{"id":5788,"date":"2025-07-13T03:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T03:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/5788\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T03:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T03:47:08","slug":"8-twisty-crime-thrillers-that-will-keep-you-reading-to-the-last-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/5788\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Twisty Crime Thrillers that Will Keep You Reading to the Last Page"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elisa Shoenberger has been building a library since she was 13. She loves writing about all aspects of books from author interviews, antiquarian books, archives, and everything in between. She also writes regularly for Murder & Mayhem and Library Journal. She’s also written articles for Huffington Post, Boston Globe, WIRED, Slate, and many other publications. When she’s not writing about reading, she’s reading and adventuring to find cool new art. She also plays alto saxophone and occasionally stiltwalks. Find out more on her website<\/a> or follow her on Twitter @vogontroubadour.<\/p>\n

View All posts by Elisa Shoenberger<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\tZando Projects<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Some secrets don\u2019t stay buried.
When criminal lawyer Justine Stone is handed her first murder trial, she\u2019s ready to prove herself\u2014until she realizes the defendant is her ex. The boy who vanished. The boy who might be a killer.
To uncover the truth, she returns to the hometown she\u2019s spent years avoiding. But with her brother missing and the past closing in, this case may cost more than her career.
Bad Blood by Sarah Hornsley is a jaw-dropping thriller about first loves, buried lies, and the deadly cost of coming home.
\u201cI read it in a single sitting.\u201d \u2014Hayley Scrivenor<\/p>\n

Thrillers are really popular right now and have been for quite a while. Many thriller books have become television shows and movies. For instance, Ruth Ware\u2019s psychological thriller The Woman in Cabin 10 with Kiera Knightley will come out later this year. So, too, will the TV series adaptation for The Housemaid by Freida McFadden.<\/p>\n

But what exactly is a thriller? How is it different from a murder mystery or from horror? MasterClass<\/a> has a good definition:\u00a0<\/p>\n

A thriller novel devotes most of its focus to suspense, dread, and the fear of a future crime\u2014instead of one that\u2019s already happened. Most mysteries reveal a crime and then require their main characters to work backwards to figure out who committed that crime. In a thriller, the bad guy is often established early on, and the main characters must work to stop them from doing evil.<\/p>\n

Writer\u2019s Digest<\/a> has another useful distinction between mystery and a thriller. It notes that a mystery begins where a crime committed and the story\u2019s action is figuring out the solution to the crime (i.e., the who and why, alongside some kind of justice). Thrillers tend to be more emotional, with a focus on \u201cthe fear, doubt, and dread of the hero as she faces some form of what Dean Koontz has deemed \u2018terrible trouble.’\u201d <\/p>\n

Thrillers often blend the best of horror and mystery. <\/p>\n

But with any genre, there can always be crossover. So some books may qualify as both mystery and thrillers. With any book in the crime genre, there\u2019s frequently a big twist and that\u2019s what makes them so enthralling to readers. <\/p>\n

You\u2019re in for a treat with these eight twisty crime thrillers. <\/p>\n

\"MissingMissing White Women by Kellye Garrett<\/p>\n

What do you do when a romantic getaway becomes a race to prove your own innocence? Brenna lands herself in the middle of a murder investigation when she finds a white woman\u2019s body in the foyer of the rental. Her boyfriend Ty has gone missing. The dead woman\u2019s disappearance had made the news and set the social media world aflame. Now everyone and the police think that Ty was behind the woman\u2019s death\u2013and Brenna may have played a part, too. With few resources and public opinion against her, Breanna has to find out who her boyfriend was, his connection to the dead woman, and save her own skin. It\u2019s a smart novel exploring the white missing woman phenomena through the eyes of a Black woman. Garrett won Best Standalone Mystery Novel for ITW Thriller Awards 2025 and was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Hardcover with this title.<\/p>\n

\"AlmostAlmost Surely Dead by Amina Akhtar<\/p>\n

They say life can change on a dime, and Dunia Ahmed is proof of that. One day while waiting for a train, a man tried to throw her into its path before committing the same act to himself. Dunia thought it might be just a one off thing. But then another person tries to kill her and then another. Now Dunia is missing. Did one of her would-be assassins succeed? The story follows a crime podcast trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Dunia and why people were trying to kill her.<\/p>\n

\"coverYou\u2019re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa<\/p>\n

Amaya had not expected to be invited to her former best friend\u2019s wedding in Sri Lanka. She had not talked to her friend in many years after they ended their relationship on bad terms. But when she finds out that her best friend is marrying her ex-boyfriend, Amaya decides that she not only has to attend the wedding but stop it. Even if that means murder. So when the bride goes missing, Amaya is suspected of murdering her former best friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza<\/p>\n

Sara Marsala\u2019s life is falling apart. Her restaurant has gone bust and she\u2019s worried about losing custody of her daughter. So when her great-aunt Rosie passes away, she leaves Sara an unexpected gift that could change her life: a plane ticket to Sicily to visit their ancestral town and a deed to a parcel of land. Her great-aunt had thought that her mother Serafina had not died from an illness but was murdered, possibly over the land. Hoping to find new prospects for her future, Sara decides to travel to Sicily to find out what she can about her great-grandmother\u2019s death and the plot of land. But Sara soon learns that some people do not want the past to be investigated. This story is told from both Sara and Serafina\u2019s points of view. As a bonus, there\u2019s a very real podcast with the same name about Jo Piazza\u2019s real-life investigation into the possible death of her own Sicilian great-great-grandmother.<\/p>\n

\"coverYou Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego<\/p>\n

So yes, it has almost the same title as You\u2019re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa (see above!), but the books are very different. In this one, a group of thriller writers are invited to a writing retreat on the private island by the anonymous J. R. Alastor. But neither Alastor or the woman leading the writing retreat named Mila del Ang\u00e9l intend for it to be a peaceful writing retreat. Instead, both Alastor and del Ang\u00e9l have planned some games and riddles to draw out secrets in the group. But when the bodies start to fall, it sounds like their mysterious hosts have something else up their sleeves.<\/p>\n

\"NotNot So Perfect Strangers by L.S. Stratton<\/p>\n

Tasha Jenkins was on the verge of leaving her abusive husband forever. But when her teenage son goes back to her husband, Jenkins feels\u00a0no choice but to return. Just before she drives back home, a white woman knocks on the window in desperation. Seeing an angry man behind her, Tasha opens the door to her car for this woman\u00a0and peels off. Now both are dealing with bad marriages\u2013but they both have very different ideas on how to handle them.<\/p>\n

\"JillJill is Not Happy by Kaira Rouda<\/p>\n

Jack and Jill may be married but a dark secret bounds them together. When their daughter goes off to college, Jack finally has had enough and wants to file for divorce. Jill won\u2019t let her picture perfect marriage go without a fight. She plans a roadtrip for the two of them to Utah\u2026but both have plans up their sleeves to get the future that they want. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Long Weekend by Gilly MacMillan<\/p>\n

For folks who want a little bit more of a taste of White Lotus, here\u2019s a twisty thriller for you. A group of couples have planned a weekend away in Dark Fell Barn, which is set far from everyone on a farm in Northumberland. The women arrive first before their husbands, but when they arrive, there\u2019s a note. One of the woman\u2019s husbands is dead. On top of that, there\u2019s a storm that makes their isolation complete. None of the three women can reach out to their husbands, nor leave the retreat. All they have are their secrets which are all about to come how. <\/p>\n

Want more thrillers? Check out this list of the best thrillers in the past 10 years<\/a>. Prefer a twisty mystery? We\u2019ve got those, too<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elisa Shoenberger has been building a library since she was 13. She loves writing about all aspects of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-5788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}