In films, thrillers often have romantic sub-plots with opposites attract tropes, from Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn’s The African Queen to recent streaming hits like The Lost City and Ghosted. But for readers, finding thrillers with an opposites attract trope is tricky. Here are five of my favourites.
Out of Sight
Jack Foley was busting out of Florida’s Glades Prison when he ran head-on into Karen Sisco with a shotgun. Suddenly Foley is sharing car trunk with a disarmed federal marshal – whose Chanel suit cost more than the take from Foley’s last bank job. Here’s a lady Jack could fall for in a big way, if she weren’t a dedicated representative of the law.
But there are some seriously bad men and a major score waiting for Jack. And when his path crosses Karen’s again, she’s going to be there for business, not pleasure.
Streetwise and sassy, the banter and action in Out Of Sight is second to none. The film was pretty good, too.
The Witness
Abigail Lowery has a dark and terrifying secret. Aged sixteen, she witnessed a shocking mafia murder. Narrowly escaping with her life, she leaves her old identity behind for good.
Fifteen years later Abigail is still hiding from the world – a semi-recluse in the quiet town of Bickford, Arkansas. Perhaps now, she can stop running. But Brooks Gleason, the local chief of police, has other ideas. Abigail intrigues him – and he’d like to break through the walls she has built around herself.
Nora Roberts is a writing machine, but she always remembers the most important feature of great fiction – creating believable and sympathetic characters. Abigail and Brooks are both.
Do Not Keep Silent
With apologies for the shameless self-promotion:
Mae Yang is a firebrand protest leader in Hong Kong. She’ll sacrifice anything for her beliefs and her cause, including her freedom and even life. But days before her planned protest begins, she meets lost soul Pete Anderson, an English tourist looking for a cause. The last thing Mae needs is a romantic entanglement with an Englishman, the very personification of colonialism. Yet time and again the two are drawn together, even while tear gas canisters and rubber bullets fly.
Cold Fire
A man on a mission must come to terms with his forgotten past in this gripping thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.
He saved a young boy from a drunk driver, rescued a child from an underground explosion and disarmed a man who was trying to shoot his own wife. Reporter Holly Thorne was intrigued by this strange quiet savior named Jim Ironheart. She was even falling in love with him. But what power compelled an ordinary man to save twelve lives in three months?
Dean Koontz excels when it comes to writing banter between his characters, and Cold Fire is no exception, even though the novel takes Holly and Jim to some dark places.
The Heist
An impossible pairing. An unstoppable team.
Conman and expert thief Nick Fox is responsible for some of the most daring heists of recent years. Now he’s responsible for driving FBI Special Agent, Kate O’Hare crazy as they work together to take down some of the world’s most untouchable felons.
This is the first series in the Fox and O’ Hara series, and honestly, I found it a little formulaic, but it was still a fast, exciting read.
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