Traveling can feel a bit claustrophobic. When you're on a long journey with nothing to do but sit there, it's emotionally stifling.
When you're trapped on or in a mode of transport and murder and intrigue are afoot around you, it's even worse.
Whether its planes, trains, or automobiles, there’s always a chance for adventure when you’re on the move—as these heart-pounding crime novels prove.
Here are eight transportation thrillers to carry you away!
Autokill
It’s 2036 and 25% of all vehicles on American roads are driverless Connected Autonomous Vehicles. The shift in technology has cost a lot of people their jobs, including long-haul trucker, Jason Bartel.
The prioritizing of self-driving cars over the environment has also alarmed climate change campaigners, amongst them Richard Corby.
The trucker and the scientist decide to join forces and prove to the public just how dangerous this shiny new AI reality is. The result is mayhem on US streets and highways.
Autokill is a violent, provocative, and exciting look at what our future could hold.
Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express
The 14th outing for the Chicago-born Kaminsky’s dogged one-legged Russian detective, Porfiry Rostnikov, rattles along like a locomotive.
Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express is a multi-layered thriller that sees the Moscow detective boarding the famous train for the five-day journey to Vladivostok.
As the locomotive chugs through grim cities and bleak tundra, Rostnikov deals with problems back in the Russian capital, while simultaneously battling to identify the fellow passenger who is a criminal blackmailer—a man or woman with a secret so dark it could potentially bring down the Russian government.
Final Approach
In Nance’s highly-regarded 1990 techno-thriller, two airliners collide during a snowstorm at Kansas City airport. National Transport Safety Board investigator Joe Wallingford is tasked with finding out what caused the fatal crash.
Was it human error, corporate negligence, or a technical malfunction? The closer Wallingford gets to the truth, the more he finds his investigation thwarted by those with a vested interest in ensuring the real facts are never made public.
With millions of dollars resting on the outcome, some people are prepared to resort to extreme measures to ensure Wallingford, or his replacement, comes to the conclusion they want.
Falling
Newman devised the plot of this 2021 blockbuster while working as a flight attendant. The plot is simple enough–shortly before take-off, the pilot of an airliner is contacted by criminals.
They tell him they have kidnapped his family. If he wants his wife and children to live, he must crash the plane, killing everyone on board.
What follows is a brilliantly paced thriller that has drawn praise from everyone from Don Winslow to Lee Child via James Patterson and Gillian Flynn.
Genuinely un-put-downable, Falling is a read that has you wishing long-haul flights whizzed by so quickly.
Bullet Train
Isaka’s darkly hilarious and bloody thriller from 2010 sees a murderous group of passengers boarding the Tohoku Shinkansen Hayate bound for Morioka.
Amongst them are a retired hitman determined to revenge his son, an elegant teenage sociopath, a mismatched contract killing duo returning the kidnapped heir of a Yakusa boss to Daddy, and the world’s unluckiest assassin who has been given the apparently simple task of stealing a suitcase.
Soon mayhem of every kind has broken out aboard, and bodies are–literally–piling up in the bullet train’s restrooms. But who is behind it all?
Brilliant fun.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Godey’s gritty 1973 novel sees four heavily armed men hijacking a New York subway train.
Led by a professional mercenary, they take the lead car and 17 passengers into a tunnel and demand a one million dollar ransom, threatening to execute one hostage every minute if they don’t get it.
When the authorities cave in and hand over the money, the criminals then have the task of getting out of the subway with the loot, which sets off a nerve-jangling underground chase.
Sparely written and taut as piano wire, the novel was memorably filmed in 1974, with Robert Shaw and Walter Matthau in starring roles.
Blue Water
A richly atmospheric historical thriller from the author of international bestseller Black Drop.
It’s 1794 and British postal ship The Tankerville has set sail from England bound for Philadelphia. On board is former government clerk turned detective, Laurence Jago.
Amongst his fellow passengers are Theodore Jay and Mr. Jenkinson, two UK officials who are carrying a treaty they hope will mend the relationship between Britain and the USA and dissuade Washington from siding with France in any coming European War.
In the midst of the Atlantic, Mr. Jenkinson meets an unfortunate end. Jago’s attempt to find the killer unearths suspects ranging from French aristocrats to Irish freedom fighters.
However, when the murderer strikes again, our hero realises his own life is in peril, too.
Polar Star
The tense and atmospheric sequel to Cruz Smith’s acclaimed best-seller Gorky Park sees the hero of that novel, Arkady Renko, in the bad books of the Soviet authorities.
Fearing for his life, the Moscow detective takes refuge on a US-Soviet factory ship in the freezing Bering Sea. When a female crew member is brutally murdered, Renko reluctantly agrees to investigate.
Soon he’s uncovered a darker side to life on board the ship. It’s knowledge that brings him into the orbit of a ruthless Russian mafia leader, a man who is even more dangerous than the KGB.
