its release, most political thriller books utilized protagonists fighting on behalf of their president to save the day, but this one turned the tables on its readers and not only made the president the villain but explored the filthy side of politics and the lengths to which administration officials will go to protect the presidency.

I loved reading this book because as the protagonist, Robert Langdon, searches for his mentor who has been kidnapped, it incorporates mysterious codes, hidden tunnels and chambers, and a series of clandestine secrets.

It is well-paced, with the suspense building throughout the novel. I thought the suspense and mystery throughout was riveting.

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.

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 . . . 

I first read this exciting Baldacci novel when I was on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to New York. The read was so captivating; I got caught up in the twisting plot of this book where the main protagonist, "Web" tries to put his life back together after incredible challenges, where he has to figure out why he was the only man not killed in set up that led to a deadly ambush when in eventuality, the story explores the essence of pure survival in itself.  

This book introduced me to the gritty world of Los Angeles police detective Harry Bosch. I love Bosch’s smarts and toughness, yet beneath his hard exterior lurks a sensitive heart. He is fond of saying, “Everybody counts, or nobody counts,” and he means it.

Whether the victim is a rich businessman or an impoverished drug addict, Bosch pursues justice with the tenacity of a bulldog. Not only that, he makes tough choices with an ironclad sense of right and wrong. After reading it, I devoured everything Michael Connelly has written. I’m that fan who pre-orders his next book as soon as the announcement hits my inbox.

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.

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.