Six of the best vigilante thrillers

Molly Odintz is the Senior Editor for CrimeReads. She grew up in Austin and worked as a bookseller at BookPeople for years before her recent move up to New York City for a life in crime. She likes cats, crime novels, and coffee.

At CrimeReads, Odintz tagged six favorite titles from the "new wave of thrillers where the oppressed get some well-earned revenge." One title on the list:

Layne Fargo, They Never Learn

The author thinks this one is more of a serial killer novel than a vigilante thriller, but luckily, as readers, we can place any interpretation on a text we want (hence the enduring popularity of Freudian literary criticism). I was actually inspired to write this post because of Fargo’s novel, which I adored to the max. In Layne Fargo’s sophomore crime thriller, a professor at a university eliminates one male predator from the campus per year. She’s careful to frame each act as a suicide or accident, but eventually, the number of popular male students killing themselves begins to alarm the administration, and the professor must think quickly—and dispatch of some urgent matters—before anyone can cotton on.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue