What are the best thrillers published since 2000?
That was the question that the team at The New York Times’s Book Review posed to hundreds of writers of every kind of crime fiction, from legal thrillers to spy novels to cozy mysteries, as well as librarians, editors, critics and bookstagrammers. We counted up all those votes and came up with a list of the 50 best thrillers of the 21st century, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/books/best-thriller-books-21st-century.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">available here</a>.
In this episode, the host Gilbert Cruz is joined by Tina Jordan, the editor of the Book Review, and Sarah Lyall, a longtime columnist who writes the Book Review’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/sarah-lyall" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monthly thrillers column</a>, to revisit the books that changed the genre, discuss overlooked favorites and recommend the thrillers that everyone should read next.
Books discussed on this episode:
“Cat Among the Pigeons,” by Agatha Christie
“Rebecca,” by Daphne du Maurier
“The Turn of the Screw,” by Henry James
“The Firm,” by John Grisham
“A Time to Kill,” by John Grisham
“The Client,” by John Grisham
“The Pelican Brief,” by John Grisham
“Presumed Innocent,” by Scott Turow
“And Then There Were None,” by Agatha Christie
“Murder on the Orient Express,” by Agatha Christie
“Peril at End House,” by Agatha Christie
“Crooked House,” by Agatha Christie
“Time and Again,” by Jack Finney
“Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn
“Sharp Objects,” by Gillian Flynn
“The Likeness,” by Tana French
“In the Woods,” by Tana French
“Broken Harbor,” by Tana French
“Mystic River,” by Dennis Lehane
“All the Sinners Bleed,” by S. A. Cosby
“Defending Jacob,” by William Landay
“We Need to Talk About Kevin,” by Lionel Shriver
“The Push,” by Ashley Audrain
“The God of the Woods,” by Liz Moore
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” by Stieg Larsson
“No Country for Old Men,” by Cormac McCarthy
“Slow Horses,” by Mick Herron
“Shutter Island,” by Dennis Lehane
“The Constant Gardener,” by John le Carré
“The Secret History,” by Donna Tartt
“My Sister, the Serial Killer,” by Oyinkan Braithwaite
“Butter,” by Asako Yuzuki
“Case Histories,” by Kate Atkinson
“Life After Life,” by Kate Atkinson
“Our Noble Selves,” by Kate Atkinson
“The Expats,” by Chris Pavone
“The Anomaly,” by Hervé Le Tellier
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