Top 100 Thriller Books

Explore the top 100 Thriller books on SimilarBooks. Discover fast-paced stories involving danger, deception, secrets, pursuit, conflict and high-stakes situations. Thrillers can range from psychological and political stories to crime, espionage and action-driven narratives, with tension and escalating consequences at the centre of the reading experience.

The books on this page are ranked using SimilarBooks popularity data based on reader activity on the site. The ranking can change over time as readers discover and view different books. Each title includes information about the book and author, together with its genre and subgenre where available, and a link to discover similar books.

Use this list to discover popular thriller books and then explore related titles through SimilarBooks. The individual book pages provide further recommendations, making it easier to find books with similar themes, subjects and styles.

📘 The Picture of Dorian Gray

**The Picture of Dorian Gray** is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical *Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine*. The novel-length version was published in April 1891. (Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Gone Girl

Gone Girl is a 2012 crime thriller novel by American writer Gillian Flynn. It was published by Crown Publishing Group in June 2012. The novel became popular and made the New York Times Best Seller list. The sense of suspense in the novel comes from whether or not Nick Dunne is involved in the disappearance of his wife Amy.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 As Good As Dead

An amazing thriller part of the 3 part series, and the final book. the main character, Pip Fitz-Amobi is about to head to college, but she is still daunted by the results of her previous investigations regarding other crimes (see *a good girls guide to murder*, and *as good as dead*).

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 If we were villains

Entreated to tell his side of the story to a detective who put him in prison a decade earlier for a murder he may not have committed, Oliver Marks describes his past as a Shakespearean actor in college whose rivalry with a castmate escalated in dangerous ways.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Mr. Mercedes

In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Girl on the Train

A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives. Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Sharp Objects

WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker's troubled past. Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, Camille's first assignment from the second-rate daily paper where she works brings her reluctantly back to her hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Behind closed doors

"The perfect marriage? Or the perfect lie? Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth, she has charm and elegance. You might not want to like them, but you do. You'd like to get to know Grace better. But it's difficult, because you realise Jack and Grace are never apart. Some might call this true love.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Firm

The Firm is a 1991 legal thriller by American writer John Grisham. It was his second book and the first which gained wide popularity. ---------- Also contained in: - [Novels (Firm / Pelican Brief)](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL76969W) - [Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Volume 3 1991](https://openlibrary.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 A Time to Kill

A Time to Kill is a 1989 legal thriller and debut novel by American author John Grisham. The novel was rejected by many publishers before Wynwood Press eventually gave it a 5,000-copy printing. When Doubleday published The Firm, Wynwood released a trade paperback of A Time to Kill, which became a bestseller.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Guest List

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLERS OF THE YEAR “I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie...The alternating points of view keep you guessing, and guessing wrong.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Pretty Girls

More than twenty years ago, Claire and Lydia's teenaged sister Julia vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire. Lydia, a single mother, dates an ex-con and struggles to make ends meet.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The enemy

Jack Reacher. Hero. Loner. Soldier. Soldier's son. An elite military cop, he was one of the army's brightest stars. But in every cop's life there is a turning point. One case. One messy, tangled case that can shatter a career. Turn a lawman into a renegade. And make him question words like honor, valor, and duty. For Jack Reacher, this is that case.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Rock Paper Scissors

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Secret Agent

**The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale** is a novel by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia). The Secret Agent is one of Conrad's later political novels in which he moved away from his former tales of seafaring.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Dark Places

Libby Day tinha apenas sete anos quando testemunhou o brutal assassinato da mãe e das duas irmãs na fazenda da família. O acusado do crime foi seu irmão mais velho, que acabou condenado à prisão perpétua. Desde aquele dia, Libby passou a viver sem rumo. Uma vida paralisada no tempo, sem amigos, família ou trabalho.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Client

In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb...Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Recursion

**Memory makes reality.** That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. That's what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Hannibal

Sequel to: [The Silence of the Lambs][1] Hannibal is a novel by American author Thomas Harris, published in 1999. It is the third in his series featuring Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the second to feature FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling. The novel takes place seven years after the events of [The Silence of the Lambs](https://openlibrary.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Tampa

In this novel, "Celeste Price, a smoldering 26-year-old middle-school teacher in Florida, unrepentantly recounts her elaborate and sociopathically determined seduction of a 14-year-old student. Celeste has chosen and lured the charmingly modest Jack Patrick into her web.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Shutter Island

U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner, Chuck Aule, come to Shutter Island's Ashcliffe Hospital in search of an escaped mental patient, but uncover true wickedness as Ashcliffe's mysterious patient treatments propel them to the brink of insanity.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Sum of All Fears

Peace may finally be at hand in the Middle East -- as Jack Ryan lays the groundwork for a plan that could end centuries of conflict. But ruthless terrorists have a final, desperate card to play; with one terrible act, distrust mounts, forces collide, and the floundering U.S. president seems unable to cope with the crisis.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief is a legal-suspense thriller by John Grisham, published in 1992 by Doubleday. It is his third novel after A Time to Kill and The Firm. ---------- Also contained in: - [Best Sellers](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15134121W/Best_Sellers) - [Novels (Firm / Pelican Brief)](https://openlibrary.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Without fail

Skilled, cautious, and anonymous, Jack Reacher is perfect for the job: to assassinate the vice president of the United States. Theoretically, of course. A female Secret Service agent wants Reacher to find the holes in her system, and fast—because a covert group already has the vice president in their sights. They’ve planned well.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 The Paris Apartment

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Street Lawyer

He gave up the money. He gave up the power. Now all he has left is the law.Michael Brock is billing the hours, making the money, rushing relentlessly to the top of Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm. One step away from partnership, Michael has it all. Then, in an instant, it all comes undone.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 You

"Love hurts... When aspiring writer Guinevere Beck strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe works, he's instantly smitten. Beck is everything Joe has ever wanted: She's gorgeous, tough, razor-smart, and as sexy as his wildest dreams.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Husband

Mitch Rafferty has just sixty hours to save his wife.A suspense novel – and love story – from one of the most acclaimed and popular authors of modern times.What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill?Landscape gardener Mitchell Rafferty was busy planting beds of impatiens for one of his clients when his phone rang.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Partner

John Grisham's bestselling backlist repackaged with fantastic new coversThey found him in a small town in Brazil, near the border with Paraguay. He had a new name, Danilo Silva, and his appearance had been changed by plastic surgery. The search had taken four years. They'd chased him around the world, always just missing him.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 River's End

Kurzbeschreibung Rückkehr nach River's End (River's End) - Nora Roberts Als Vierjährige hat Livvy den Mord an ihrer Mutter beobachtet. Die Schreckensbilder dieser Nacht begleiten sie ihr Leben lang und erst als junge Frau stellt sie sich mithilfe des jungen Schriftstellers Noah ihrer Vergangenheit.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Chamber

The Chamber (1994) is a legal thriller written by American author John Grisham. It is Grisham's fifth novel. ---------- Also contained in: - [Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Volume 1 - 1995](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15158483W/Reader's_Digest_Condensed_Books._Volume_1_-_1995)

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Dark Justice

Jack Higgins pits the heroic covert intelligence team of Blake Johnson and Sean Dillon against a hidden foe in a very different kind of game—with a very different set of rules. Somebody tries to assassinate the president, but they are caught before they can pull the trigger.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Watching you

You're back home after four years working abroad, new husband in tow. You're keen to find a place of your own. But for now you're crashing in your big brother's spare room. That's when you meet the man next door. He's the head teacher at the local school. Twice your age. Extraordinarily attractive. You find yourself watching him. All the time.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Appeal

Carl Trudeau is very unhappy that the Mississippi court system has ruled against his chemical company. His company was accused of dumping toxic waste into the water supply of a small town thus causing a large outbreak of cancer in the community.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Lock Every Door

"Lock Every Door" follows Jules, a down-on-her luck young woman who takes a questionable job apartment sitting in one of the oldest, most glamorous and certainly quite mysterious buildings in New York City. There are many rules to the job: no visitors, no nights spent away from the apartment and no disturbing other residents.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Luftslottet som sprängdes

Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 The Eagle Has Landed

In November of 1943, an elite team of Nazi paratroopers descends on British soil with a diabolical goal: to abduct Winston Churchill and cripple the Allied war effort. The mission, ordered by Hitler himself and planned by Heinrich Himmler, is led by ace agent Kurt Steiner and aided on the ground by IRA gunman Liam Devlin

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Hannibal Rising

Hannibal Rising is a novel by American author Thomas Harris, published in 2006. It is a prequel to his three previous books featuring his most famous character, the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The novel was released with an initial printing of at least 1.5 million copies[1] and met with a mixed critical response.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Home Before Dark

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of USA Today's Best Books of 2020 “A haunted house story—with a twist….[Sager] does not hold back”(Rolling Stone) in this chilling thriller from the author of Final Girls and Survive the Night. Every house has a story to tell and a secret to share.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Gone tomorrow

New York City. Two in the morning. A subway car heading uptown. Jack Reacher, plus five other passengers. Four are okay. The fifth isn't. In the next few tense seconds Reacher will make a choice--and trigger an electrifying chain of events in this gritty, gripping masterwork of suspense by #1 New York Times bestseller Lee Child.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 A Kiss Before Dying

A Kiss Before Dying is the story of young man who has just come out of the horror of World War II and is loath to return to the quieter horror of the manufacturing town he grew up in. These two backgrounds have made him what he is: a young man on the make possessing a complete immorality in the ways he makes it.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Fatherland

Fatherland is set in a world that almost existed but never was: the Berlin that Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, planned to build- the hub of a victorious Third Reich extending from the Rhine to the Urals. Synopsis Expand/Collapse Synopsis It is April 1964 and one week before Hitler's 75th birthday.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Bloodline.

Elizabeth Rolfe, only child of one of the world's richest men, has everything. When her father dies, she discovers that her inheritance includes far more than his international pharmaceutical company.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Alibi

An honorable man. . . a very sexy dilemma. Hammond Cross is a man caught in a moral dilemma. The plot of THE ALIBI centers around Hammond Cross, Special Assistant County Solicitor. (for those of you who don’t live in South Carolina and haven’t read THE WITNESS, you might not know that in that state, lawyers are called solicitors.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 The Kill Artist

"Gabriel Allon had a simple but brutal job: he tracked down and eliminated Israel's terrorist enemies. But when his wife and son fell victim to the danger that accompanied him everywhere, Gabriel quit and devoted himself to the work of art restoration, an occupation that had previously been a cover for his secret assignments.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Die Therapie

Viktor Larenz è un ricco e brillante psichiatra di Berlino, reso celebre dalle sue frequenti apparizioni televisive. La sua vita però va improvvisamente in frantumi quando la figlia dodicenne Josy, affetta da una malattia sconosciuta, scompare senza lasciare traccia durante una visita nello studio del dottore che l'ha in cura.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 N or M?

This novel, set during World War II, sees Tommy and Tuppence Beresford appointed as spies by the intelligence service. Their mission: to seek out the Nazis in disguise, a man and a woman from among the colourful guests at a seaside hotel.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Der Kardinal im Kreml

Two men possess vital data on Russia's Star Wars missile defense system. One of them is CARDINAL—America's highest agent in the Kremlin—and he's about to be terminated by the KGB. The other is the one American who can save CARDINAL and lead the world to the brink of peace…or war. Here is author Tom Clancy's heart-stopping masterpiece.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 The Whistler

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption. But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Web of Dreams

**With nowhere to go, no one to help her, Leigh fled into the arms of Luke Casteel!** Leigh VanVoreen had to escape from Boston's Farthinggale Manor. The foul secret she harbored within her seemed to darken her life forever. Jillian, her mother, would not believe her... and Tony Tatterton, her stepfather, had betrayed her most cruelly.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Associate

The latest legal thriller from international number one bestselling author John GrishamIt's a deadly game of blackmail. And they're making him play. Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he's good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Windswept House

A Black Mass in the Vatican in 1963 gets Malachi's first novel since Vatican (1985) off to a wicked start. A potentially gripping conflict between two American brothers--one a priest, one a lawyer, both heirs to a fortune and to the family manse of Windswept House--follows.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Political Thriller

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📘 Brother

"Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it's served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don't knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what's buried in the Morrows' backyard.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Eileen

"A lonely young woman working in a boys' prison outside Boston in the early 60s is pulled into a very strange crime, in a mordant, harrowing story of obsession and suspense"--

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Het Diner

Het diner is een roman uit 2009 van de Nederlandse auteur Herman Koch. Het diner gaat over vier ouders (twee broers en hun echtgenoten) wier loyaliteit jegens hun kinderen op de proef wordt gesteld wanneer blijkt dat die een misdaad op hun geweten hebben: in hoeverre mag je je kinderen blijven beschermen?

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 La chica del tren

Rachel toma siempre el tren de las 8.04 h. Cada mañana lo mismo: el mismo paisaje, las mismas casas… y la misma breve parada en la señal roja. Son solo unos segundos, pero le permiten observar a una pareja desayunando tranquilamente en su terraza. Siente que les conoce y se inventa unos nombres para ellos: Jess y Jason.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 My best friend's exorcism

1988. Charleston, South Carolina. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act--different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 Rage of Angels

Jennifer, the daughter of a small-town lawyer, joined the staff of the District Attorney of Manhattan, to fight for justice as her father had done. But less than twenty-four hours after being sworn in, Jennifer's hopes, her dreams, her career, were smashed, and she found herself facing disbarment and a possible prison sentence.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Legal Thriller

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📘 Next

Next is a 2006 satirical techno-thriller by Michael Crichton. It was the fifteenth novel under his own name and his twenty-fifth overall, and the last to be published during his lifetime.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Medical Thriller

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📘 None of This Is True

**Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.** Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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📘 The Key to Midnight

Almost twelve years ago, American Joanna Rand arrived in Japan to become a singer in a nightclub. In all that time, she has never been able to escape the strange dream that haunts her night after night. Each time she awakens, she feels violated, used—and terrified.

Genre: Thriller Subgenre: Psychological Thriller

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