Replete with addictive, twisty plots, unreliable narrators, and the exquisite tension of inter generational strife, or the peculiar second hand-anxiety of fictional gaslighting and domestic terror: a good thriller provides the chills and spills of a rollercoaster.
It can also provide escape or even a lens through which to glimpse and process our own difficult feelings or questions of identity. Many of the thrillers on this list have found second lives on large and small screens, too. Our ten best psychological thriller books picked by BookScouter feature contemporary and classic titles.
Gone Girl
By turns an indictment of marriage as a ‘long con’ played by spouses on one another and a satire on cable news and tabloid reporting on crimes, Flynn brings her professional reporting experience and keen sense for hypocrisy to layer tensions around whether or not Nick Dunne did, or did not murder his wife.
Big Little Lies
Despite the TV adaptation transplants the action from Moriarty’s native Australia to a wealthy enclave of California, it’s well worth checking out the original. Moriarty excels in her bright, brisk, funny take on upper middle class motherhood, spliced with a hard-hitting examination on the far-reaching effects of domestic violence.
Long Bright River
Follows Mickey, a police officer fighting the opioid crisis in Philadelphia while. Mickey’s sister Kacey wrestles with addiction. The hard-hitting story unfolds in flashbacks that give insight into the sisters’ tough upbringing and the present-day investigation into the mysterious string of murders that coincide with Kacey’s disappearance.
Shutter Island
A bleak, mind-bending 50s-era tale set on Shutter Island, the home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane that follows two federal agents investigating the disappearance of a patient. Weaving through influences as wide-ranging as the works of the Brontë sisters and the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with a little nod to Stephen King. It also features a suitably chilling, brilliant final-act twist.
Rebecca
Perhaps best known for the Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of 1940 and the terrifying, heartbreaking character of housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, this slots into a rich canon of du Maurier’s outsiders and cool observers. Her heroine here finds herself in competition with the memory of the late Rebecca for the love of wealthy widower Maxim de Winter. It also features one of the most famous opening lines in popular fiction.
The Woman in the Window
This much satirised, occasionally controversial 2018 novel borrows elements from cinematic thrillers Rear Window and Copycat, in its agoraphobic heroine who becomes convinced she’s witnessed a brutal killing from her window. Yet, there seems no evidence of the crime, and Finn’s protagonist, Anna, must navigate the fog of her illness and trauma to find the truth.
Do Not Disturb
Primes readers for a little fear with the irresistibly creepy setting of an isolated, run-down motel, an infeasibly helpful owner and a Brontë-ish, mysterious, ailing wife. Quinn, fleeing the law, seeks refuge from a blizzard at the Baxter motel with an unusual checkout rate…read for Hitchcock spliced with classic locked-room murder plots.
The Family Across the Street
A contemporary Australian take on Stepford-esque horrors hidden beneath the perfect surfaces and manicured lawns of suburbia, Trope’s novel introduces the West family: outwardly golden but harbouring dark secrets, with revelations precipitated by a gunshot.
The Perfect Marriage
In this legal thriller Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C, married to Adam. He’s a struggling writer having a passionate affair. The relationship comes to a violent end when Adam is charged with his girlfriend’s murder. In what’s surely a conflict of interest, as well as a novel twist, Sarah becomes her husband’s defender and must prove his innocence.
Sharp Objects
A debut slice of modern Southern Gothic from the author of Gone Girl (adapted for television in 2018). This dark, cathartic tale of cold-case murder and family secrets finds Camille Preaker, a troubled crime journalist at Chicago’s The Daily Post, returning to her hometown of Windgap, Missouri to investigate the murder and disappearance of two young girls.
