The Short Version
If you loved The Silent Patient, you want a narrator you can’t trust and a twist that makes you start over. Here are six thrillers to read next, no spoilers.
Gone Girl
Number one: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn, from twenty twelve. On their fifth anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears, and everyone starts to suspect her husband, Nick.
It’s told by two narrators, one of them through a diary, and the midpoint twist is legendary. If you only pick one, pick this.
The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd
Number two: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie, from nineteen twenty six. Hercule Poirot investigates a murder in a quiet English village.
It’s the book that invented the narrator twist almost a hundred years ago. Read it and you’ll see exactly where The Silent Patient learned its trick.
The Girl On The Train
Number three: The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, from twenty fifteen. Every day, Rachel watches a perfect couple from her train window, until the woman goes missing.
Watching a marriage from the outside, a narrator who can’t trust her own memory, and a man who is not what he seems.
Shutter Island
Number four: Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane, from two thousand three. Two marshals arrive at a hospital for the criminally insane to find a patient who vanished from a locked room.
A psychiatric hospital, a man investigating, and an ending that reframes everything.
Behind Her Eyes
Number five: Behind Her Eyes, by Sarah Pinborough, from twenty seventeen. A single mom starts an affair with her new boss, a psychiatrist, and then befriends his wife.
A therapist, a love triangle, and one of the wildest final twists in the genre.
Verity
Number six: Verity, by Colleen Hoover, from twenty eighteen. A struggling writer is hired to finish a famous author’s books, and finds a hidden manuscript in her house.
A silent wife, a secret confession, and the question of which document is telling the truth.
How To Choose
So, how to choose. For the best twist, Gone Girl. For the original trick, Roger Ackroyd. For watching a couple, The Girl on the Train.
For a hospital mystery, Shutter Island. For a wild twist, Behind Her Eyes. And for a hidden confession, Verity.
Your Turn
Which one are you picking up first? Tell me in the comments. My ending explained and clues video are linked below.
