Slow Burn Thrillers with Irresistible Page-Turning Tension

the book of guilt by Catherine Chidgey

After a very different outcome to WWII than the one history recorded, 1979 England is a country ruled by a government whose aims have sinister underpinnings and alliances. In the Hampshire countryside, 13-year-old triplets Vincent, Lawrence, and William are the last remaining residents at the Captain Scott Home for Boys, where every day they must take medicine to protect themselves from a mysterious illness to which many of their friends have succumbed. The lucky ones who recover are allowed to move to Margate, a seaside resort of mythical proportions. In nearby Exeter, 13-year-old Nancy lives a secluded life with her parents, who dote on her but never let her leave the house. As the triplets' lives begin to intersect with Nancy's, bringing to light a horrifying truth about their origins and their likely fate, the children must unite to escape--and survive.

beat the reaper by Josh Bazell

The Locanos, a mob family, take in 14-year-old Pietro after a couple of thugs gun down the grandparents who raised him. Bent on revenge, Pietro pursues the killers and executes them a year later. Impressed by Pietro's performance, David Locano recruits Pietro as a teenaged hit man. After more traumas, Pietro tries to make a break from his past by entering the witness protection program. Now known as Peter Brown, he eventually lands a position as a doctor at a decrepit Manhattan hospital, where a former Mafia associate turns up as a patient and threatens to rat him out. The hero's wry narrative voice, coupled with artful use of flashbacks to sustain tension and fill in Pietro's past, are a winning combination in this John Wick-ish thriller.

stillhouse lake by Rachel Caine

Gina Royal is the definition of average--a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband's secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor--the ultimate warrior mom. With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband's crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace. But just when she's starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake.

something in the water by Catherine Steadman

Documentary filmmaker Erin Locke scores big when three high-profile convicts agree to allow her to document their transitions back into society after serving their time. But, as Erin's career soars, her fiancée, Mark, struggles to replace the lucrative banking job he's just lost. Although they can scarcely afford it, Erin is convinced that their Tahitian honeymoon will set things right. But then a boating excursion leads them to a mysterious bag floating amid a plane's wreckage. Inside the bag is what appears to be an answer to their woes: millions of dollars in cash and diamonds. Erin and Mark boldly decide to disregard the accompanying cellphone full of increasingly threatening Russian texts and smuggle the contents back into Europe. But, when Erin secretly attempts to fence the diamonds, she's targeted by ruthless killers and must rely on a local mob kingpin to survive. This debut novel's opening hook, which jumps ahead in the story to reveal a shocking outcome, teamed with Erin's spunk and the threat of the Russian mob, creates irresistible page-turning suspense.

the it girl by Ruth Ware

April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford. Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends--Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily--during their first term. By the end of the year, April was dead. Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah's world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April's death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide ... including a murder.

a sea of unspoken things by Adrienne Young

James and Johnny Golden were once inseparable. For as long as she can remember, James shared an almost supernatural connection with her twin brother, Johnny, that went beyond intuition--she could feel what he was feeling. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she's truly alone for the first time in her life. When James arrives in the secluded town of Six Rivers, California, to settle her brother's affairs, she's forced to revisit the ominous events of their shared past and finally face Micah, the only other person who knows their secrets--and the only man she has ever loved. But as James delves deeper into Johnny's world, she realizes that their unique connection hasn't completely vanished. The more she immerses herself in his life, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was hiding something, and he's not the only one. The deeper she digs, the more she is compelled to unravel the truth behind the days leading up to Johnny's death. Ultimately, James must decide which truths should come to light, and which are better left buried forever.

wild dark shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world's largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But Rowan isn't telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it's too late.

sometimes i lie by Alice Feeney

Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can't move. She can't speak. She can't open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn't remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

it's always the husband by Michele Campbell

Kate, Aubrey, and Jenny first met as college roommates and became inseparable, despite being as different as three women can be. Kate was beautiful, wild, wealthy, and damaged. Aubrey, on financial aid, came from a broken home, and wanted more than anything to distance herself from her past. And Jenny was a striver--brilliant, ambitious, and determined to succeed. As their unlikely friendship formed, the three of them swore they would always be there for each other. But twenty years later, one of them is standing at the edge of a bridge, and someone is urging her to jump. How did it come to this? Kate married the gorgeous party boy, Aubrey married up, and Jenny married the boy next door. But how can these three women love and hate each other enough to murder? When one of them dies under mysterious circumstances, will everyone assume, as is often the case, that it's always the husband?

happiness falls by Angie Kim

"We didn't call the police right away," are the electric first words of this extraordinary novel about a family in Virginia whose lives are upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing. Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything--which is why she isn't initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don't return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia's brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic Angelman syndrome and cannot speak. What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the whereabouts of a father and an emotionally rich portrait of a family whose most personal secrets just may be at the heart of his disappearance. Full of shocking twists, this is a mystery about a family who must go to remarkable lengths to truly understand one another.

the dinner by Herman Koch

In this darkly suspenseful, highly controversial novel, two families struggles to make the hardest decision of their lives-- all over the course of one meal. It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse -- the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love. Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

missing white woman by Kellye Garrett

It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna's new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything--the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury row house in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. But when Bree comes downstairs on their final morning, she's shocked. There's a stranger lying dead in the foyer, and Ty is nowhere to be found. A Black woman alone in a new city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth--especially when it becomes clear that the dead woman is none other than Janelle Beckett, a missing white woman the entire internet has become obsessed with. There's only one person Bree can turn to: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past. As the police and social-media mob close in, all looking for #Justice4Janelle, Bree realizes that the only way she can help Ty--and herself--is to figure out what really happened that night. But when people see only what they want to see, can she uncover the truth hiding in plain sight?

shutter island by Dennis Lehane

Summer, 1954. US Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Along with his partner, Chuck, he sets out to find an escaped murderess named Rachel Solando as a hurricane bears down upon them. But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems, and neither is Teddy Daniels. Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumours of Ashecliffe's radical approach to psychiatry? Rumours that hint of drug experimentation, surgical trials, and lethal countermoves in the shadow war against Soviet brainwashing... As the investigation deepens, the questions mount. How has a barefoot woman escaped an island from a locked room? Who is leaving them clues in the form of cryptic codes? Why is there no record of a patient committed just one year before? What really goes on in Ward C? Why is an empty lighthouse surrounded by an electrified fence and armed guards? The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth, the more elusive it becomes, and the more they begin to believe that they may never leave Shutter Island.

the plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written-let alone published-anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot. Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker's first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story that absolutely needs to be told. In a few short years, all of Evan Parker's predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says. As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his "sure thing" of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?

the turn of the key by Ruth Ware

When Rowan Caine stumbles across the ad, it seems like too good an opportunity to miss--a live-in nanny post, with a staggeringly generous salary. When she arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten--by the luxurious home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family. What she doesn't know is that she's stepping into a nightmare--one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder. Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unraveling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn't just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn't just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn't even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant. It was all of it together. She knows she's made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn't always ideal. She's not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she's not guilty--at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.

Book Jacket: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

i'm thinking of ending things by Iain Reid

It's snowing, and the unnamed narrator is traveling with her new boyfriend Jake to visit his parents at the family farm. During the ride, the narrator repeatedly ponders calling off their relationship and while this revelation may not have arrived at the best of times, it's quickly apparent that a failed relationship is the least of her problems. When the couple arrives at their destination, Jake's parents are awkward, and the evening goes from strange to unsettling as the narrator explores the setting of Jake's childhood. When the pair drive home, the weather takes a turn for the worse. Jake turns off the highway and parks by an empty high school. He goes inside, leaving the narrator alone and frightened. When she enters the building, her vague sense of foreboding turns into outright terror. Interspersed throughout are snatches of conversation about some unknown act of violence that only heightens the feeling of unease. This slim first novel packs a big psychological punch with a twisty story line and an ending that will leave readers breathless. Utterly unputdownable.

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