If you’re after a book that will keep you turning the pages long past lights-out, look no further than this month’s crop of thrillers. From suburban streets hiding explosive secrets to storm-lashed getaways, remote mountains and claustrophobic canal boats, these novels are united by one thing: the sense that something is about to go very, very wrong…
The Barbecue at No 9 by Jennie Godfrey; Witch Trial by Harriet Tyce; A Bad, Bad Place by Frances CrawfordThe Barbecue at No 9 by Jennie Godfrey
When neighbours of a suburban street gather to watch Live Aid, tensions and long-buried secrets surface. Set over a single, sun-drenched day in 1985, Godfrey’s latest is every bit as warm and gripping as smash-hit debut, The List of Suspicious Things.
Hutchinson Heinemann, £16.99
Witch Trial by Harriet Tyce
When an 18-year-old girl is found dead in an Edinburgh park, suspicion falls on her closest friends. The bestselling author turned The Traitors star mines the febrile world of teenage loyalty, online rumour and moral panic, building a tense, unsettling thriller.
Wildfire, £18.99
A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford
Inspired by the author’s Glaswegian upbringing, this wonderfully assured debut traces the ripple effects of a 1979 murder on a tight-knit community. Told by a watchful 12-year-old and her fearful grandmother, it explores memory and silence with real emotional force.
Bantam, £16.99
The Weekend by T M Logan; Adrift by Will Dean; The Exes by Leodora DarlingtonThe Weekend by T M Logan
A group of friends retreat to the Yorkshire Dales for a getaway that takes an unexpected turn when they discover a bag stuffed with cash. They plan to hand it into the police; then a storm rolls in. Logan peels back layers of resentment and toxicity and asks how well you really know your friends.
Zaffre, £16.99
Adrift by Will Dean
Trapped on a Midlands canal boat with her young son and a dangerous man, a mother must navigate her worst fears. Dean builds a claustrophobic thriller that examines control and resilience under extreme pressure, ratcheting tension with every page.
Hodder & Stoughton, £22
The Exes by Leodora Darlington
Natalie’s former partners all share an awkward detail: they are dead. When her marriage begins to fracture, she is forced to confront her own capacity for violence. This darkly funny and completely compelling psychological thriller ought to be everywhere.
Michael Joseph, £16.99
Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward; The Pie & Mash Detective Agency by J D Brinkworth; Greedy by Callie KazumiNowhere Burning by Catriona Ward
High in the Colorado mountains lies Nowhere, a feral refuge for runaway children with a bloody past – think Peter Pan’s Neverland but far more macabre. Blending fairytale and horror, this is a deeply unsettling novel about a different kind of chosen family.
Viper, £16.99
The Pie & Mash Detective Agency by J D Brinkworth
Local schoolteacher Dev Hooper’s girlfriend vanishes — the fifth woman with the same name to do so in fifty years. Enter two amateur sleuths armed with enthusiasm and little else in this playful, affectionate take on cosy crime with a pleasingly eerie edge.
£16.99, Century
Greedy by Callie Kazumi
A gambling addict accepts a job as private chef to a reclusive billionaire with an unsettling appetite. As the world she has walked into becomes increasingly sinister, this horror-flecked novel explores consumption, debt and desire with plenty of mounting dread.
Century, £16.99
The Killing Time by Elly Griffiths; He’s the Devil by Tobi Coventry; Underdogs by Stephen LeatherThe Killing Time by Elly Griffiths
Detective Ali Dawson returns in this inventive sequel to The Frozen People, juggling cold cases, time travel and personal loss. Investigating a present-day death linked to a psychic medium, Ali risks a forbidden return to Victorian London, with dangerous consequences.
Quercus, £22
He’s the Devil by Tobi Coventry
When a seductive new flatmate arrives, a young man’s carefully contained life begins to unravel. This gleefully camp, body-horror-tinged novel brims with millennial anxiety and is knowingly outrageous but utterly convincing.
Fourth Estate, £16.99
Underdogs by Stephen Leather
A former SAS soldier, now deaf and homeless, is pulled into a deadly conspiracy after entering a particular alley. Paired with his loyal dog, Leather’s battered hero powers through a gritty thriller about unfinished business.
Macmillan, £20
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Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra
Deep in the mountains during a reckless ski trip with his cruel father, a 12-year-old boy must rely on survival skills his mother once taught him. This literary thriller is a stark, spin-chilling study of danger being closer to home than you think.
Viking, £18.99
The Shadow Carver by Nadine Matheson
When a convicted killer is murdered with a distinctive signature, DI Henley uncovers a pattern far more sinister than copycat crime. Brutal and fast-moving, this procedural builds relentless momentum as the line between hunter and hunted blurs.
HQ, £20
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