82 Books Like Exit Wounds

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. 

While most people associate Dan Brown with his more famous work, The DaVinci Code, this first novel in his Robert Langdon series really founded the archaeological thriller genre.

I loved how this book transports readers to the milieu so thoroughly that it was a bit of a spoiler when I recognized one key location from my own time in Rome before the secret was revealed—but that's a testament to how well he conveys the scene! Brown invites us behind the scenes of secret societies, sharing insider information to raise the stakes.

I had the great good fortune to take a workshop with Dan just before DaVinci Code came out, and benefit from his enormous skill as a teacher. The man tells a ripping yarn, full of puzzles that blend fact and fancy. 

I bought this book on a whim, intrigued by the cover. It’s a hard-hitting, fast-paced thriller that is like nothing I’ve ever read before. The approach to the genre and the narrative was original, and this book single-handedly inspired me to start writing myself. I remember reading it and thinking, I could do something like this… but I would do it a little differently. I then found out the author was the first self-published author on Amazon to sell a million copies. That’s when I decided to start to write and publish my own work.

Stephen Hunter’s crime fiction masterpiece, Dirty White Boys, begins with a sentence lovingly detailing the villain’s genitals. 

I assure you this opening is in no way gratuitous or prurient; it signals that we’re in for a wild ride, informing us that only “…three men at McAlester State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye….” 

Pye is one of the great literary villains of all time – racist, crude, violent, and cruel… and smart as a whip. And the tone here is pitch-dark hillbilly noir. If you’re brave enough to read this book it will live in your imagination for the rest of your life. 

Legal Thrillers: The Defense by Steve Cavanagh is the best legal thriller I’ve ever read. Eddie Flynn, a former con artist turned lawyer, is forced to defend the head of the Russian mob in New York City who is on trial for murder. But that’s just the beginning of this Perry-Mason-on-steroids thriller as Flynn brings his A-game to thwart their plans and free his kidnapped daughter. Sleep in late the day you begin reading this legal thriller as you won’t sleep again until after you’ve finished it. Then you’ll be thrilled to discover that Cavanagh’s written several more Eddie Flynn thrillers (The Plea, Thirteen, The Liar).

I couldn’t stop reading this book because I was so captivated by the story of hitman Frank Sheeran, as told by his lawyer, Charles Brandt. Sheeran manages to be both charming and earnest, even as he kills for the mob.

I don’t put much stock in many mobster stories because I know they embroider the truth, but I believed this one. The last chapter of the book literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It’s worth reading even if you’ve seen Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, which is based on it.

I was introduced to Ian Hamilton’s Ava Lee Novels when I was looking for a successful Canadian writer of “business fiction.” We never call it that, of course, it has to be written as an action-adventure, thriller, mystery, suspense novel, and Hamilton meets those criteria with Ava Lee as a tough-as-nails, lesbian Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant tracking down money stolen from business clients.

Her connections and family investments lead her to Hong Kong and Macau for a settling of accounts with local organized crime and Ava Lee knows that violence is the only negotiating tactic they understand.           

When it first came out, mob erotica was hugely popular. What set this one apart was that the gorgeous steamy bits were not overwhelming; there’s a story to this. You do have to set aside your principles, though, because Naz is a mobster in his mid-30s, and Karrisa is 18. That’s one of the things I love about dark romance. Loving a monster and a huge age gap is absolutely unconscionable in real life, but it's fabulous for a fictional tale.

What I loved about the book most is that mobster Naz loves Karrisa against his principles. That’s what makes the romance!

Even though it was almost fifty years ago, I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I read this book. (I was on Cape Cod on a family vacation in the eighth grade.) The book is that good.

MacLean basically invented the thriller, although Edgar Allen Poe might beg to differ. If you are looking for characters that will stay with you for a long time—over forty years in my case—give it a read. MacLean’s dry humor and a twisty plot are added bonuses, but it’s the characters you will remember.

As a model unreliable narrator, you couldn't pick a more disarming armed robber than Mark "Chopper" Read. He described his pseudo-autobiographical book series as "the truth, the half-truth and nothing like the truth," which may be the most honest statement he ever made. None of this is to suggest that Read wasn't every inch the ultra-violent toecutter he sketches out in his writing. It's just that every word in Chopper is working toward the same goal: building a larger-than-life self-caricature to outshine and outlast the man himself. The cover quote boldly declares, "I regret nothing." The final line of the book admits, "I regret everything." Chopper Read lived and died within that contradiction, and his story's all the more mesmerising for its gunsmoke and mirrors.