Search results for

George Orwell's dystopian vision offers such devastating political commentary that it's rarely described as a suspense novel. But author and former CIA operative Barry Eisler says the book simply proves just how powerful a thriller with a message can be.

Tess Gerritsen — a physician turned thriller writer — is the author of more than 15 thrillers. Her series about police detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles has been adapted into TV show, which debuts Monday on TNT. She recommends Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle.

It's hard to imagine that people used to die from things as small as a scratch on the knee — but that's what life was like before penicillin. Author Lauren Belfer's new novel, A Fierce Radiance, follows the intrigue as pharmaceutical companies race to mass-produce lifesaving drugs during World War II.

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have a lot in common, so it's no surprise they socialize outside the office. But the distance between the White House and the Justice Department has long been a touchy subject, and the Obama-Holder relationship is beginning to attract criticism.

Post-modern wunderkind David Mitchell pulls off an old-fashioned yet action-packed tale in The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet, a novel set in early 19th-century Japan. The story follows Jacob, a bookkeeper at an outpost of the Dutch East Indies Co., as he falls for a local midwife.

When it was published in 1960, Harper Lee's modest novel helped Americans think differently about race. Now, 50 years later, To Kill a Mockingbird still resonates in a much-changed America. NPR's Lynn Neary examines the lasting impact of Scout Finch and her father, Atticus — a lawyer who defends a black man unjustly accused of rape.

Lyndall Gordon's Lives Like Loaded Guns explores the family secrets of the reclusive 19th-century poet. Gordon theorizes that Dickinson may have been epileptic, and describes the multi-generational family feud over the posthumous publication of the poet's work.

Slaughter is a master of the thriller genre; her latest book, Broken, is full of twists and turns and technical details. In the latest installment of our "Thrilled to Death" series, Slaughter talks with NPR's Michele Norris about the stories that keep her in suspense.

A new biography tells the story of Buck's Chinese childhood, as the daughter of zealous missionaries. In Pearl Buck in China, Hilary Spurling makes a compelling case for a reappraisal of Buck's fiction — transforming her from dreary "lady author" into woman warrior.

On the opening day of her confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan vowed to serve with a "commitment to evenhandedness, principle and restraint." She said the court must also "recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people."