What To Read Next If You Loved Any Of These Popular Thriller Books

There's a unique rush when a book grabs hold of you, that irresistible pull that keeps you reading long into the night. The next sentence is always too tempting to skip, and before you know it, the pages are turning almost of their own accord. No genre captures this urgency quite like a heart-racing thriller. With every page flip, the plot weaves tighter, and your mind races to catch up with the unraveling mystery. When the final chapter comes, you're left with a curious mix of satisfaction and longing.

Once you've experienced the momentum of a thriller, it's difficult not to chase it again, to keep spinning that satisfying wheel of suspense. The hunger for more lingers, and only grows stronger, leaving you craving your next dark and tangled narrative. But rest assured, there's always another story waiting in the wings to keep you hooked. 

That's where these recommendations come in. If you've already found yourself hooked by some of the best books in the thriller genre (or have enjoyed one of the 10 mystery and thriller books we couldn't wait for in 2025), we're sure you'll find these equally enthralling.

Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" took the world by storm. The novel redefined the thriller, with its portrait of a woman weaponizing the performance of femininity. It also cracked open an entire subgenre. In its wake, a wave of books emerged that hinged upon the way women violently manipulate — or are manipulated by — the roles they are expected to play. Long expected to be pliant and pleasant, fictional female antiheroes instead began to wield deception and brutality in transgressive, cathartic ways. The subgenre quickly became a way to prove women are a force to be reckoned with.

One great addition to the collection is Eliza Clark's "Boy Parts," which picks up Flynn's original baton to sprint in a more brutal, unfiltered direction. As "Gone Girl" inverts the cool, accommodating wife archetype, "Boy Parts" dismantles the male gaze itself. Irina, a splintered photographer with a nihilistic streak, curates a portfolio of men she dominates and objectifies. What begins as an artistic exercise soon spirals into something monstrous. 

Like Flynn, Clark writes with a dark humor that crackles with a sense of controlled fury. Those who know the infamous "Cool Girl" monologue from "Gone Girl" will likely spot a similar volatility in "Boy Parts" as it confronts the tension between self-perception and the roles society scripts for women. 

What's the secret behind idyllic towns? As thrillers love to warn us: the brighter the facade, the darker the shadow. On the page, and later on screen, "Big Little Lies" luxuriated in the privileged exteriors of an affluent coastal town, only to peel them away, layer by layer, until the foundations buckled. Author Liane Moriarty exposed the power struggles lurking behind picture-perfect marriages, spinning a tale of mothers bound together by shared and sinister secrets. 

For readers drawn to this brand of suburban suspense, Chandler Baker's "The Husbands" supplies a similar simmering tension, but with a twist. When Nora Spangler — an ambitious attorney drowning in the invisible labor of modern motherhood — tours an exclusive Stepford-esque enclave, she's struck by the men. The surprise lies not in their power or wealth, but their ease. The way they cook, clean, and care for their children feels unnatural. The neighborhood promises the balance Nora has always wanted, but as she inches closer to the truth, the question shifts from "How do these marriages function so seamlessly?" to, "At what cost?"

Like "Big Little Lies," Baker's previous novel, "The Whisper Network," is among the best thriller-mystery picks from Reese's Book Club. Devotees of Moriarty's gilded domestic thriller are sure to find "The Husbands" just as gripping.

Donna Tartt once cited "Cold Heaven" as a key influence in her writing of the "The Secret History" — and its eerie, philosophical unease makes it easy to see why (via Today). "Cold Heaven," by Brian Moore, follows Marie, a lapsed Catholic poised to leave her husband, Alex, when fate (or something more inexplicable) intervenes. A boating accident leaves Alex gravely injured, his death confirmed at the hospital. But then, impossibly, his body disappears from the morgue. Marie is left suspended between confusion, disbelief, fear, and a creeping, inescapable dread.

It's little wonder Tartt was drawn to Moore's haunted, liminal world. Both novels exist in the charged space between logic and the ineffable, their characters clinging to certainty even as it erodes beneath them. "The Secret History" wraps its mysteries in the grandeur of classical myth and the ritual of academia. "Cold Heaven," in contrast, strips away that intellectual scaffolding, plunging headlong into the metaphysical. Its dread is less ornamental and more elemental, unsettling in ways that feel like an omen. 

The former is a "whydunnit," while the latter is a "howdunnit." But both novels understand that the most thrilling mysteries are the ones that struggle to be reconciled.

Speaking of Donna Tartt's influences for "The Secret History," she also told Today that Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" was among the books that inspired her bestseller. This makes sense, given both novels' fascination with ambition and amorality, deception and dangerous desire. Many will know Highsmith's thriller from the sumptuously unsettling 1999 film adaption, where Matt Damon's shape-shifting Ripley slithers through Jude Law's sun-drenched Mediterranean. But for those craving another dose of a young man scheming his way out of murder, "Brighton Rock" might just be the hardboiled treat to sink your teeth into.

Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock" trades the golden allure of the Italian Riviera for the rain-slicked alleyways of 1930s Brighton, England, swapping the idle decadence of the upper echelons for the cutthroat world of backstreet gangsters. But while the setting is grimmer and the players rougher, its protagonist, 17-year-old Pinkie Brown, is no less chilling. 

Pinkie, an acid-wielding gang leader, sets in motion a murder to cover up a past crime, only to find himself tangled in an ever-tightening web of paranoia and brutality.  As he manipulates a young waitress into marrying him to silence her as a witness, Pinkie's attempts to control the situation spiral out of his grasp. For those who raced through "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Brighton Rock" offers another young villain who will stop at nothing to dodge the past. It's also a great classic novel for your next book club read.

For fans of domestic thrillers, "The Housemaid" by Freida McFadden offers a great segue into B. A. Paris' "Behind Closed Doors." McFadden's breakout hit won readers over with its intricate, twist-riddled plot and a darkly atmospheric edge. When a woman recently released from prison lands a job as a live-in maid for a wealthy couple, the family's opulence seems like a chance at redemption. But as she integrates into their grand home, mounting tensions reveal that the flawless surface of the protagonists' lives belie a far darker reality.

"Behind Closed Doors" spins a similarly addictive narrative. The illusion of perfection lies within the confines of a supposedly blissful marriage. Here, we have a handsome husband, an immaculate wife, and an enviable lifestyle, but at what cost? As Jack's charming exterior gives way to the chilling truth, Grace finds herself trapped in a nightmarish union, with every escape thwarted by coercive traps.

Bibliophiles will find "Behind Closed Doors" a chilling echo of McFadden's work, not least for its unrelenting tension and exploration of psychological manipulation. Tapping into the same household terror as its predecessor, the question remains: what twisted forces are at play behind the pristine appearances?

Reese Witherspoon, who selected Ellery Lloyd's "The Club" as her March 2022 thriller book club read, was enamored by its dense plot and fast pace, she said on TikTok. We concur. Lloyd lured us in with a shimmering setting: a private island, an exclusive club, and a star-studded launch event, all wrapped in a deadly murder mystery.

Wanderlust-driven lovers of "The Club" will find much to savor in Rachel Hawkins' "Reckless Girls," which serves up the same levels of suspense, while also indulging the same escapist cravings. Lux and her boyfriend Nico are hired to sail two wealthy strangers to a remote Pacific island. They think they've stumbled upon the adventure of a lifetime, but as secrets from the past collide with the present, the island's beauty becomes a trap. This a fun, seafaring thriller of glamour and menace, with Hawkins tempting readers into an idyllic paradise, only to pull the rug out from under them with lethal twists.

The books featured here are all thrillers we've carefully chosen for their strong writing and the praise they have earned from readers who know great stories when they see them. They have been singled out particularly for the similarities they share with their celebrated predecessors: themes, plot devices, settings, and writing styles. We also loved the emotional depth and rich narrative layers of these well-crafted thrillers, which sated our need for stories that interrogate the human psyche, power dynamics, the relationships that define their characters.