The Best Psychological Thrillers of the Month: August 2026

Here are six scintillating thrillers to finish out the summer. Enjoy!

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Jessica Hamilton, The Woods
(Simon & Schuster)

What if your family members were all replaced…by a better family? That’s the premise behind Jessica Hamilton’s folk horror-influenced thriller, in which grieving mother Alice finds a new home for her family, hoping they can move on from a terrible loss. The new house is the site of plenty of tragedy—a family was massacred there by the matriarch, convinced her children and husband had been replaced by some thing from the woods—but it’s not their tragedy, Alice reasons. The forest, however, has plans for Alice and her family. There are terrifying creatures among the tall trees. And they are ready to slip into her husband’s skin and do all the dishes.

Josh Silver, Fruit Fly
(Crooked Lane)

A savage takedown of literary pretension and the quest for authenticity, Fruit Fly is quite possibly the meanest—and most accurate—take on publishing that I’ve read in some time. In this satirical psychological thriller, an author with a nasty case of writer’s block decides to steal the life story of a drug-addled sex worker for her new novel. Her chosen subject is no fool, sensing a place to stay and sober up if he plays this right, and their cat-and-mouse game of manipulation, exaggeration, and exploitation rapidly escalates to the point of mutually assured destruction.

Leslie Bazzett, Mia
(Scribner)

Reminiscent of Chelsea Bieker’s Madwoman or Rachel Eve Moulton’s Tantrum, two recent tales of monstrous motherhood, the psychodynamics of Mia get queasy and nasty real quick. Bazzett’s debut, set in the American expat community of San Miguel de Allende, is aptly compared to Patricia Highsmith: the novel follows the obsessive friendship between a young mother and the older woman who begins to fill the role of her mother, triggering a cascade of terrible memories and even worse events. Mia takes a simple premise—be careful who you pretend to be—and carries it to extreme, and devastating, conclusions.

Jennifer Hillier, Heart of Glass
(Minotaur)

Heart of Glass looks to be classic Jennifer Hillier, featuring an old crime, a new murder, and a whole lot of secrets. In Hillier’s latest, two women revisit the greatest trauma of their youth—the disappearance of a friend from a notorious amusement park, now set to reopen—when new evidence challenges old assumptions, and new bodies start washing ashore.

Raphael Montes, The Secret Dinner
Translated by Zoë Perry
(Celadon)

Raphael Montes has been a favorite of mine ever since I read his darkly comedic kidnapping story, Perfect Days (the psychopathic narrator not only abducts a woman but also…forcibly edits her novel, which is just the worst thing you can ever do to a writer). I’ve been waiting to read more from Montes ever since, and The Secret Dinner, his first US publication in over a decade, seems well worth the wait. In The Secret Dinner, a group of broke roommates finds a novel way to make rent: hosting private dinners for the ultrawealthy, where they serve one special ingredient, not available anywhere else—human flesh. A satirical (and literal) evisceration of foodie culture and wealthy excess.

Chris Bohjalian, The Amateur
(Doubleday)

Chris Bohjalian’s latest is, quite simply, a masterpiece. I cannot praise this novel enough. It’s delicate, haunting, complex, and startling; a wide-ranging condemnation of polite society disguised as a character study and comedy of manners. And in addition to all The Amateur‘s literary feats, the novel also happens to make golf seem…kinda interesting? Which is obviously the novel’s most difficult achievement. In case you want to know what the book’s actually about: The Amateur begins with a shocking death, as a budding golf pro hits a ball through a hole in a net and hits a caddy in the head, instantly killing him. What follows is an odyssey of self-recrimination and terrible truths, a prescient reminder that those who feel most inclined towards guilt are often the least deserving of blame. The Amateur is a standout stunner of a story, and the perfect gateway into Bohjalian’s substantial literary oeuvre.