Nine top thrillers set in remote island locations

Anna Porter’s most recent book is Gull Island, a haunting psychological suspense novel. She is the author of five non-fiction books, including In Other Words: How I Fell in Love with Canada One Book at a Time, Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy, The Ghosts of Europe, winner of the Shaughnessey Cohen Prize for Political Writing, Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust, winner of the 2007 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Award and of the Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction, and the The Storyteller: A Memoir of Secrets, Magic and Lies. She has also written five other novels: The Appraisal, Hidden Agenda, Mortal Sins, and Bookfair Murders, which was made into a feature film.

At CrimeReads Porter tagged nine "thrillers that take advantage of remote island settings to build suspense," including:

Rachel Howzell Hall, They All Fall Down

I loved this book from the first page. Miriam Macy’s unguarded observations, her self-serving reminiscences, her hilarious comments invited me to share her adventure. And it was some adventure! “The trip of a lifetime”, as it was first presented to Miriam and six other people she had just met, had it all: a private island off the coast of Mexico, a luxury villa, superb food and maybe a fortune in winnings. But that is not how this story unfolds. The invitation was a ruse. The host may be bent on retribution for past sins. In an homage to the still undisputed queen of crime, Agatha Christie, Howzell Hall has landed seven strangers in an isolated paradise where each one is tested and one by one “they all fall down”. Or, perhaps, not all.

Read about another entry on the list.

They All Fall Down is among Laura Griffin's seven suspense novels in which paradise is not what it seems, Nell Pattison's top ten crime novels with isolated settings, Karen Hamilton's twelve best thrillers in a vacation setting, Sandie Jones's six mysteries featuring large casts of characters, Andrea Bartz's seven thrillers about vacations gone wrong, Amy Suiter Clarke's seven great thrillers that play with form, Catriona McPherson's five top mystery novels set on islands, CrimeReads' ten best crime novels of 2019, Kristen Lepionka's seven favorite unlikable female characters.

The Page 69 Test: They All Fall Down.

--Marshal Zeringue