Holiday reading - thrillers please.

[PetitRat]

Please help - my mind has gone blank. I enjoy a good holiday thriller but can't remember the name of a single author I've read. You know the kind of thing - double agent, old cold war style yomp. Doesn't have to be a great literary classic (which probably explains why I can't think of any names!) but this year's airport best seller kind of thing. Please help me :)

Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson
Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes
The Playdate by Louise Millar

Three I've read this year and really enjoyed.

Juney Have read all of those and they are good reads. Just finished The Playdate yesterday .

Peter James in the Inspector Grace series is good.

You might like Philip Kerr's Berlin novels. Or William Boyd's Restless.

Mo Hayder's Jack Caffrey novels - The Treatment, Birdman, Skin, Gone, and one other I can't remember. I don't normally like thrillers but I LOVE these. You do need to read them in order though.

Thanks for the ideas - I'll check them out. Keep the ideas coming please - secret/double/undercover agent kind of things too!!

Child 44 and The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith. Agent 6 is the third in the series - not quite so good but the first two are excellent. Set in 1950s Stalinist Russia.

You may have already read Fatherland by Robert Harris - what might have happened if Nazi Germany had won WW2.

I second these two:

Before I go to sleep
Child 44

And also Girl With The Dragon Tattoo if you are one of the ten people left in the world who haven't yet read them

cuckoo - can't remember the author...is very good

Ken Follett novels are good easy holiday reads, I've just read Eye of the Needle on a weekend away

Jeffrey Archer. Love or hate him, his books are greatly entertaining, old fashioned thrillers, esp A Matter of Honour, Honour Among Thieves,

Lee Child - the entire Jack Reacher series. Not particularly intelligent reading, but I love 'em.

Yep it's the Jeffrey Archer style books I'm after - I've read them all but something in a similar vein would be great. Just bought Child 44 and trying to resist starting it before I actually get on the plane!

Our kind of traitor by John le carre

If you've not read any Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, they are brilliantly entertaining thrillers - something bad happens, Jack comes along to put it right, gets thwarted a lot, twist in the plot..... as a 39 year old woman whose favourite book is Jane Eyre, I can't recommend them enough - and there is a big back catalogue for you - start with the Killing Floor.

if you Do remember an author you like look on this www.literaturemap.com and if you type in the name it gives you a floating dancing map (you'll understand when you do it!!) of authors who are similar.although the other day I recommended the site to someone and they got the Argos catalogue! Ps i second Lee Childs and his Jack reacher books - I'd want him on my team any day!!

...and I've just found this link here which has some likely looking candidates. Who says women only read chick lit!

You're Next by Greg Hurtwitz
Just finished it, it was fab

Also enjoyed Child 44 and Before I Go To Sleep as others have recommended

I second (third?) Lee Child's books - not secret agent/undercover spy sort of novels but a thumping good read, intelligent and quite twisty turny sometimes (for example Persuader!).

I also like Dennis Lehane, Robert Crais and Jonathan Kellerman - again, not spy stuff but intelligent, gripping reads.

Jackdaws by Ken Follett - about a group of female spies sent into WW2 Occupied France.

Any of the 4 by SJ Bolton - each stand alone and utterly captivating. Really well written.

Or the Shetland Quartet by Ann Cleeves? Love those too.

Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre (non fiction but good reads if you are into spies)

Sebastian Faulks has written a James Bond thriller recently - sorry can't remember the name of it.

Len Deighton - the Game Set and Match series and the Hook Line and Sinker series

I second Restless and also Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd (no WWII element to the latter but it's a cracker).

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household.

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers. It's a bit off the wall and there are bits I don't bother to read but it's very very good, and the queasy paranoic atmosphere explain a lot about why WWI happened at all.

I really like Robert Goddard. Some are better than others. So many twists and turns. Sometimes a bit far fetched though. Caught in the Light is my favourite so far. Also second Peter James. Loved Alchemist. Big suspension of reality needed though!