The joy of reading twisty thrillers

There’s nothing like indulging in a psychological thriller on a cold winter's day. While some people may consider them the equivalent of a popcorn movie, it takes real skill to create a gripping page-turner. These stories are also incredibly entertaining, and there should be no guilt in picking one up. Despite how it can be portrayed in the media or through our schooling, reading is entertainment. It's meant to be fun.

One could say a twisty thriller follows The Traitors technique: continually taking the reader by surprise, while leaving them wanting more. And just as viewers of The Traitors are tantalised by the Scottish castle location (and Claudia’s tweed jackets), the domestic setting of a psychological thriller is key. It should be set in a covetable place: maybe an exclusive, isolated resort, a townhouse in Paris or a luxurious hunting lodge in the Highlands. It’s also all about the complexity of the characters, how they interact with one another and what secrets they keep.

With this in mind, I’ve curated a booklist of 10 thrillers to help you enjoy some guilt-free reading.

It Ends At Midnight by Harriet Tyce

Speaking of The Traitors, one of this year’s contestants, Harriet Tyce, is also a crime writer. Her first, Blood Orange, is an addictive thriller about a heavy-drinking barrister, and her follow-up, It Ends At Midnight, is equally twisty.

Tyce is an Edinburgh author, and so she uses the city’s Hogmanay celebrations and a lavish party in a New Town apartment as a framing device. But she also dips between timelines to uncover how childhood secrets and resentments have carried into adulthood. The result is literal and metaphorical fireworks at midnight.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

I love the way Lucy Foley takes a cast of characters, places them in a different setting, and then lets the story unravel from each of their points of view. I’ve chosen The Hunting Party because the Scottish Highland setting is perfect for a cosy read.

A group of nine arrives at a remote hunting lodge for another New Year’s party, and in true Agatha Christie fashion, when one of the party is found dead in a blizzard, the story teases out the culprit.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

You might have heard this name recently, as Freida McFadden’s bestselling novel has been adapted into a movie starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney. The cinematic version is delightfully trashy, but McFadden is also incredibly clever in how she lures you into the world of Millie.

Millie is a parolee who takes a job as a housemaid for a wealthy couple, and finds their relationship is not quite as it seems. If you need more Millie, the book did so well that it spawned two sequels.

Maestra by LS Hilton

I should confess that I’ve read Maestra and its sequels more than once. While it may be trashy, I also learnt a lot about the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Author Lisa Hilton is a historian who has published weighty biographies, and you can tell she had a wild time coming up with the plot of this thriller, and her potentially psychopathic heroine. Grounded in the rarefied and Machiavellian art world, it takes the reader from a snobby auction house in London to a tech billionaire’s yacht as it cruises the Mediterranean, to a murder by the banks of the Tiber in Rome and the narrow alleyways of Venice. I should also warn you, it is a little bit raunchy.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (trilogy) by Chloe Esposito

This trilogy is a wild ride through Italy, following a very chaotic anti-heroine, Alvie, who steals her twin sister’s life. Beth is the golden sister, Alvie the party freak who can never hold onto a job, and what is most engaging about Esposito’s work is Alvie’s unique voice, as if she’s a Love Island contestant with a sociopathic streak. The story unfolds from her point of view, and each part of the trilogy takes us on a journey that involves mistaken identity, gangsters, and deadly deeds.

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

You might have seen the adaptation of The Woman in Cabin 10 on Netflix, and its author, Ruth Ware, is one of the UK’s most prolific thriller writers. The It Girl is a favourite of mine, and like many a good psychological thriller, it delves into the past to answer a mystery in the present. At Oxford University, Hannah meets the dazzling April, who is the It girl of the title, and who is later murdered. Years later, Hannah wonders if the wrong man was convicted, and whether the answer can be found within in her friendship group.

The Guest by Emma Cline

Emma Cline followed her debut Manson Family-esque The Girls with The Guest, which features my favourite kind of heroine: chaotic, messy, and unstable. Alex is a young escort who has been staying with an older millionaire in the Hamptons over the summer. When she makes a faux pas at his party, he kicks her out, and she spends the next five days trying to outrun a debt she owes in New York and trying to latch onto the rich and idle to give her a place to stay. Definitely one for fans of The White Lotus, as it serves as a commentary on the grotesquerie of extreme wealth.

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz

This one might appeal to the writers out there who long to escape it all and spend a week at a writer’s retreat. The heroine is, of course, flawed, and she successfully wins a place at the retreat of a famous but mysterious writer, Rosa, who has hand-selected five aspiring female authors to learn from her. Alex not only finds that her former best friend, with whom she has had a spectacular falling out, is also there, but that Rosa’s intentions are somewhat darker than she had advertised.

The Maid by Nita Prose

We’ve got another maid as our heroine in Nita Prose’s first instalment of her ‘Molly the Maid’ series. I’d say it’s less of a thriller and more of a mystery set within the walls of a luxury New York hotel. Molly is a neurodivergent maid who is expected to be invisible to her guests, and therefore offers a unique voice as we explore the mystery through her eyes. I read this when on holiday, and it was both charming and addictive. I really couldn’t put it down.

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

I thought I’d break from the contemporary by selecting Valley of the Dolls as my final pick. You may well have heard of it, and if you don’t know what it’s about, think of it as a camp classic along the lines of All About Eve or Mad Men, as it taps into Broadway and Hollywood in the 1960s. It’s a soapy tale about the pressures of fame on three young women, and deals with body image, drug addiction, and feminism.

It’s hard to believe just how much of a phenomenon the book was at the time – it was number one on The New York Times bestseller list for 22 consecutive weeks. At one time the world’s most popular novel, it really is the ultimate guilt-free pleasure!