Psychological thrillers aim to thrill, of course, and then also get you inside a person’s head… preferably someone caught up in the main thrilling/scary/intense situation. It’s a genre that’s always been well-represented on the big screen, but before movies were even a thing, some books were working genuinely well as psychological thrillers. There’s maybe even something to be said about this medium being ideal for stories that can be classified as such.
Reading a book is obviously very internal and even personal/intimate, and without the distance between you and a screen, the way you get with movies, TV shows, or video games. Everything’s being pictured in your head, and so books have that advantage already, getting more than under your skin and burrowing into your brain. So, psychological thrillers do that even more, inevitably. And these are some of the best psychological thriller books ever published, meaning they go above and beyond in getting under one’s skin, alongside being admirably surprising and (sometimes) disturbing.
10
‘Gone Girl’ (2012)
Gone Girl is pretty Hitchcockian, and done in a way that doesn’t feel derivative of any one particular Alfred Hitchcock movie. It’s an easy book to spoil, but in the interest of not doing that, what can be said is that Gone Girl is about a woman who disappears. When she does, her husband is immediately suspected of having something to do with it, and then more stuff eventually happens (you know, the spoilable parts).
Also, the word “eventually” is being used there because Gone Girl is kind of a slow burn, but thankfully a rewarding and also never boring one. It’s a very well-controlled novel that really does succeed as a page-turner. And some people frown upon the idea of page-turners, but they’re missing out. They’re especially going to be missing out on good thrillers, since Gone Girl – and some of the soon-to-be-mentioned novels – try to be (and succeed at being) the book equivalent of popcorn-friendly blockbusters. Guess you can still eat popcorn while reading a book. No one’s stopping you. It’s probably a free country, for now, wherever you are. Pop that corn. Do it.
9
‘American Psycho’ (1991)
Probably the nastiest book here, though not one without a certain (and very dark) sense of humor, American Psycho is about an investment banker living in Manhattan during the late 1980s who also happens to be a serial killer. He approaches (and narrates) both sides of this life in the same detached and overanalytical way, which obviously serves to blur the line between being materialistic and homicidal, alongside showcasing him to be some other not-great things.
It’s a challenging read, in other words. You might kind of get what it’s going for early on, and then it often just keeps on going, but as a psychological thriller/horror book, it is effective. It’s never pleasant being in the mind of Patrick Bateman, yet it is admirable just how uncompromising the whole novel manages to be. Also, American Psycho is absolutely one of the best books about the ‘80s that wasn’t written during the decade itself.
8
‘Rebecca’ (1938)
At the risk of going on about Alfred Hitchcock too much, in a ranking that’s supposed to be about books, Rebecca was one he directed a film adaptation of, and it notably stands as the only Hitchcock film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. It’s still probably an instance of the book being slightly better (though that movie is very good, it should be mentioned), but that’s something that gets said about movies more times than can ever be counted.
Rebecca is about a young woman whose first name is never learned, and she becomes the second wife of a mysterious man who shows increasingly troubling signs that he’s haunted by the death of his first wife. It’s a psychologically intense read that also works as an example of gothic literature, with a decent helping of mystery, suspense, and some romance thrown in for good measure.
7
‘Crime and Punishment’ (1866)
Since it helped define the psychological thriller genre, or at least laid out what it could be, Crime and Punishment feels worth including here. It’s one of those classics of world literature that pretty much everyone has either read, or has been meaning to read (and will hopefully get to at some point, concerning the latter category of people), with the plot here focusing on a struggling law student who decides to commit a murder, believing that the specific murder will actually be for the greater good.
As it turns out, things are a bit more complicated than that. Crime and Punishment is about planning to commit a crime, and then the consequences of a personal/moral/psychological nature that come about from that crime. That all sounds like it’s simplifying things a bit, but that is the core of the premise, and it’s all executed in a way that is surprisingly absorbing for such an old novel. But like all the older works that have deservedly earned their lofty reputations, it is indeed a classic for good reason.
6
‘The Trial’ (1925)
It’s impressive that The Trial was published more than a century ago, and still holds up remarkably well. More impressive, then, is that it was written about a decade earlier than that, and was unfortunately a posthumous publication, since Franz Kafka died in 1924. His work – and especially this novel – lives on, though, because Kafka is one of those rare creatives whose name has become an adjective: Kafkaesque (a little like “Hitchcockian,” a word that was used a little earlier).
In The Trial, a man is arrested and does indeed have to face trial, but it’s more of a thriller than a crime story because the crime that led to the charge itself is not known, and never really explained. There’s an undeniable distress, psychologically speaking, that the protagonist goes through, and you feel it pretty viscerally as well, as a reader. As far as older books go, it’s one of the easier ones to get through, since it’s quite readable and also not very long, but if you really don’t like reading, then the Orson Welles film adaptation does quite effectively capture/translate what made the novel so good in the first place.
5
‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1962)
A Clockwork Orange does a lot with what doesn’t end up being all that many pages. It might be more easily classifiable as a science fiction or dystopian novel, and then it does also have a focus on crime within that sci-fi/dystopian setting, but then there is, further, an emphasis on psychology and the impact technology – and a purported pursuit of justice – has on one character’s mind.
Alex is that character, and he’s introduced as a young man with an unquenchable desire to commit heinous crimes. He’s caught and imprisoned, then given the chance for an early release if he undertakes an experimental procedure that involves his free will being taken away, as he’s made to feel intense nausea whenever he has violent thoughts. A Clockwork Orange is about him, and his experiences, but uses all that to ask interesting and timeless questions about crime, justice, and whether a “civilized society” is ever even possible.
4
‘House of Leaves’ (2000)
Another pick that might be cheating a little, but also, House of Leaves is so many genres at once, and there are certainly stretches of it that make it feel like a psychological thriller. Lots of psychological horror too, of course, since it’s largely about a house that is somehow bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and then further unusual things happen within that house (spoilers: it’s a bit more than just an ordinary house, to say the least).
There are layers here, since it’s a story within a story, maybe within another story? Because the narrative about the house is something that seems to drive one person mad, and then another person comes into that first person’s analysis of the whole thing, and then his grip on reality starts slipping. There’s so much (maybe even too much) here, but House of Leaves is undeniably thrilling and harrowing in equal measure, so that’s why it’s being included here.
3
‘Misery’ (1986)
Stephen King has tackled a wide variety of genres throughout his writing career, including works of fantasy, sci-fi, and even some coming-of-age stories, but such genres, when done by King, will usually be mixed with horror. That goes for Misery, which is technically a psychological thriller while also functioning as a work of horror, standing out for being grounded and non-supernatural with its terror, a little like Cujo.
That novel was about a dog who turned deadly after being infected with rabies, while Misery is all about a dangerously obsessed fan who kidnaps her favorite author and makes him continue a series he’d intended to move on from. The whole story hardly ever leaves the one location, and is really just about two central characters, but it’s absolutely riveting with its execution. So long as you’re okay with a couple of very grisly scenes, it’s pretty much a must-read; one of the truly essential Stephen King books out there.
2
‘Libra’ (1988)
While no Don DeLillo book is easy to sell to someone who doesn’t know about the author, Libra is probably the least difficult one to highlight. It is, by the standards of this author, quite approachable, and also strangely exciting, being a work of historical fiction that revolves around the assassination of John F. Kennedy, taking the rather bold approach of making Lee Harvey Oswald the closest thing the story has to a main character.
It’s a genuinely fascinating take on one of the defining historical events of the 20th century, and a difficult book to stop thinking about.
There is a good deal of speculation on DeLillo’s part, and the “psychological” side of Libra comes from the insight into this particular version of Oswald. The thriller stuff has more to do with the constant anxiety found in the book, with the lack of answers and clarity being more or less the point, and also, strangely enough, not disappointing. It’s a genuinely fascinating take on one of the defining historical events of the 20th century, and a difficult book to stop thinking about, once read.
1
‘And Then There Were None’ (1939)
Somehow, And Then There Were None might be both the grimmest and most entertaining work by Agatha Christie, with it being remarkable how much fun it is, even if there’s also something hellish and genuinely quite unpleasant about it all. The premise is perfect, and then Christie’s execution of it elevates things further, with it being about ten people on an island, and one by one, they keep dying.
There are thrillers and mystery stories that are intriguing until the reveal, and then others where the bulk of the story is so-so until a great reveal. Much rarer are those stories that belong to the thriller and mystery genres that make all the mysterious stuff compelling before having a genuinely great payoff that you may or may not see coming. And Then There Were None is one such rare story. If you only ever read one of Christie’s classic works, you’re probably best off making it this one.
