12 Thrillers Perfect For Your 2024 Book Club
If you’re looking for suggestions for your book club’s next read, check out this list of thrillers that will be sure to keep you barreling toward their conclusions… and give your whole club plenty to discuss.
After her son, Lydan, suffers traumatic injuries in a school shooting, single mom Elisabeth Ross grows enraged at men in power. If they won’t do anything to help end this epidemic of violence, she will. Believing it’s her destiny, she sets out to awaken the world to the cowards these men are and commits her own shocking act of violence.Going by the name Lilith—the first wife of Adam who fled Eden rather than serve a man—she posts a video of her crime that reverberates throughout society.Praised by some, demonized by others, and hunted by the FBI and vigilantes alike, Elisabeth must keep her identity a secret as she tries to care for her son.As events take startling twists, Elisabeth begins to question her act of violence and the very roots and mythology of violence itself. Was her act justified, or has she become the monster that the original Lilith was accused of being?As the FBI draws closer and Lydan starts to display odd, terrifying behavior, Elisabeth plots to avoid capture and keep her son safe at all costs, fearing she’ll never escape what she’s done without losing her son forever.
Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.
But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.
This thriller has an ensemble cast. First, there’s the killer just released from prison for a crime he didn’t commit. There’s his teenage daughter who’s fighting her leukemia diagnosis but wants to be a crime detective. There’s the ex-policeman who helped get the suspect released, and his wife who puts together family trees. And then there’s the California Bear, a serial killer who has just come out of retirement… and they all have to work together to figure him out.
Equal parts chase novel, espionage thriller, and domestic suspense, Hard Girls follows Jane Pool. Jane loves her normal, typical suburban life, she enjoys her family, and she’s happy in her quiet, unfulfilling job. Then her estranged twin Lila bursts back into her life, saying she knows where their absent mother left, and where they can find her. Jane teams up with Lila, and she gets herself into more than she bargained for.
Sharing the estate is Angela’s enigmatic business partner, Scott, whose mercurial moods change as quickly as the conditions on the darkening moors outside. Confined to the glass-walled house, Maddy can’t shake the feeling of being watched. As objects go missing, handprints appear on the windows, and a stranger lurks in the grounds, she finds herself drawn ever closer to Scott. Returning to London once the book is finished, Maddy is excited for their future together. But her dreams are shattered at the book launch when Angela learns that Scott has leapt to his death from the Scottish cliffs.
Which is why, months later and lost in a fog of grief, Maddy is completely blindsided when she sees Scott entering the Tube station just in front of her. It can’t be him, can it? After all, Scott is dead…or is he?
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER!
“It’s everything you want from a thriller–and then some. Hugely enjoyable.” –Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author
They say the camera never lies. But on this show, you can’t trust anything you see. Stranded in the Welsh mountains, seven reality show contestants have no idea what they’ve signed up for.Each of these strangers has a secret. If another player can guess the truth, they won’t just be eliminated—they’ll be exposed live on air. The stakes are higher than they’d ever imagined, and they’re trapped.The disappearance of a contestant wasn’t supposed to be part of the drama. Detective Ffion Morgan has to put aside what she’s watched on screen, and find out who these people really are—knowing she can’t trust any of them.And when a murderer strikes, Ffion knows every one of her suspects has an alibi . . . and a secret worth killing for.
Kyiv, 1919. World War I has ended in Western Europe, but to the East, six factions continue to vie for control of Ukraine. Amidst the political turmoil, young Samson Kolechko is forced to place his engineering career on hold. But in the city of Kyiv everything remains up for grabs and new opportunity lurks just around the corner . . .When two Red Army soldiers commandeer his home, Samson’s life is completely upended. But as Samson juggles his personal life—including a budding romance with the ingenious Nadezhda, a statistician helping run the city’s census—with the soldiers’ intrusion, he winds up overhearing their secret plans. Deciding to report them, Samson instead finds himself unwittingly recruited as an investigator for the city’s new police force.His first case involves two murders, a long bone made of pure silver, and a suit of decidedly unusual proportions tailored from fine English cloth. The odds stacked against him, Samson turns to Nadezhda, who proves to be more than his match. Inflected with Kurkov’s signature humor and off kilter universe, The Silver Bone takes its inspiration from the archives of Kyiv’s secret police, crafting a propulsive narrative bursting to life with rich historical detail.
