The Best Psychological Thrillers of the Month: November 2026

In these new psychological thrillers, editors are taken hostage, cat-sitters become amateur sleuths, several small towns are ripped apart by scandal, and long-buried crimes come rising to the surface. All blurbs are my own, unless otherwise stated. Enjoy!

Stephanie Wrobel, Revenge Plot
(Berkley)

Wrobel’s latest is her best yet, chock-full of twists, turns, and unexpected reversals, with a perfectly constructed plot that’s also a rollicking good satire on the publishing industry. Revenge Plot certainly earns its comparisons to Misery, a loving homage that also manages to be entirely surprising. Here’s the gist: a desperate writer, young child in tow, shows up at a famous editor’s winter retreat and holds her hostage whilst making her read his manuscript (a fantasy shared by many writerly hopefuls, surely). As is true of all the best psychological thrillers, a series of well-paced reveals allows for constant reassessment of Wrobel’s characters and their unfortunate predicament, all leading up to the shocking denouement.

Katie Collom, Terrarium
(Bantam)

Collom won me as a fan with her excellent tale of feminist vengeance, Peter Miles Must Die, and her new book seems tailor-made for this Austin-based cat-loving crime editor. In Terrarium, a desperate barista and wannabe veterinarian finds her cat-sitting side gigs drying up after an unfortunate incident; a new job taking care of a wealthy artist’s big fluffy baby drops into her lap at the best possible time, but could her new employer be the Rainey Street killer? Fingers crossed!

May Cobb, All the Little Secrets
(Sourcebooks Landmark)

May Cobb’s follow-up to All the Little Houses functions well as both sequel and standalone—it’s set in the same small town, and begins just after the concluding events of previous volume, but with plenty of new momentum and diverging narratives. All the Little Secrets is not so much about a crime, as about the fallout from a crime—these pages feature attempted coverups, scandalous reveals, and quite a few zingers, for a highly entertaining work harking back to the stylized dramatics of 1980s soap operas.

Carter Wilson, When They Find Me
(Poisoned Pen)

This is a genuine pulse pounder, about two women, both on the run (in a manner of speaking), whose families and destinies collide in the freezing, remote Colorado wilderness. Annie has been living off the grid in a small cabin with her daughter Coral, hiding out, hoping the people hunting her never find her again. And Riven, who has spent her life living off the land, away from society, arrives at this strange town thanks to her father, who swears revenge on the man who ruined his life. –OR

Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes, Clear Water
(Flatiron)

Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes’s new novel is eerie, atmospheric, and highly compelling. Listen to this premise, and tell me you’re not interested right away? When Alma encounters a girl in white she’s never seen before, she’s not sure what she’s seeing—is this person a vision, a ghost of one of the many girls who have vanished in her small Wisconsin town? Some people say that the girls are dangerous, others are too afraid to even wonder. But Alma, who lost her own sister in high school, is determined to find an explanation for the strange events in the town, once and for all. –OR