The best thriller books of 2025, and all time

Critically acclaimed author Jane Harper returns with Exiles, securing her place as the trailblazer of the 'outback noir' genre. After Kim Gillespie disappears from a busy festival, leaving her baby alone in the pram, her absence casts a long shadow over her friends and loved ones. A year later, Kim's loved ones gather to welcome a new addition to the family. Among them is Aaron Falk, a federal investigator, who soon becomes suspicious about Kim's case. As long-held resentments and secrets are exposed, Falk will have to tread carefully to get to the truth . . . 

This standalone thriller from bestselling author, Blake Crouch, follows Abigail Foster and her father and they seek to uncover the truth about the disappearance of an entire mining town in 1893.  Exploring the area, they are joined by two backcountry guides: a psychic and a paranormal photographer. The long-abandoned town is, accoring to rumour, haunted. But Abigail and her companions are about to learn that the town’s ghosts are the least of their worries. Twenty miles from civilization, with a blizzard bearing down, they realize they are not alone.

The House Hunt is a heart-pounding, claustrophobic thriller from C. M. Ewan, acclaimed author of The Interview. Your estate agent calls – she’s running late and needs you to show a man around your home. You let him in and begin the tour. Soon, something about him feels wrong so you ask him to leave – but he refuses. Then he tells you something about you. Something inconceivable. And then you realize he doesn't want your house, he wants you. This is the latest unputdownable read from the master of cat-and-mouse thrillers.

This high-concept conspiracy thriller comes from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten. In order to test out a new piece of spyware, FUSION, on behalf of the CIA, ten people are given two hours to vanish, and stay vanished, for thirty days. Anyone who beats FUSION gets $3million. If everyone is captured, tech-wunderkind Cy Baxter gets a massive contract. But for one contestant, the stakes are much higher than money. . .

Reeling from a devastating encounter that nearly ended his life, Jack Stapleton is still in recovery. His wife Laurie Montgomery, New York’s chief medical examiner, is left to manage a difficult situation at home and an even tougher one at work. When a young man appears on the medical examiner’s table, an apparent death by suicide, Laurie is compelled to try and understand what happened. The autopsy reveals the disturbing possibility that foul play was involved and provides many more questions than answers. And so Laurie ignores her own professional rules to understand who might want the man dead, and why. 

From the author of The One, now an eight-part Netflix series, John Marrs' The Marriage Act brings us a dystopian thriller packed full of twists. Set in Britain in the near future, a right-wing government believes the answer to society's ills is the Sanctity of Marriage Act, where marriage is the expectation and single citizens are shunned. To ensure compliance, the government must keep a watchful eye over every aspect of couples' personal lives. But four couples are about to discover just how challenging relationships can be when someone else is always watching. 

A remote shoreline. A lethal killer. Forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod faces a disturbing case when she encounters a shallow grave on Scotland's west coast adorned with a stickman made of twigs in the victim's mouth. Rhona realises a predator is targeting wild campers as another young woman goes missing from a nearby campsite, with a similar sinister figurine discovered in her van. An idyllic coastline known for providing peace and serenity, now the area is a hunting ground. With a young woman's life hanging in the balance, time is running out, and Rhona must unravel the truth amidst personal and professional turmoil.

Simply Lies is the latest thriller from David Baldacci, featuring Mickey Gibson, a former New Jersey detective and single mother of two. She also works for global investigation company, ProEye, to track down assets of the wealthy who have tried to avoid their creditors. One day she gets a call from a colleague, asking her to visit the home of a notorious arms dealer who has cheated some of ProEye’s clients in the past. Mickey arrives at the mansion to discover the body of a man hidden in a secret room and soon discovers that nothing is at it seems . . . 

When struggling influencer couple Adele and Jack post a crowdfunding video online, they’re amazed when a mysterious benefactor offers to buy them a crumbling French chateau. It’s the lifeline they need to leave all their troubles behind. For Adele, it’s a dream come true. She will post videos of the renovation as thousands of online subscribers follow their journey. But the chateau is not all it seems and the local community is far from welcoming. And then the couple disappear, leaving Adele's sister, Erin, to unravel the shocking truth behind the their disappearance.

A breathless page-turner from an international master of suspense, this is a story about dependency, justice, and the sometimes fine line between right and wrong. Bill is in a financial mess with bills to pay when he rents out a room in his apartment to Karla. Karla left home to study law and to earn some money begins working as a cleaner for Steven and Regina Rytter. Jennica meets Steven on Tinder, but it soon becomes clear that Steven is hiding secrets of his own. By the end of the summer, there have been two murders, but who holds the secret to the truth?

David Asha wants to tell you a story about three people. Elliott Asha, his son, broken by a loss that will redeem him. Ben Elmys, a surrogate father and David’s trusted friend, a man who might also be a murderer. Harriet Kealty, a retired detective searching for answers to three mysterious deaths, while also investigating a man who might turn out to be the love of her life. Every word David tells you is true, but you will think it fiction . . .

Scott Pearce has torn up the espionage rulebook to overcome those spreading division and hate, but radical environmental group White Fire is a new kind of enemy posing a new kind of threat. With everything on the line, Pearce discovers links to an old enemy thought long defeated, and as the danger rises, he realises he and his team, Leila Nahum and Kyle Wollerton, have underestimated the fight ahead. As the conspiracy that links Black 13 and Red Wolves emerges from the shadows, the team has one chance to avert a global catastrophe that could disable the world permanently . . .

The grand opening of Island Home – a forgotten island transformed into the height of luxury – is set to be the celebrity event of the decade. But as the first guests arrive, the weekend soon proves deadly – because it turns out that even the most beautiful people can keep the ugliest secrets and, in a world where reputation is everything, they'll do anything to keep it. The Club is an exhilarating, addictive read, telling a story of ambition, excess, and what happens when people who have everything – or nothing – to lose are pushed to their limit.

Six years after the end of the Great War, a nation is still in mourning. Among them is Beatrice Cade – an orphan, unmarried and childless. Taking a room in a Bloomsbury ladies' club and a job in the city, Bea is determined to carve out a more fulfilling life as single woman, but this independence is soon destroyed when she falls in love for the first time. Meanwhile, Kate Ryan lives her idyllic life with her handsome husband and daughter. That is until one morning, two policemen knock on her door and threaten to destroy the façade Kate has created. Emma Flint's Other Women promises a story of fantasy, obsession and murder.

The kettle is still warm, all the family’s phones are charging on the worktop, but the house is deserted. In fifteen-year-old Riva Holden’s bedroom, scrawled across the mirror in blood, are three words: Make Them Stop. In a gorgeous Art Deco home looking out to the bay of Midtown-on-Sea, a terrible crime has come to light. An entire family – Piper and Gray and their two teenage children – has vanished. Cue the arrival of DS Saul Anguish, a brilliant detective with a difficult past. As he begins to untangle the painful story of the disappearance, he must face his own demons.

Nick Brooks's Promise Boys is a trailblazing, blockbuster YA mystery about three teen boys of colour who must investigate their principal’s murder to clear their own names. When Principal Moore, headteacher at the Urban Promise Prep School is murdered, J.B., Ramón and Trey emerge as the case's prime suspects. With all three maintaining their innocence, they must track down the real killer before they are arrested. This YA thriller shines a glaring light on how the system, condemns Black and Latinx teen boys to failure before they've even had a chance at success. 

Sarah Hilary's compulsive psychological thriller will have you questioning how much you know about the people who live next to you . . .  An exclusive new housing development, Blackthorn Ashes, is the new home for six families hoping for a peaceful life on the cliffs overlooking the Cornish sea. But six weeks later, paradise is lost. Six people are dead. One of its surviving residents, Agnes Gale, is determined to find out the truth about what happened. Even if that truth is deadlier than she could have ever believed possible. 

Bestselling thriller writer Ken Follett is back after over a decade, with a compelling novel featuring a stolen army drone, a hidden stash of highly toxic chemicals, a genius Chinese spymaster and a US president with a populist rival hot on his heels. Never is a terrifying look at how international and diplomatic peacetime is only a few missteps away from a chain reaction of catastrophic consequences, with only three very different protagonists able to prevent disaster by working in the shadows.

Now a Netflix original series, A Nearly Normal Family is the stunning psychological thriller, which asks what would a parent do if their child was suspected of murder, and just how far they’d go to protect them. One night, eighteen-year-old Stella comes home late. The next morning she is accused of murder. As parents Adam and Ulrika deal with the fallout and try to protect their daughter, they must search out the truth – but how much do they really know about their daughter? Told from three viewpoints – father, mother and daughter – but who is telling the truth? 

The first book of the smash-hit Wayward Pines trilogy. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a mission: locate two federal agents who went missing a month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation turns up more questions than answers: Why can’t he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out?

It is Friday, 5 p.m. You're being interviewed for the job you always wanted, in an office thirteen floors above the city. There's nobody else around but you and the interviewer, and their questions are getting stranger and more unsettling. Your fear is rising, and the only route out is to answer a seemingly impossible question. This nail-biting novel comes from bestselling mystery and thriller author C. M. Ewan.

The eleven-year-old girl who has stopped eating, but seems remarkably fine. The nurse sent to see if she’s a fraud. The journalist, on the hunt for a story. Are they experiencing a miracle, or is a child being murdered in slow motion in front of their eyes? Now a Netflix Original film, this novel by the bestselling author of Room, is a compulsive, psychologically complex read.

1980, Mississippi: A sunken jet. Nine passengers. A missing body. The Passenger is the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God. Traversing the American South, from the bars of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness. The Passenger is followed by Stella Maris  – both are too good to be missed. 

On the surface, Patrick Bateman is living the dream: a job as a stockbroker, dinner dates every night at the latest restaurant in town, a string of admirers. But behind the pristine façade lurks a psychopath. It's hard to know which element of Patrick's increasingly sadistic murderous rampage around New York is the most horrifying. The explicit violence. The unsettling feeling of not being entirely sure what's real and what's imagined. The void at the heart of our nightmarish protagonist. Or the implication that the same void sits at the heart of us, too. 

Inspired by a true story and set against the heady backdrop of jazz-filled, mob-ruled New Orleans, The Axeman's Jazz is the first instalment in Ray Celestin's gripping City Blues Quartet, a page-turning historical crime fiction series. New Orleans, 1919. A serial killer stalks the city and issues an ultimatum: play jazz or risk becoming the next victim. As the fearful city complies with his demands, three individuals are set on unmasking the killer’s identity. The Axeman’s Jazz is a tale of gruesome murders, secrets and lies, set against the backdrop of a vibrant and violent city . . . 

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019, My Sister, the Serial Killer is a dark comedy, a page-turning thriller and a commentary on dysfunctional familial relationships. Korede has always been a good big sister, stepping in to help her little sibling clean up her messes. Unfortunately, Ayoola’s messes tend to be lethal.  In fact, she’s dispatched her last three boyfriends in ‘self-defence’. Family comes first, until Ayoola starts dating the doctor at the surgery where Korede works . . . 

A mesmerising debut from author Chigozie Obioma, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize when it was released in 2015. The story follows a family in ruins in the style of a classical Greek tragedy; four brothers decide to fish at a forbidden local river when their strict father is away, but encounter a local madman in a frenzy, who tells them a prophecy that one of the brothers will kill the eldest son of the family. From this encounter, Obioma's novel grows in scope by gaining incredible complexity and emotional power as it spirals towards a heartbreaking ending. 

This twisty psychological thriller became a phenomenon when it was published, selling over twenty million copies worldwide and being adapted into a hit film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. When Nick Dunne wakes up on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary to find his wife missing, he quickly becomes the police’s chief suspect. Amy’s friends reveal she was afraid of him, there are strange searches on his computer and persistent calls to his mobile phone, but Ben swears he knows nothing about any of this. So what really happened to Amy Dunne? 

As well as being a captivating thriller with a moral dilemma at its heart, All Her Little Secrets is also an exploration of race and the legal system. Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all: an Ivy League law degree, a well-paying job as a corporate attorney, great friends, and a no-strings-attached relationship with a rich, charming executive – her white boss, Michael. But everything changes when Ellice goes to meet Michael and finds him dead with a gunshot to his head. And this is just the start – as the case unravels, Ellice discovers shady dealings, forcing her into an impossible decision. 

In Patricia Highsmith's psychological thriller, we meet Tom Ripley, a young man with a talent for deception. Sent to Italy to retrieve a wealthy heir, Tom becomes enamored with the lifestyle of the privileged. As he weaves a web of lies, obsession takes hold, and he embarks on a twisted journey of manipulation and murder. Named one of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World, Highsmith's masterful storytelling and complex characters will keep you on the edge of your seat, craving every twist and turn in this dark and captivating tale.

Alicia Berenson, a renowned painter, mysteriously shoots her husband and never utters a single word again. As her enigmatic silence captures the public's fascination, criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber becomes obsessed with unraveling the truth behind her chilling act. In a relentless pursuit of answers, Theo's own motivations are tested, leading him down a twisted path that threatens to consume him. A gripping tale of obsession and unraveling mysteries, The Silent Patient reveals the dark depths of the human psyche.

Set within a mental institution, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest follows the charismatic Randle McMurphy, who rebelliously disrupts the tyrannical rule of Nurse Ratched. As McMurphy's anarchic spirit sparks a glimmer of hope and freedom among the patients, a battle of wills ensues, revealing the power dynamics and the fragile line between sanity and madness. With its unforgettable characters and searing social commentary, this thought-provoking novel will leave you questioning the nature of control and the resilience of the human spirit.

This multi-million copy global bestseller has cemented itself as a must-read for all thriller fans. In it, we meet Rachel, a troubled woman who finds solace in observing the lives of others during her daily train rides. But when she witnesses something deeply unsettling, she becomes entangled in a chilling mystery that tests her sanity and places her at the centre of a gripping investigation. With its intricately woven plot, complex characters, and relentless tension, this psychological thriller will keep you guessing until the very last page, as you unravel the truth alongside Rachel.

Set among the seaside amusements and dilapidated boarding houses of Brighton’s pre-war underworld, Brighton Rock is both a gritty thriller and a study of a soul in torment. Pinkie Brown, a neurotic teenage gangster commits a brutal murder – but it does not go unnoticed. Rose, a naive young waitress at a rundown cafe, has the unwitting power to destroy his crucial alibi, and Ida Arnold, a woman bursting with easy certainties about what is right and wrong, has made it her mission to bring about justice and redemption. A classic of modern literature, it maps out the strange border between piety and savagery. 

In the Winter Dark is a haunting tale that explores the depths of human fears and secrets. In a remote Australian valley, four individuals are inexplicably drawn together by a series of unsettling events. As the winter darkness closes in, tensions rise, and an elusive and malevolent presence threatens their fragile peace. Winton's lyrical prose immerses readers in a chilling exploration of isolation, primal instincts, and the fragile nature of existence. Brace yourself for a gripping journey into the shadows where the line between reality and the supernatural blurs, leaving you captivated until the final page. 

With 100 million copies sold worldwide, and named one of the Bookseller's 30 most influential books of the last 30 years, a thriller listicle is not complete without Larsson's page-turner. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist and enigmatic hacker Lisbeth Salander join forces to uncover the truth behind a decades-old disappearance. As they delve into a labyrinth of corruption and twisted secrets, their lives become entangled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. With its intricate plotting, complex characters, and a relentless pursuit of justice, this gripping Swedish thriller will keep you eager to unravel the dark mysteries hidden within its pages.