The 15 Best Thriller Novels of the 1970s

Cold War spies, small-town horrors and twisted conspiracies collide in this lineup of page-turners that defined a paranoid decade. Which one still hits hardest?

1. 1
   The Day of the Jackal

   Frederick Forsyth's 1971 classic about a professional assassin hired to kill Charles de Gaulle.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Carrie

   Stephen King's 1974 debut novel about a bullied teenager whose telekinetic powers erupt in catastrophe.
   704pts
3. 3
   The Odessa File

   Forsyth's 1972 thriller following a German journalist hunting a network of former SS officers.
   652pts
4. 4
   The Stepford Wives

   Ira Levin's chilling 1972 satire about suburban husbands and the eerily perfect wives they create.
   587pts
5. 5
   Jaws

   Peter Benchley's 1974 novel about a great white shark terrorizing a small resort town.
   503pts
6. 6
   The Eiger Sanction

   Trevanian's 1972 thriller following an art-collecting assassin sent on a deadly mountaineering mission.
   391pts
7. 7
   The Eagle Has Landed

   Jack Higgins's 1975 World War II thriller imagining a Nazi plot to kidnap Winston Churchill.
   235pts
8. 8
   Coma

   Robin Cook's 1977 medical thriller exposing a sinister conspiracy inside a Boston hospital.
   235pts
9. 9
   Six Days of the Condor

   James Grady's 1974 espionage thriller about a CIA analyst on the run after his colleagues are murdered.
   235pts
10. 10
    The Dogs of War

    Forsyth's 1974 thriller following mercenaries hired to overthrow an African dictatorship.
    1pts
11. 11
    Salem's Lot

    Stephen King's 1975 horror-thriller about a small Maine town slowly overrun by vampires.
    1pts
12. 12
    Black Sunday

    Thomas Harris's 1975 debut thriller about a terrorist plot to attack the Super Bowl from a blimp.
    1pts
13. 13
    The Boys from Brazil

    Ira Levin's 1976 thriller about a Nazi hunter uncovering a horrifying plot to clone Adolf Hitler.
    1pts
14. 14
    The Holcroft Covenant

    Robert Ludlum's 1978 thriller centered on a hidden Nazi fortune and a deadly inheritance.
    1pts
15. 15
    Marathon Man

    William Goldman's 1974 thriller pitting a graduate student against a sadistic Nazi war criminal.
    1pts