Patterson can be a bit meh, IMHO. Most of his recent stuff is co-authored. I enjoyed the books he did with Mike lupica.
For thrillers, there are many. I really enjoy jo nesbo. He's very gritty and really good, even though it's translated.
The harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly are great, as well as Connelly's other works with just the lawyer, like the Lincoln lawyer.
Entertainment? Shows that it is still researching? I don't know. Pretty effective though. Also, if you double click on a name, it will then search using that name.
It's using a constraint based layout, which you could think of sort of like a bunch of magnets or springs that are trying to push and pull themselves to other magnets. Each author is its own node and wants to be near some other authors (more related) and further from others (less related). While they work it out they bounce around between "too close" and "too far".
It's a bit easier to see here https://d3js.org/d3-force where there are lines to show the connections. If you drag the dots around you'll see how the others drift to some optimal position.
The computer doesn't know the correct layout when it sends the names to your device. Simpler to let your device work it out when it gets the data, so it can handle resizing etc. It also looks a bit more interesting. IMO it should show the links, makes it easier to interpret but then maybe there is also value in it being fuzzy.
You've already experienced the best of Patterson. It's all downhill from that point. Try Baldacchi, but he's a big name, so you probably already have. Don Winslow is good, too.
Patterson is so bad, though his early stuff was pretty good (Along Came A Spider and Kiss The Girls). So if you weren’t blown away by Along Came A Spider, then it only gets worse from there! Things started to read like it was written by AI.
I would recommend Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, Robert B. Parker, and Steven James, to name a few. Better quality for sure.
John Sandford's Prey series. He also has a Virgil Flowers series - not as good, still quite readable.
Robert Crais's Elvis Cole series.
Jussi Adler Olsen
Candice Fox
Karin Slaughter
F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series - supernatural leanings.
John Connolly's Charlie Parker series. Sort of mystery/thriller/supernatural.
Preston and Child's Penderghast series is good to a point until it becomes a bad soap opera somewhere around Two Graves. First book isn't strong, best in the series is Still Life with Crows.
Eoin Colfer wrote two books Plugged and Screwed. Hasn't carried the series forward unfortunately.
Mick Herron's Slough House series - Apple has produced the TV series based on the books. Both the series and the books are excellent.
I'm not usually a fan of Westerns but I really enjoyed Robert B. Parker's (and his ghost writers) Western series, starting with Appaloosa.
I finally checked out Karin Slaughter last year and once I started I didn't stop until I finished every single book from her. Great storyteller and character development.
James Patterson IMHO turned into machine designed to consistently churn out generic content, starts to feel like there’s a template
Catherine Coulter has a good FBI series & Brit in the FBI (only 4 books) series. It revolves around Savich & Sherlock a husband & wife team, but there are a full support cast that get their due.
If like you can appreciate futuristic, JD Robb aka Nora Roberts has an In Death series Eve is gritty, hard detective who meets ultra billionaire Rourke his past has a shady edge, his resources come in handy as even in the future police are under funded and out teched, there’s an interesting support cast.
Sue Grafton had the Kinsey Millhone (Alphabet) series. She’s a private investigator. Some things in this don’t play out as well in modern times, they lack technology some readers crave
Second everyone recommending Michael Connelly. I’ve been reading his books in publication order and they’re almost all great. A few less memorable but still a much better read than Patterson. Also recommend Michael Crichton. Sphere, Jurassic Park, The Great Train Robbery, The andromeda strain, airframe, and timeline are my favorites. Whatever you do, avoid the terminal man and state of fear.
I love all the Travis McGee books, especially narrated by Darren McGavin!
You can’t get them anymore, although I found the entire set on CD a few years ago!
Also my library has the first three books, narrated by Darren McGavin.
There are 4 more Millenum books published after his (S. L.) death, written by others, but still excellent audiobooks in my opinion. Well worth the listen.
So the early Patterson books are good. I enjoyed those. And then in his Alex Cross series he just got kind of stuck in a rut, in my opinion. They became formulaic and predictable. Basically the same trope over and over again after about book 11ish, iirc though I started to enjoy the series less starting around book 8 or 9. Gave up after book 14.
Patterson is very hit or miss, with his older stuff being more hit than miss. A couple of his that I've really enjoyed the plot, writing, and narration are:
- the Billy Harney series (its three books starting with "The Black Book")
- Instinct & Killer Instinct (they are the Dylan Reinhart series)
Robert Parker does a Jesse Stone series starting with the book Night Passage. Washed up cop gets a chief of police job under interesting circumstances and always gets the villains in the end, at a cost usually. I've watched the movies, which were great, and intend to read the books but haven't gotten to them yet.
4MK series by JD Barker is exceptional. Its one of those books I wish I could read/listen to again for the first time. I literally gasped multiple times in each book of the series.
Others I recommend:
~~A Caller's Game by JD Barker
~~A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer (first book in the Zoe Bentley series... I enjoyed thw whole series)
~~Tracy Crosswhite series by Robert Dugoni (every book in this series is really good)
~~Falling by TJ Newman
~~Unmissing by Minka Kent (so good it made me want tl read every Minka Kent book I could find)
Other Scandinavian noir series like Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series might interest you. I had to bail on the Dragoon Tattoo books when they became sorta torture porn but Nesbo’s got some of that too. Henning Mankel was doing sort of a Larsson thing before Larsson. People call his work “spare” but I think that’s a euphemism. You may love it, though.
Patterson’s best isn’t very good.
Ghost writers you mean. His name is on books in all sections, adult, YA, junior fiction and non fiction. He probably hasn't actually written a novel in years.
Haven't seen it mentioned yet here, but Nelson Demille's John Corey series is good (at least the 4-5 I've read are). Only did one as an audio but the narrator captured the protagonists personality very well.
Patterson can be a bit meh, IMHO. Most of his recent stuff is co-authored. I enjoyed the books he did with Mike lupica. For thrillers, there are many. I really enjoy jo nesbo. He's very gritty and really good, even though it's translated. The harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly are great, as well as Connelly's other works with just the lawyer, like the Lincoln lawyer.
Co-authored is being generous.
Same with Clancy at the end. Tom Clancy at the beginning and the middle was the Best.
Patterson has a veritable staple of ghost writers.
Agree re Bosch! I've listened to every book and the narrator's voice perfectly fits the character.
Harry Bosch series is great
Ooh, I didn't know the TV series, which I loved, was based on books. Thank you for this info!
When in doubt or on a search, try [literature-map.com](http://literature-map.com) for similar authors.
I love this! Thank you!
Thank you, stranger!
This seems great and I’m very excited to use it to find my next book. But why are the names all jumping around like that?
Entertainment? Shows that it is still researching? I don't know. Pretty effective though. Also, if you double click on a name, it will then search using that name.
It's using a constraint based layout, which you could think of sort of like a bunch of magnets or springs that are trying to push and pull themselves to other magnets. Each author is its own node and wants to be near some other authors (more related) and further from others (less related). While they work it out they bounce around between "too close" and "too far". It's a bit easier to see here https://d3js.org/d3-force where there are lines to show the connections. If you drag the dots around you'll see how the others drift to some optimal position. The computer doesn't know the correct layout when it sends the names to your device. Simpler to let your device work it out when it gets the data, so it can handle resizing etc. It also looks a bit more interesting. IMO it should show the links, makes it easier to interpret but then maybe there is also value in it being fuzzy.
That’s really cool Thanks for explaining that to me
You've already experienced the best of Patterson. It's all downhill from that point. Try Baldacchi, but he's a big name, so you probably already have. Don Winslow is good, too.
Baldacci has been one of my favorite authors for about 10 years now. So many great series' that are worth multiple listens.
Patterson is so bad, though his early stuff was pretty good (Along Came A Spider and Kiss The Girls). So if you weren’t blown away by Along Came A Spider, then it only gets worse from there! Things started to read like it was written by AI. I would recommend Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, Robert B. Parker, and Steven James, to name a few. Better quality for sure.
Lee Child maybe.
John Sandford's Prey series. He also has a Virgil Flowers series - not as good, still quite readable. Robert Crais's Elvis Cole series. Jussi Adler Olsen Candice Fox Karin Slaughter F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series - supernatural leanings. John Connolly's Charlie Parker series. Sort of mystery/thriller/supernatural. Preston and Child's Penderghast series is good to a point until it becomes a bad soap opera somewhere around Two Graves. First book isn't strong, best in the series is Still Life with Crows. Eoin Colfer wrote two books Plugged and Screwed. Hasn't carried the series forward unfortunately. Mick Herron's Slough House series - Apple has produced the TV series based on the books. Both the series and the books are excellent. I'm not usually a fan of Westerns but I really enjoyed Robert B. Parker's (and his ghost writers) Western series, starting with Appaloosa.
I finally checked out Karin Slaughter last year and once I started I didn't stop until I finished every single book from her. Great storyteller and character development.
James Patterson IMHO turned into machine designed to consistently churn out generic content, starts to feel like there’s a template Catherine Coulter has a good FBI series & Brit in the FBI (only 4 books) series. It revolves around Savich & Sherlock a husband & wife team, but there are a full support cast that get their due. If like you can appreciate futuristic, JD Robb aka Nora Roberts has an In Death series Eve is gritty, hard detective who meets ultra billionaire Rourke his past has a shady edge, his resources come in handy as even in the future police are under funded and out teched, there’s an interesting support cast. Sue Grafton had the Kinsey Millhone (Alphabet) series. She’s a private investigator. Some things in this don’t play out as well in modern times, they lack technology some readers crave
The Will Trent books are good. They are very different from the TV series.
Second everyone recommending Michael Connelly. I’ve been reading his books in publication order and they’re almost all great. A few less memorable but still a much better read than Patterson. Also recommend Michael Crichton. Sphere, Jurassic Park, The Great Train Robbery, The andromeda strain, airframe, and timeline are my favorites. Whatever you do, avoid the terminal man and state of fear.
Richard Stark aka Donald Westlake. My favorite is the king of pulps John D MacDonald, but he's out of print.
I love all the Travis McGee books, especially narrated by Darren McGavin! You can’t get them anymore, although I found the entire set on CD a few years ago! Also my library has the first three books, narrated by Darren McGavin.
There are 4 more Millenum books published after his (S. L.) death, written by others, but still excellent audiobooks in my opinion. Well worth the listen.
Not bad if it’s a free listen. I wouldn’t pay for the privilege.
So the early Patterson books are good. I enjoyed those. And then in his Alex Cross series he just got kind of stuck in a rut, in my opinion. They became formulaic and predictable. Basically the same trope over and over again after about book 11ish, iirc though I started to enjoy the series less starting around book 8 or 9. Gave up after book 14.
I also recommend Mick Herron.
Try Val McDermid Tony Hill series.
He is a fast food version of novel writing. It's technically food, but not good quality and you're always suspect of what it's made of.
Bad. Really bad
Patterson is very hit or miss, with his older stuff being more hit than miss. A couple of his that I've really enjoyed the plot, writing, and narration are: - the Billy Harney series (its three books starting with "The Black Book") - Instinct & Killer Instinct (they are the Dylan Reinhart series)
Dean Koontz. Try Mr. Murder
Also Intensity.
James Patterson’s ghost writer was mark Sullivan, I would read his books. Especially the last green valley!
Robert Parker does a Jesse Stone series starting with the book Night Passage. Washed up cop gets a chief of police job under interesting circumstances and always gets the villains in the end, at a cost usually. I've watched the movies, which were great, and intend to read the books but haven't gotten to them yet.
4MK series by JD Barker is exceptional. Its one of those books I wish I could read/listen to again for the first time. I literally gasped multiple times in each book of the series. Others I recommend: ~~A Caller's Game by JD Barker ~~A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer (first book in the Zoe Bentley series... I enjoyed thw whole series) ~~Tracy Crosswhite series by Robert Dugoni (every book in this series is really good) ~~Falling by TJ Newman ~~Unmissing by Minka Kent (so good it made me want tl read every Minka Kent book I could find)
Other Scandinavian noir series like Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series might interest you. I had to bail on the Dragoon Tattoo books when they became sorta torture porn but Nesbo’s got some of that too. Henning Mankel was doing sort of a Larsson thing before Larsson. People call his work “spare” but I think that’s a euphemism. You may love it, though. Patterson’s best isn’t very good.
Robert Galbraith and Cormoran Strike? I really liked the audiobooks.
Ghost writers you mean. His name is on books in all sections, adult, YA, junior fiction and non fiction. He probably hasn't actually written a novel in years.
Haven't seen it mentioned yet here, but Nelson Demille's John Corey series is good (at least the 4-5 I've read are). Only did one as an audio but the narrator captured the protagonists personality very well.
I like Jeffrey Deaver