5 Psychological Thrillers to read in January

Here we are: brand new year, brand new decade, and some new names on our psychological thrillers list. There are three of strong debuts—Long Bright River by Liz Moore, The Truants by Kate Weinberg, and worldwide hit The Tenant by the Danish crime writer Katrine Engberg. There’s a new book from a fan favorite, Alex Marwood, whose previous books The Wicked Girls and The Darkest Secret proved she is a quick study in the psychological thriller. All told, the year is off to a delightfully creepy start.

Alex Marwood, The Poison Garden (Penguin)

Psychological suspense favorite Marwood tries her hand at that perennial crime fiction favorite, the cult novel. Marwood’s cult is called the Ark, and they live in an isolated part of Wales. The novel opens with a mass suicide of a hundred members. Our heroine, Romy, is a young, pregnant woman who has never lived outside the cult and has to fend for herself after the dissolution of the Ark.

Liz Moore, Long Bright River (Riverhead)

In Moore’s hefty novel two sisters who have gone down divergent paths—Mickey is a cop, Kacey a junkie and petty criminal—come to an impasse. After years of trying to save her sister Mickey finally puts some distance between them and she marvels at how different she feels. But her salad days are not long-lived: Kacey disappears, and Mickey’s savior complex kicks in again. Moore does a good job of creating the setting, Philadelphia, and has a kind of empathy for her characters that makes you root for them.

Katrine Engberg, The Tenant (Scout)

Enberg is a breakout star in her native Denmark and other countries where the Tenant has already been published. A former dancer and choreographer, she also wrote for television before trying her hand at a novel. And it’s quite a novel: A young woman named Julie Stender has been brutally murdered with lines cut into her face. The police determine that Stender’s landlady, Esther, has something to do with her murder, but new evidence points not to Esther but to some unknown puppet master who is controlling the situation.

Tanen Jones, The Better Liar (Ballantine)

Oh, sisters. It’s the second most fraught relationship in domestic suspense, right after husband and wife. In Jones’s clever riff on the sisters theme, Leslie finds her sister, Robin, dead in her Las Vegas apartment. The hitch: their wealthy grandfather finally died and left them an inheritance, but they can only claim it if they are together. So Leslie does what every mystery-reading red blooded American would do: she finds a woman who looks like Robin and has her impersonate her sister. But things get creepy when Leslie realizes she has invited a stranger into her home, and they both have secrets they would rather not reveal.

Kate Weinberg, The Truants (Putnam)

University student Jess Walker has a jones for Agatha Christie and an intellectual crush on her teacher, Dr. Lorna Clay, who is one of those anti-establishment types the kids love. As soon as she falls under Clay’s spell she also falls into a group of delinquents, but their transgressions are  usually against themselves. When the dynamic in her new group of friends gets heavy, Jess is at a loss, but her friends are sinking into dark moods and muttered accusations. If you like school settings—and I do—you will be very happy hanging out with the truants.