The World is in Danger!
Can Your Hero Save the Day?
The Chanticleer Investigation Agency is on the phone asking: Can your hero save the world? The submissions for the 2025 Awards are underway, and Global Thriller Awards close submissions on July 31, 2025!
The Global Thriller Awards celebrate the highest-stakes suspense fiction—where the fate of nations, civilizations, or even humanity itself hangs in the balance. While our Clue Awards focus on personal crimes and our M&M Awards celebrate intimate mysteries, Global Thriller demands nothing less than world-shattering events and planet-threatening conspiracies.
This is where Jack Reacher meets Mission: Impossible, where scientific discoveries become weapons of mass destruction, and where a single hero’s actions determine whether civilization survives another day. From underwater empires fighting for the future of humanity to cyber-terrorists threatening global infrastructure, Global Thriller authors understand that sometimes saving the world is the only story worth telling.
The Categories Where Heroes Rise to Global Threats
- Historic features the theater of war, international spycraft, and epic conflicts that shaped our world—think The Hunt for Red October or wartime espionage where one mission changes history.
- LabLit merges real science with “what-if” scenarios that feel terrifyingly plausible—where cutting-edge research becomes humanity’s salvation or its doom, like The Andromeda Strain for the modern age.
- Science Fiction explores threats from beyond our known reality—alien invasions, interdimensional warfare, or technological catastrophes that make Independence Day look like a warm-up act.
- Dramatic delivers classic Die Hard-style consequences where personal stakes escalate to global proportions—one hero, impossible odds, and the clock ticking toward worldwide disaster.
- Action/Adventure needs no explanation—pure adrenaline-fueled storytelling where heroes race against time to prevent global catastrophe through spectacular set pieces and death-defying stunts.
- CyberTech (Cyberpunk) presents dystopian futures with 1980s aesthetics and futuristic technology—where digital wars determine physical reality and hackers hold the keys to civilization’s survival.
Celebrating Our 2024 Grand Prize Winner!
Timothy S. Johnston took home the 2024 Global Thriller Grand prize win with his epic underwater thriller A Blanket of Steel! This concluding volume of The Rise of Oceania series delivers everything we expect from world-class global thriller fiction.
Johnston’s masterpiece imagines a future where climate change has devastated the surface world, forcing humanity to colonize the ocean floors. As nations suffer famine, drought, and apocalyptic flooding, underwater leader Truman McClusky faces his gravest threat: a Russian assassin bent on destroying humanity’s last hope for oceanic civilization. With the fate of underwater colonies hanging in the balance, Mac must uncover the killer’s identity while leading the largest underwater battle ever assembled.
A Blanket of Steel represents the pinnacle of global thriller storytelling—The Expanse but told beneath Earth’s oceans, where one man’s final test determines the future of human survival. In addition to all the featured posts that have already gone out for the Global Thriller Awards, A Blanket of Steel will be regularly promoted throughout the year and for the next five years in our upcoming Hall of Fame post. Timothy S. Johnston will also be invited to participate in a Chanticleer 10-Question Interview, and A Blanket of Steel will receive a coveted Chanticleer Editorial Review.
Looking for Your Next World-Saving Read?
Check out some of these incredible global thrillers we’ve reviewed recently that showcase the life-or-death stakes that define the genre!
THE LAST RIVAL: A Time of Our Choosing
By Kyle Palmer
The Last Rival: A Time of Our Choosing by Kyle Palmer is a modern take on the mid-20th century style of pulp-fiction, combining the genre’s brazen and entertaining storytelling with reflections on the deeper meaning behind all the action. This masculine romp through history dares to imagine the aftermath of World War II—in a slightly different world.
The story opens in Washington, DC, in 1946, through the eyes of a fictionalized “Wild Bill” Donovan. The real Wild Bill was an American soldier and intelligence officer, perhaps best-known for founding the CIA. Author Kyle Palmer deftly weaves such historic details into his fictionalized account of American history, offering readers a chance to learn as they come along for the ride.
From the machinations of government in Washington, DC, The Last Rival spirals into the wild resurgence of a World War II threat. The powers of the Third Reich haven’t truly been neutralized.
THE WOLF HUNTER: DESOLATION: Mack Murphy Series Book 1
By Terrence O’Malia
In The Wolf Hunter: Desolation, Book One of Terrence O’Malia’s Mack Murphy series, staff sergeant Mack Murphy is convinced there are three types of people: sheep, wolves, and hunters.
The sweet, innocent, dutiful sheep are blissfully unaware of the deadly wolves that could strike at any time. But thankfully, the hunters protect the sheep and even seek out the wolves to prevent their attacks on the flock. Mack defines himself steadfastly as a wolf hunter. He loves his family with all his heart and would do anything to protect them.
Mack’s protective nature continues into his military life where he is part of a team based in the mountains of Afghanistan. Just as it is with his family, he pledges his full allegiance to his team.
FROZEN CONQUEST
By Randall Krzak
Frozen Conquest by Randall Krzak is a thrilling and intense conflict between the cold of Antarctica and the blazing ambition of those seeking global control, fusing the issues of power, greed, and survival into a high-stakes adventure.
The icy edge of Antarctica serves as the center of a sinister organization, Diablo Corps. The ruthless leader, Walter Brown, threatens global mayhem if his aspirations for power are not met. With technological efficiency and the ability to disrupt critical infrastructure, Diablo Corps is poised to leverage its capabilities against the G7. Soon, an anonymous climate-related warning is sent out, with events such as the hacking of the London metal exchange proving to authorities the true weight of that threat.
Such dire actions demand an immediate answer. A classified team of specialists is called upon to gather at Ramstein Air Base. With naturally skilled leader Craig, sharp and observant Evelyn, and the humor and humility of Rufus and August, the promising recruits form the Bedlam Quick Reaction Force (QRF) and venture out into the peril of a frozen land.
CLIMATE DRAGON: Treachery, Pestilence & Weirding Weather
By S.W. Lawrence
Climate Dragonby S.W. Lawrence offers a unique blend of climate fiction, thriller, and real scientific inquiry, setting the stage for an intriguing trilogy centered on dual crises—an impending climate catastrophe and the outbreak of a mysterious disease.
Jake Harper, a newly minted engineering professor, and his romantic partner Abbey London, an infectious disease specialist, balance their burgeoning careers with their bustling inn outside Washington, D.C. But the demands of their lives are disrupted as the two crises draw in Jake and Abbey—the only people prepared to face them.
Jake’s suspicions of a cyberattack on the North American power grid grow after attending a lecture at George Washington University. Meanwhile, Abbey discovers an alarming new bleeding disorder spreading among the drug-injecting population, raising the stakes for both her career and personal safety as she navigates the risks to her pregnancy.
THE BYZANTINE CROSS
By Dena Weigel
The Byzantine Cross by Dena Weigel starts at the end of an explosive rogue mission. Sarah Kraft is committed to saving a record of irreplaceable relics from a bombing mission in World War II. Despite her extraordinary success, the OSS spy is later put out in the cold by her handler, Albert Phillips, for a mistake she didn’t commit.
Years after World War II has ended and the Cold War is dominating headlines, Kraft has a new role as an art insurance appraiser in New York. The company’s lip service for their rich clients and irreverence for her skills don’t sit well with Sarah. It becomes clear that her moral compass will soon lead her into unemployment. But right at the end of her rope, Agent Phillips returns to recruit her back into the organization, now rebranded the CIA.
Sarah Kraft’s mission is simple: break into the Kremlin and retrieve an ancient relic from before the birth of Christ.
These reviews represent just a glimpse of the high-stakes adventures and world-threatening scenarios waiting to be discovered in today’s global thriller fiction.
See the Chanticleer Difference for Yourself!
We’re excited about all the exceptional books we receive every year for both the CIBAs and for our Editorial Reviews. The Chanticleer International Book Awards offers an incredible $30,000 in cash, prizes, and promotion across all divisions!
This is the journey from beginning to end for the CIBAs! Every list you make means more promotion for you and your work as each advancement tier is posted right here on our website, on our social media, and also out in our newsletter! Your book deserves to be discovered.
The World Needs Your Story!
Global catastrophes demand global recognition. Whether your thriller features international conspiracies, scientific disasters, or heroes racing to prevent worldwide destruction, the Global Thriller Awards provide the platform your world-saving story deserves.
In a world facing real global challenges, readers hunger for stories that remind them heroes can triumph against impossible odds. Your thriller could be the next to join the ranks of celebrated authors who understand that when the stakes are planetary, only the best storytelling will do.
