best thrillers 2025
Our Last Resort - Clémence Michallon
A sun-drenched resort hides dark secrets when a guest’s disappearance sparks panic. A woman’s investigation uncovers betrayal and danger lurking beneath the paradise. Michallon’s suspenseful thriller weaves deception and tension, delivering twists that unravel trust, keeping readers on edge in a gripping, atmospheric tale of survival.
The Haters - Robyn Harding
A bestselling author faces a vicious online hate campaign after her book’s success. Threats escalate to real-world danger, unraveling her life. As she fights to uncover her tormentor, secrets emerge. Harding’s psychological thriller explores fame and vengeance, delivering relentless suspense and twists that shock until the final page.
Beautiful Ugly - Alice Feeney
A woman vanishes on a remote Scottish island, leaving her husband desperate for answers. As he searches, buried secrets and twisted lies emerge. The island’s isolation amplifies the suspense, with every clue leading to danger. Feeney’s psychological thriller delivers shocking twists, keeping readers on edge until the final page.
Cross My Heart - Megan Collins
A woman’s heart transplant sparks obsession with her donor’s death. Strange visions and secrets unravel a chilling mystery. As she digs deeper, danger threatens her life. Collins’s haunting thriller blends psychological suspense and emotional depth, delivering twists that keep readers guessing in a gripping, eerie narrative.
Marble Hall Murders - Anthony Horowitz
Susan Ryeland and Atticus Pünd tackle a cunning murder mystery at Marble Hall. A web of clues and secrets unravels, with danger at every turn. Horowitz’s clever thriller blends wit and suspense, delivering intricate twists and a satisfying conclusion that keeps readers guessing in this masterful, meta-mystery.
Murder Takes a Vacation - Laura Lippman
Muriel Blossom’s French river cruise turns deadly when a passenger is murdered. Secrets unravel among the travelers, and Muriel’s sharp wit faces a killer. Danger lurks on the idyllic waterways. Lippman’s spin-off thriller blends humor and suspense, delivering a clever mystery with unexpected twists and a vivid setting.
Nobody’s Fool - Harlan Coben
Sami Kierce investigates a dark incident tied to his past, uncovering a web of lies. As secrets unravel, danger closes in, testing his resolve. Coben’s sequel to Fool Me Once delivers high-stakes suspense, with twists and betrayal driving a fast-paced thriller that keeps readers hooked until the end.
Not Quite Dead Yet - Holly Jackson
A woman must solve her own murder in seven days, navigating a web of lies. As she uncovers secrets, danger stalks her every move. Jackson’s adult debut thriller blends wit and suspense, delivering relentless twists and a race against time that keeps readers gripped until the shocking, emotional finale.
One at a Time - Will Dean
Deep-sea divers are trapped in a hyperbaric chamber with a killer. As oxygen dwindles, paranoia and secrets unravel. Survival hinges on uncovering the truth. Dean’s claustrophobic thriller, shortlisted by ITW, delivers relentless suspense and shocking twists, keeping readers breathless in a high-stakes race against time.
One Wrong Turn - C. M. Ewan
A couple picks up stranded travelers during a late-night drive, but one wrong turn leads to terror. Secrets unravel, and trust becomes deadly. Trapped in a nightmare, they fight to survive. Ewan’s fast-paced thriller grips with relentless suspense, delivering twists that make every moment a pulse-pounding race against fate.
Runner 13 - Amy McCulloch
An ultra-marathon in the Sahara turns deadly when runners vanish. A journalist digs into the race’s dark secrets, facing danger at every turn. Survival depends on outrunning a killer. McCulloch’s nail-biting thriller blends adrenaline and suspense, with twists that keep readers gripped in a relentless desert nightmare.
The Crash - Freida McFadden
A couple’s car crashes in a New England blizzard, stranding them in a remote cabin. Secrets unravel as a chilling threat emerges. Trust erodes, and survival depends on uncovering the truth before the storm traps them with a killer. A twist-filled psychological thriller packed with betrayal and suspense.
The Dark Wives - Ann Cleeves
Vera Stanhope probes a teen’s murder at a care home. A missing girl and secretive community complicate the case. Vera’s tenacity uncovers hidden truths, but danger looms. The eleventh Vera novel blends gritty investigation with psychological depth, delivering a suspenseful, atmospheric mystery that keeps readers guessing until the end.
The Guest - B.A. Paris
A houseguest’s arrival disrupts a couple’s idyllic life, unearthing buried secrets. Strange behavior and hidden motives spark paranoia. As tensions rise, a deadly truth emerges, threatening all. Paris’s psychological thriller weaves suspense and deception, with twists that unravel trust, keeping readers gripped in a chilling, claustrophobic narrative.
The Last One at the Wedding - Jason Rekulak
Frank attends his daughter’s wedding, but the groom’s family hides sinister secrets. A disappearance sparks paranoia, unraveling lies. As Frank digs deeper, he risks everything to save her. This standalone thriller, hailed as 2025’s best by ITW Awards, delivers heart-pounding twists and unrelenting suspense in a gripping narrative.
The New Neighbours - Claire Douglas
New neighbors move into a quiet suburb, but strange events spark suspicion. A young couple uncovers secrets that threaten their lives. As paranoia grows, they face a deadly truth. Douglas weaves a chilling tale of betrayal and deception, with twists that keep readers guessing in this gripping psychological thriller.
The Woman in Suite 11 - Ruth Ware
A snowbound resort hides a killer when a guest vanishes from Suite 11. A woman’s investigation uncovers dark secrets and betrayal. As the storm traps them, danger escalates. Ware’s slow-burn thriller weaves psychological suspense and chilling atmosphere, delivering twists that keep readers guessing until the shocking end.
They All Fall the Same - Wes Browne
An Appalachian crime boss’s empire unravels when a betrayal sparks murder. As enemies close in, secrets threaten his family’s survival. Browne’s gritty thriller blends raw violence and emotional stakes, delivering a fast-paced narrative with shocking twists that keep readers hooked in a dark, suspenseful tale of loyalty and revenge.
The Tenant — Freida McFadden
A struggling homeowner rents out a room to a charming tenant who soon reveals dangerous secrets beneath a perfect facade. McFadden masterfully builds domestic paranoia through unreliable perspectives, escalating threats, shocking twists, and intense revelations that expose the perils of desperation, hidden pasts, and shattered trust in this addictive psychological thriller full of suspense.
Kill Your Darlings — Peter Swanson
A wife's new novel eerily mirrors her marriage's darkest impulses, sparking dangerous obsession and deadly real-life consequences. Swanson's clever thriller probes marital tension, blurred reality, unpredictable turns, lethal secrets, and impulse control in an obsessive psychological unraveling that questions trust, sanity, and hidden violence.
The Doorman — Chris Pavone
In an elite Manhattan building, a vigilant doorman uncovers wealthy residents' deadly secrets amid rising intrigue, betrayal, and vengeance plots. Pavone delivers sophisticated high-stakes suspense, deeply exploring power dynamics, racial tensions, moral ambiguity, and corruption in modern New York's corrosive elite world with muscular prose leading to a murderous climax.
The Ghostwriter — Julie Clark
A reclusive ghostwriter uncovers buried family secrets while crafting a famous celebrity's revealing memoir full of lies. Clark's slow-burn domestic thriller layers mounting suspicion, hidden truths, escalating revelations, emotional stakes, and moral dilemmas in a gripping tale of deception, fractured loyalty, and unspoken pasts' dangers.
King of Ashes — S.A. Cosby
A prodigal son returns home after his father's mysterious fatal crash, plunging deep into family secrets and deadly gangster threats. Cosby's propulsive Southern noir thriller pulses with raw vengeance, moral complexity, visceral action scenes, and gripping intrigue in a Godfather-style epic exploring loyalty, revenge, and redemption's bloody price.
The Understudy — Morgan Richter
A rising opera singer in New York's elite circles faces escalating threats from her enigmatic, alluring understudy amid a company murder. Richter's slow-burn psychological thriller masterfully builds tension through rivalry, obsession, manipulation, identity intrigue, backstage secrets, and shocking revelations in the cutthroat world of high-stakes performance and hidden dangers.
The Man Made of Smoke — Alex North
Investigating his father's suspicious death awakens terrifying childhood monsters inexplicably linked to ongoing serial killings and horrors. North's chilling thriller fuses deep emotional trauma, relentless dread, past horrors invading the present, and haunting revelations for a gripping, atmospheric exploration of fear's enduring, monstrous psychological grip.
Don’t Let Him In — Lisa Jewell
A charismatic con man weaves through the lives of three interconnected women, leaving trails of financial and emotional ruin in his wake. Jewell's sharp domestic thriller expertly dissects manipulation, vulnerability, devastating betrayal, and human weakness with addictive pacing, intricate connections, unflinching insight, and multiple twists into deception's dark consequences.
The Good Liar — Denise Mina
Forensic secrets gradually unravel lives carefully built on elaborate deceptions, hidden truths, and fragile constructed identities. Mina's incisive psychological crime thriller dissects betrayal, falsehoods, moral consequences, and inexorable tension with sharp, intelligent prose building relentlessly toward a shattering climax exposing constructed realities' profound fragility.
Strange Pictures — Uketsu
Readers actively decode eerie visual clues alongside the narrator in a macabre, highly innovative puzzle mystery full of horrors. Uketsu's unsettling thriller masterfully layers mind-bending games, odd supernatural horrors, immersive revelations, and reality-blurring elements, creating a perfect brain-teasing experience set in a world of enigmatic, creeping dread.
You Belong Here — Megan Miranda
A woman returns to her elite university and confronts long-buried college secrets resurfacing amid mysterious present threats and dangers. Miranda's atmospheric psychological thriller weaves intricate suspicion, past crimes, escalating peril, identity questions, and belonging themes with masterful tension, deep emotional layers, and suspense in mountainous isolation.
The Winter Warriors — Olivier Norek
Based on true events, elite Finnish snipers defy massive Soviet invasion forces in brutal WWII survival feats against overwhelming odds. Norek's astonishing historical thriller captures unrelenting peril, extraordinary heroism, profound human resilience, and intense authenticity with compelling pacing honoring the legendary "White Death" sniper legend.
The Unraveling of Julia — Lisa Scottoline
A successful woman’s perfect life begins to fracture when long-buried family secrets and betrayals resurface with deadly consequences. Scottoline's gripping domestic thriller delivers escalating suspense, emotional turmoil, shocking revelations, moral dilemmas, and twist-filled drama exploring loyalty, identity, and the high cost of hidden truths.
With a Vengeance — Riley Sager
Passengers aboard a luxury train face deadly payback for their past sins in a tense high-stakes locked-room murder scenario. Sager's unrelenting thriller cleverly echoes classic isolation tales with themes of greed, murder, shocking twists, moral reckoning, and breathless tension unfolding over thirteen gripping hours of retribution.
Forget Me Not — Stacy Willingham
Long-unsolved past crimes mysteriously resurface, ensnaring the protagonist in creeping, atmospheric present-day danger, loss, and psychological turmoil. Willingham's masterful thriller intertwines memory fragments, deep grief, escalating psychological dread, and raw emotional intensity, building inexorable suspense as forgotten horrors inevitably bleed into inescapable, haunting reality.
The Hole — Hye-Young Pyun
A paralyzed man trapped in total isolation grapples with overwhelming guilt, creeping derangement, and encroaching buried secrets around him. Pyun's disturbing slow-burn thriller deeply explores confinement's nightmare, psychological unraveling, hidden truths, claustrophobic horror, and vulnerability in a harrowing descent into madness and fragile human limits.
Clay — Franck Bouysse
In a remote WWI farmhouse stripped of men by war, isolation breeds primal tensions, dark eruptions, and survival struggles. Bouysse's haunting rural noir thriller delves into human depths, visceral suspense, primal instincts, moral darkness, and atmospheric prose uncovering haunting secrets amid desolate, unforgiving landscapes.
Clown Town — Mick Herron
Jackson Lamb's dysfunctional, misfit spies tackle high-stakes national chaos in a brilliantly satirical state-of-the-nation espionage thriller. Herron's irreverent masterpiece seamlessly blends tense espionage intrigue, bureaucratic absurdity, deadly threats, sharp political wit, and dark humor for a gripping, hilarious ride through Britain's chaotic underbelly of failure and unexpected resilience.
The Grand Paloma Resort — Cleyvis Natera
Guests at an exclusive, remote resort unravel personal secrets amid escalating danger and fractured interpersonal bonds. Natera's gripping thriller builds relentless suspense through strained dynamics, hidden motives, shifting loyalties, moral conflicts, and atmospheric peril in a luxurious pressure-cooker where apparent paradise conceals deadly undercurrents.
Needy Little Things — Channelle Desamours
A young woman with the ability to hear others' deepest desires becomes entangled in dangerous obsessions and manipulations. Desamours' speculative psychological thriller blends clairvoyance, emotional intensity, moral ambiguity, escalating threats, and twisty revelations in a haunting exploration of need, power, and human vulnerability's dark side.