While a lot ofthrillerbooks drop the ball with their final twists or overextend themselves with convoluted finales, titles likeThe Girl on the TrainandSharp Objectskeep their stories taut, tense, and thrilling throughout. The thriller is a unique beast in the literary world. Nestled somewhere between suspense novels, crime stories, and psychological horror books, thrillers have taken many forms over the years.
There are cozy mysteries likeAnthony Horowitz’sMagpie Murders, where the satisfaction of solving a murder takes precedence over psychological intensity. On the other end of the spectrum, there are brutal psychological thrillers where viewers can’t possibly predict all the twists and turns, but making it through the gripping thrill ride is the book’s primary appeal.
Since this genre includes veteran authors like Agatha Christie as well as contemporary writers like Paula Hawkins and SA Cosby, it is hardly surprising that the term “Thriller” covers such a wide range of titles. Everything fromKarin Slaughter’s genuinely disturbingPretty Girlsto Richard Osman’s sentimentalThursday Murder Clubcounts as a thriller, but the titles listed here are notable for their truly impressive writing and plotting.
10The Hunting Party By Lucy Foley
Foley’s Whodunit Keeps Viewers Guessing Until The Final Pages
Starting out on the softer end of the scale,Lucy Foley’s novels call to mind a modern spin on Agatha Christie. It is perhaps unsurprising that Foley has written aMiss Marplenovel that revives Christie’s famous sleuth, since the English author brings the same combination of biting social commentary, ingenuous mystery plotting, and dark atmosphere to her work.
The Hunting Partyis as twisted as any of Poirot’s outings, exploring a set of suspects in a murder that takes place in an isolated resort nestled in the Scottish highlands. Every member of the wealthy, toxic friend group has a motive, as do the only employees of the hunting lodge where they are trapped by a snowstorm.
The characters are vivid and believable enough to sidetrack readers, leaving them devastated by an ending that is both perfectly foreshadowed and shocking by its clever misdirection.
Despite how familiar this setup may sound, Foley’s book does a phenomenal job of throwing readers off the scent at every turn. The characters are vivid and believable enough to sidetrack readers, leaving them devastated by an ending that is both perfectly foreshadowed and shocking by its clever misdirection.
9Razorblade Tears By S.A. Cosby
S.A. Cosby’s Electric Crime Thriller Is Not To Be Missed
Author SA Cosby penned a pair of earlier crime thrillers before 2021’sRazorblade Tears, but this is the title that stands out even amid his impressive bibliography. Following a pair of former convicts in their twilight years,Razorclade Tearsbegins with the brutal deaths of their sons, a mixed-race couple. From that vivid, vicious opening,Razorblade Tearsnever lets up.
Contrasting its imperfect heroes with the dark world they inhabit, Cosby’s novel manages to engage with topics like racism, homophobia, and toxic masculinity without ever missing a beat in its thrilling, unpredictable central mystery. There are no simple answers in the world of Cosby’s best novel, and viewers will be left equally heartbroken and fascinated by its flawed protagonists.
8You By Caroline Kepnes
Kepnes Draws Readers Into the Mind of A Charming Monster
Famouslyrecommended by Stephen KingonX(thenTwitter),Caroline Kepnes’Youis a serial killer thriller with a difference. For one thing, the book is told from the perspective of the killer, trapping the reader inside the mind of the seemingly mild-mannered bookseller Joe Goldberg for the entirety of the novel’s absurdly tense story.
However, the real innovation of Kepnes’s novel is just how charming and persuasive its villain, or perhaps very flawed antihero, proves. Joe Goldberg is an unapologetic monster but, unlike earlier literary boogeymen such asAmerican Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, he is no straightforward satirical cipher. Instead, he is a fully realized, vivid, and shockingly likable lead character.
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In fact, it is sometimes hard not to root for Joe to escape justice despite his vile crimes. The most impressive trick in Kepnes’s plotting is the author’s ability to have readers simultaneously hoping for Joe to evade detection while still repeatedly reminding them that this unrepentant killer has no plans to change his ways.
7The Girl On The Train By Paula Hawkins
Paula Hawkins’ Electrifying Debut Is Dark, Poignant, and Intelligent
Released in 2015,The Girl on the Trainearned a lot of comparisons to Gillian Flynn’sGone Girl, but the novels have more than an ocean separating them. LikeGone Girl, this London-set thriller features an unreliable female narrator whose personal struggles overlap with a mysterious murder. However, unlikeGone Girl,The Girl on the Train’s heroine is tragically sympathetic.
When one of the strangers she obsesses over vanishes, Rachel finds herself drawn into the world of this woman’s complicated personal life.
Rachel Watson is an alcoholic whose drinking has destroyed her marriage and cost her her job, resulting in her whiling her days away by riding the train and imagining the picture-perfect lives of the people she passes. However, when one of the strangers she obsesses over vanishes, Rachel finds herself drawn into the world of this woman’s complicated personal life.
WhileGone Girl’s endingproves readers shouldn’t always side with unreliable narrators,The Girl on the Traintakes a totally different approach. Tackling heavy themes like emotional abuse, addiction, and toxic masculinity,The Girl on the Trainstill keeps its tension taut and offers an ending that is as brutally cathartic as it is ingeniously plotted.
6The House In The Pines By Ana Reyes
Reyes’s Murky Mystery Is Thoughtful But Thrilling
LikeThe Girl on the Train,Ana Reyes’The House in the Pinesis a study of imperfect memory. Disturbed by the sudden, unexplained death of her friend decades earlier, Maya is drawn back to the home of her adolescence when a similar case crops up years later and inspires her morbid curiosity.
It takes a long time for the atmospheric, intelligentThe House in the Pinesto fully reveal its story, but Reyes’ captivating writing makes the pacing anything but a chore. Instead,The House in the Pinesmanages to slowly crank up the tension while providing an immersive portrait of a flawed but deeply human heroine searching for answers.
5Misery By Stephen King
King’s Best Thriller Proves He Excels Outside of Supernatural Stories
WhileStephen King’s longest bookmight be receiving a movie adaptation soon,Miseryremains one of his best novels and his best movie adaptations. The familiar story of an author who had the distinct misfortune of being nursed back to health by an unhealthily obsessive fan,Miseryis a lone-location thriller that wrings maximum tension and unease out of its premise.
While Kathy Bates’ dazzling turn as Annie Wilkes made the movie more famous than King’s novel,Miseryis arguably Stephen King’s best straightforward thriller. With a tiny cast of characters and only a handful of major twists,Miseryekes every imaginable moment of tension from its simple premise and proves the author is a master of suspense.
Braithwaite’s Blackly Comic Thriller Is Utterly Unique
At least one of the titles on this list needed to touch on the darkly comic side of the thriller genre, andOyinkan Braithwaite’s audaciously funnyMy Sister The Serial Killermight be the best comedic thriller of the last decade.My Sister The Serial Killerfollows a long-suffering sister who helps her murderous sibling dispose of the bodies that pile up around her.
Braithwaite’s prose is as funny as it is sharp, and an undercurrent of barbed social commentary ensures the novel is more than a killer twist delivery machine.
Funny, daring, and almost laughably tense throughout,My Sister The Serial Killeris a spin onYouthat dares readers to not only sympathize with the devil but eventually end up loving her. Braithwaite’s prose is as funny as it is sharp, and an undercurrent of barbed social commentary ensures the novel is more than a killer twist delivery machine.
3Final Girls By Riley Sager
Sager’s Debut Makes Its Killer Conceit Sing
Speaking of killer twists,Riley Sager’s debutFinal Girlsperfectly utilizes its ingenious, genre-bending premise.Recommended by horror legend Stephen King,Final Girlsfollows a trio of women who survived massacres and were dubbed “Final Girls” by the tactless press in the aftermath.
From this clever setup, Sager builds a complicated, morally ambiguous murder mystery that consistently wrongfoots readers and eventually ends with one of the best twists in recent genre memory. All the while,Final Girlsestablishes its heroines as two of the most complex and compelling protagonists since Gillian Flynn’s infamous Amazing Amy.
2Sharp Objects By Gillian Flynn
Flynn’s First Novel Is A Contemporary Classic
The writer was always guaranteed to make an appearance on this list sinceGillian Flynn is arguably the best living thriller author. However, since the one title per author rule precludedGone GirlandSharp Objectsboth making the rundown, it was the author’s sparse, Gothic debut novel that ended up making the cut.
Sharp Objectsis a razor-sharp social satire wrapped in a barbed murder mystery storyline.
Following a troubled journalist as she returns to her hometown to report on a series of grisly murders that hit horribly close to home,Sharp Objectsis a razor-sharp social satire wrapped in a barbed murder mystery storyline. Borrowing from Shirley Jackson, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor, Flynn envisions a nightmarish American South where the sins of the past are ever-present.
Despite moments of tenderness and sympathy,Sharp Objectsis Flynn’s darkest book andits miniseries adaptationis almost too oppressively bleak for viewers who know where the story is heading. The novel, however, with its brisk pace and pitch-black sense of humor, is a perfectly plotted nightmare of a thriller with one of the best, and most twisted, twist endings in recent history.
1The Murder Of Roger Akroyd By Agatha Christie
Christie’s Best Poirot Mystery Is Unexpectedly Unnerving
Few of Agatha Christie’s classic Poirot novels are outright disappointing, but plenty have endings that are underwhelming. The detective’s quirky antics and charming personality often overtake the mystery in terms of importance, andnot every one of Poirot’s adventures has a jaw-dropping killer revealthat reminds viewers why Christie is one of the best-selling authors of all time.
ButThe Murder of Roger Akroyddoes. The less said about this Poirot novel the better, but suffice it to say that this Christie novel thoroughly debunks the claim that the author’s quirky sense of humor renders her mysteries toothless. Even decades later,The Murder of Roger Akroyd’s ending still stings, and it makes the novel an obvious influence on later twisty mysteries likeSharp ObjectsandThe Girl on the Train.
