Every list of the best thrillers ever written argues about roughly the same twenty books, usually in a comments section, usually at two in the morning. I write psychological thrillers for a living, which means I have read an unhealthy number of them. Mostly in bed. Mostly when I should have been asleep.
So here are the ten I would press into anybody’s hands. I have judged them on three things: how hard they are to put down, whether the twist still lands years later, and how many other writers have spent entire careers quietly copying them. There are no spoilers on this page. I would rather walk into the sea.
What are the top 5 best thriller books?
The short version, for anyone reading this in a queue: Gone Girl, Rebecca, The Silence of the Lambs, And Then There Were None and The Silent Patient. Between them you get the poisonous marriage, the gothic house, the serial killer, the locked-room puzzle and the modern twist. Read those five and you have basically read the genre’s family tree, including the relatives nobody talks about.
The top 10 thriller books of all time
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Amy Dunne disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, and her husband Nick starts behaving exactly like a man who has done something terrible. Or a man who hasn’t. Flynn passes the story between the two of them like a grenade with the pin out, and in doing so she rewired the whole genre. Every “twisty marriage thriller” you have read since owes this book rent.
Side effects: looking at your other half over breakfast and wondering.
Read it if: you want the book your entire book club will fall out over.
Find Gone Girl on AmazonRebecca
Daphne du Maurier · 1938
A shy young woman marries a rich widower and moves into Manderley, a house that still very much belongs to his first wife. The first wife is dead. That doesn’t seem to have slowed her down at all. Nearly ninety years old, and it still feels like someone is standing just behind you while you read.
Side effects: a lifelong distrust of housekeepers.
Read it if: you like your dread slow, elegant and coming up the stairs.
Find Rebecca on AmazonThe Silence of the Lambs
Thomas Harris · 1988
Trainee FBI agent Clarice Starling needs help catching a serial killer, so she goes to the one man who understands how killers think. Unfortunately that man is Dr Hannibal Lecter. Their conversations through the glass are some of the most unnerving pages ever printed, and Lecter is in the book far less than you remember, which somehow makes him worse.
Side effects: you will never hear a polite dinner invitation in quite the same way.
Read it if: you want to be frightened and impressed in equal measure.
Find The Silence of the Lambs on AmazonAnd Then There Were None
Agatha Christie · 1939
Ten strangers are invited to a house on an island off the Devon coast by a host who never turns up. Over dinner, a voice accuses each of them of murder. Then, one by one, they start to die. It is the bestselling mystery ever written, and still the blueprint for every “trapped with a killer” story since.
Side effects: nursery rhymes become deeply sinister.
Read it if: you want a puzzle you can attempt and then confidently fail.
Find And Then There Were None on AmazonThe Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides · 2019
Alicia Berenson, a celebrated painter, shoots her husband five times in the face and then never says another word. Theo Faber, a psychotherapist, becomes quietly obsessed with making her talk. Short chapters, a narrator you can’t quite get the measure of, and an ending that sent half the country flicking straight back to page one.
Side effects: an urge to reread it immediately. Nobody would blame you.
Read it if: you want the modern psychological thriller at its sharpest. If you loved it, I have a whole list of books like The Silent Patient.
Find The Silent Patient on Amazon
An opening line to keep you up tonight
“A grown woman in a pair of old bed socks, standing in the dark outside her own bedroom at ten past three in the morning, watching her husband sleep beside somebody else.”
The Talented Mr Ripley
Patricia Highsmith · 1955
Tom Ripley is sent to Italy to persuade a rich young man to come home. Tom takes one look at the sunshine, the sailing boat and the allowance, and decides he would rather have the rich young man’s life instead. Highsmith makes you root for somebody you should be terrified of, which is far more disturbing than any jump scare.
Side effects: wondering how well you really know your friends.
Read it if: you love a charming liar and a holiday that goes spectacularly wrong.
Find The Talented Mr Ripley on AmazonThe Day of the Jackal
Frederick Forsyth · 1971
A professional assassin with no real name is hired to kill the President of France, and the police race to find him before he gets close. You know how history turned out. It is still unbearably tense, which tells you everything about how beautifully it is built.
Side effects: every queue at passport control becomes a thriller.
Read it if: you like a clock ticking and a hunter being hunted.
Find The Day of the Jackal on AmazonThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson · English edition 2008
A disgraced journalist is hired by an ageing industrialist to find out what happened to a girl who vanished from the family’s island forty years ago. He gets help from Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant, furious hacker who turned into one of the most famous characters in modern crime fiction.
Side effects: a sudden desire for a leather jacket and a much better laptop.
Read it if: you want something big and absorbing to lose a whole weekend to.
Find The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on AmazonThe Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins · 2015
Every day Rachel takes the same train into London and watches the same perfect couple through their kitchen window. Then one morning she sees something she shouldn’t, and the woman goes missing. Rachel can’t fully trust her own memory, mostly because of the wine, and that is exactly the problem.
Side effects: you will never look out of a train window in quite the same way.
Read it if: you want a page-turner you can finish in a single day.
Find The Girl on the Train on AmazonBefore I Go to Sleep
S. J. Watson · 2011
Every morning Christine wakes up with no memory and a stranger beside her who explains, very patiently, that he is her husband. Every night it all disappears again. The journal she keeps is the only thread she has, and it starts telling her things she is not sure she wants to know.
Side effects: keeping a diary will suddenly feel like a very sensible idea.
Read it if: you love claustrophobic, who-can-I-trust thrillers.
Find Before I Go to Sleep on Amazon
A quick detour
What kind of thriller reader are you?
Not sure what to read next? Take the 60-second quiz.
What makes a thriller one of the best ever?
The great ones all do the same three things. Somebody you care about is in danger. Something is being hidden from you, either by a character or by the author, who is frequently the more dangerous of the two. The pace never gives you a sensible place to stop.
The very best also did something first. That is why so many newer thrillers feel strangely familiar once you have read these ten. It isn’t your imagination. Everyone has been borrowing from them for decades. If you would rather know what is good this month, here are the top 10 thriller books right now and the best thrillers of 2026.
Your questions answered
What is the number one thriller book of all time?
There is no official number one, but Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is the book most often named as the best modern thriller. For the classics, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie usually top the list.
What is a must-read thriller book?
Gone Girl is the must-read thriller if you only read one. If you would rather start with something shorter and more recent, read The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.
What are the top 5 best thriller books?
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie and The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.
What is a good thriller for someone who doesn’t usually read them?
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins or The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. Both are short, easy to get into and almost impossible to put down.
Which thriller should I read next?
If you are stuck, take the 60-second quiz and it will pick one for you.
More reading lists
- New thriller authors to watch in 2027
- The best thriller books to give for Christmas
- The best thriller books of 2026
- The top 10 thriller books right now
- Thriller books with plot twists you won’t see coming
- The best mystery thriller books to read
- Books like The Silent Patient
- Books like Verity
- The most anticipated new psychological thrillers of 2027
- The best psychological thrillers on Kindle Unlimited
- Books like Freida McFadden
- Books like Lisa Jewell
- Books like Martina Cole
- Books like Kimberley Chambers and Roberta Kray
- Books like Lynda La Plante
- Books like Mandasue Heller
- Books like Jessie Keane
- Books like MobLand