Recommendations based on Jawsby Peter Benchley

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Exorcist

    by William Peter Blatty
    A priest's battle against a powerful demon possessing a young girl.

    An elderly Jesuit priest named Father Lankester Merrin is leading an archaeological dig in northern Iraq and is studying ancient relics. After discovering a small statue of the demon Pazuzu (an ... (Wikipedia)

  2. The Amityville Horror

    by Jay Anson
    A family's terrifying ordeal in a haunted house, where the supernatural lurks in the shadows.

    The book, purportedly based on a true story, describes the house at 112 Ocean Avenue as remaining empty for 13 months after the DeFeo murders . In December 1975, George and Kathleen Lutz bought the ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Pet Sematary

    by Stephen King
    A family's terrifying journey of life and death, as the line between the living and the dead blurs.

    Louis Creed, a doctor from Chicago , is appointed director of the University of Maine 's campus health service. He moves to a large house near the small town of Ludlow with his wife Rachel, their two ... (Wikipedia)

  4. 'Salem's Lot

    by Stephen King
    A small town is terrorized by a vampire, forcing its citizens to fight for survival.

    Ben Mears, a writer who spent part of his childhood in Jerusalem's Lot , Maine , has returned after 25 years. He quickly becomes friends with high-school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a ... (Wikipedia)

  5. Red Dragon

    by Thomas Harris
    A serial killer stalks the night, and a former FBI agent is the only one who can stop him.

    In 1975, Will Graham , a brilliant profiler of the FBI , captured the serial killer Hannibal Lecter . However, Graham suffered serious injuries from the encounter and retired afterwards. Four years ... (Wikipedia)

  6. The Omen

    by David Seltzer
    A family discovers the terrifying truth about their new-born son, who is the Antichrist.

    Now updated, this classic tale of the antichrist who comes to Earth in the form of a young boy is available in time for 20th Century Fox's contemporary remake of the 1976 classic film, starring Liev ... (Goodreads)

  7. Meg

    by Steve Alten
    A deep sea thriller about a giant prehistoric shark that terrorizes a research team.

    Revised and Expanded. On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean's deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with the largest and most ferocious predator in the history of the animal ... (Goodreads)

  8. Rosemary's Baby

    by Ira Levin
    A woman's descent into darkness as she is unknowingly forced to carry a child of the Devil.

    The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young married woman who has just moved into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a ... (Wikipedia)

  9. The Green Mile

    by Stephen King
    A prison guard discovers the power of redemption, and miracles, when he meets a mysterious inmate.

    Featuring a first-person narrative told by Paul Edgecombe, the novel switches between Paul as an old man in the Georgia Pines nursing home writing down his story in 1996, and his time in 1932 as the ... (Wikipedia)

  10. The Hunt for Red October

    by Tom Clancy
    A thrilling adventure of a submarine captain's race against the clock in a thrilling game of cat and mouse.

    During the Cold War ,(the story must be set in 1982, according to the days assigned to the dates in the novel, e.g. Dec. 17 was a Friday only in 1982,1976 and 1971 ) Marko Ramius, a Soviet Navy ... (Wikipedia)

  11. Congo

    by Michael Crichton
    Exploring a mysterious African jungle in search of a lost civilization, with a ragtag expedition.

    The novel starts in 1979, with an abrupt end to an expedition sent by Earth Resource Technology Services Inc. in the dense rainforests of the Virunga region, in the heart of the Congo , when the team ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Watchers

    by Dean Koontz
    A story of terror and suspense as a genetically engineered creature wreaks havoc in a small town.

    Travis Cornell, a former Delta Force operative, feels that his life has become pointless, and is exploring a canyon near his home when he encounters two genetically engineered creatures that have ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Timeline

    by Michael Crichton
    A group of scientists travelling through time to save their present.

    In Corazon, Dan Baker and his wife are lost and driving through the Northern Arizona desert when they come across a man in his seventies who looks like a priest. They pull over to help him, then take ... (Wikipedia)

  14. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

    by Max Brooks
    A collection of interviews recounting tales of the zombie apocalypse.

    It has been nearly twenty years since the start of the apocalyptic worldwide pandemic known as the Zombie War, and about ten years since the war has ended in humanity's victory. The framing device ... (Wikipedia)

  15. The Bourne Identity

    by Robert Ludlum
    An amnesiac assassin must uncover his past and true identity in a deadly search for the truth.

    The preface of the novel consists of two real-life newspaper articles from 1975 about terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as " Carlos the Jackal ." The story opens with gunfire on a boat in the ... (Wikipedia)

  16. Clear and Present Danger

    by Tom Clancy
    CIA analyst Jack Ryan uncovers a covert war against drug cartels in Colombia, leading to a dangerous mission to stop the violence.

    The President of the United States , who is running for reelection, finds a fierce opponent in Ohio Governor J. Robert Fowler, who has rallied the American public behind his administration's failures ... (Wikipedia)

  17. Psycho

    by Robert Bloch
    A chilling thriller of suspense and horror, confronting a psychopathic murderer.

    Norman Bates , a middle-aged bachelor, is dominated by his mother, a mean-tempered, puritanical old woman who forbids him to have a life outside of her. They run a small motel together in the town of ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Ghost Story

    by Peter Straub
    Four elderly men gather to confront a supernatural entity that has haunted them since their youth.

    In life, not every sin goes unpunished. GHOST STORY For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. ... (Goodreads)

  19. Patriot Games

    by Tom Clancy
    A former CIA analyst must protect his family from domestic terrorists, while thwarting a major international conspiracy.

    A kidnapping attempt on the Prince and Princess of Wales and their infant son occurs at the Mall in London . The attack is orchestrated by members of the Ulster Liberation Army , an ideologically ... (Wikipedia)

  20. The Day of the Jackal

    by Frederick Forsyth
    An assassin attempts to kill the president of France in a thrilling race against time.

    The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle 's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart : ... (Wikipedia)

  21. Sphere

    by Michael Crichton
    A group of scientists investigate a mysterious spacecraft at the bottom of the ocean.

    A group of scientists ( psychologist Norman Johnson; mathematician Harry Adams; zoologist Beth Halpern; astrophysicist Ted Fielding; and marine biologist Arthur Levine), along with U.S. Navy ... (Wikipedia)

  22. Lonesome Dove

    by Larry McMurtry
    Epic tale of two former Texas Rangers on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana.

    It is the late 1870s. , Captain Woodrow F. Call and Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae, two famous retired Texas Rangers , run the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in the small Texas border ... (Wikipedia)

  23. The Winds of War

    by Herman Wouk
    The story of a family caught in the middle of World War II and their struggles to survive.

    Like no other masterpiece of historical fiction, Herman Wouk's sweeping epic of World War II is the great novel of America's Greatest Generation. , Wouk's spellbinding narrative captures the tide of ... (Barnes & Noble)

  24. The Pelican Brief

    by John Grisham
    A law student's investigation into a political assassination, uncovering a deadly conspiracy.

    The story begins with the assassinations of two ideologically divergent Supreme Court Justices. Both murders are committed by Khamel, the most wanted hitman in the world. Justice Rosenberg, a ... (Wikipedia)

  25. Roots: The Saga of an American Family

    by Alex Haley
    A multigenerational saga tracing the journey of an African American family in the U.S.

    Roots tells the story of Kunta Kinte —a young man taken from the Gambia when he was seventeen and sold as a slave—and seven generations of his descendants in the United States. Kunta, a Mandinka ... (Wikipedia)

  26. Relic

    by Douglas Preston
    Scientists investigate an ancient secret, hidden deep in the South American jungle.

    In September 1987, Dr. Julian Whittlesey is leading an expedition through the Amazon Basin , in the Brazilian rainforest , in search of the lost Kothoga tribe. He hopes to prove that they still do ... (Wikipedia)

  27. Kiss the Girls

    by James Patterson
    Detective Alex Cross races against time to stop a serial killer from abducting more victims.

    As a teenage boy in 1975 Boca Raton , Florida , a future serial killer calling himself Casanova kills his first four victims. Elsewhere in 1981 Chapel Hill , North Carolina , another killer calling ... (Wikipedia)

  28. Invasion of the Body Snatchers

    by Jack Finney
    A small town is terrorized by alien pods that duplicate people and steal their souls.

    On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovered an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms ... (Goodreads)

  29. The Keep

    by F. Paul Wilson
    Adventure to save humanity from an ancient evil force, with unexpected allies.

    German soldiers and SS Einsatzkommandos are being slowly killed off in a mysterious castle (the "keep" of the title) high in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania in April 1941. Theodore Cuza, a Jewish ... (Wikipedia)

  30. The Client

    by John Grisham
    A young boy is thrust into a legal battle, as he tries to protect himself and his family.

    Boyd Boyette, a United States Senator from Louisiana, goes missing. Because of his vocal opposition to a proposed major toxic landfill project by a company known to be Mafia-backed, murder is ... (Wikipedia)