As cheesy as some of her books are, my favorite author is probably Patricia Cornwell, with James Patterson a very close second.
I've read a lot of excellent books by excellent authors, but there isn't enough established work to consider them. Ken Follett wrote an amazing series (Pillars), but the rest of his work sucked. George R.R. Martin with GOT, but that's it. I used to be a huge fan of Clancy, but his stuff just started getting really redundant. Same with Koontz, King, Grisham, et al.
My all time favorite book is Trinity by Leon Uris.
