October may be spooky season, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up a psychological thriller or three to fill the evenings! Here are five new suspenseful novels that kept the pages turning, and me guessing, and all of us distracted from the real-world suspense of the descending apocalypse ahem, election.
Jason Rekulak, The Last One at the Wedding
(Flatiron)
Jason Rekulak’s sophomore thriller follows an estranged father attending his daughter’s wedding to a shady tech billionaire. Something’s off with her soon-to-be-husband and his creepy family, but those familiar with them aren’t giving up any secrets, and if he pushes too hard, the father of the bride could lose his relationship with his daughter for good. Suspensefully told, and disturbingly realistic.
Emma C. Wells, This Girl’s a Killer
(Poisoned Pen)
What if Dexter was set in Louisiana, and instead of featuring a dude who specializes in now-debunked junk science, it’s about a female pharmaceutical rep? So yeah: she’s got access to a wide pool of ne’er-do-wells who won’t be missed, and a whole lot of drugs with which to pick ’em off. I hope that it gets really meta and she kills some nasty insurance claim deniers. Fingers crossed.
Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Sequel
(Celadon)
Fans of Korelitz’s literary thriller The Plot will (manuscript theft! identity theft! murder most foul! soup!) get excited for the sequel: The Sequel, in which a certain author’s widow decides to write her own book—and discovers that she’s not the only one who knows a few secrets after all. Fun. –Emily Temple, Lit Hub Managing Editor
Alia Trabucco Zerán, Clean
translated by Sophie Hughes
(Riverhead)
A housemaid in prison narrates her tale of woe as a confession in this visceral exploration of class, privilege, and humanity. It is clear from the beginning that something terrible has happened to her employers’ young daughter, but we must wait for a complex story to unravel before learning exactly the nature of the tragedy. Heartbreaking, furious, and a modern masterpiece.
Del Sandeen, This Cursed House
(Berkley)
Jemma Barker is broke and newly single when a strange offer comes in: a lucrative position has opened up with a wealthy family on their Louisiana plantation, and Jemma needs to get out of Chicago, fast. It’s 1962 and the world is changing, but for the family on the plantation, things appear to be frozen in time, as the family is still stuck in the colorism that allows them to feel superior to the darker-skinned Jemma. Sandeen’s heroine soon learns that the family has summoned her for a very particular purpose: they are cursed, and they believe her to be the only one who can save them from future calamity.
