Horror, Thrillers, & Suspense

Angie Kim’s novel Miracle Creek (2019) is a courtroom drama and classic whodunit—during an alternative medical treatment, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), an explosion kills two people and injures six others. The fire that caused the explosion was set deliberately, and readers follow along as Kim weaves moments of drama set in the present with flashbacks to the past. Kim, a Korean immigrant who came to the United States as a child with her parents, is... Read Miracle Creek Summary

Published in 1987, Stephen King's psychological horror novel Misery tells the story of Paul Sheldon, a best-selling American author of a series of romance novels set in the 19th century, featuring the protagonist Misery Chastain. After a car accident leaves him wounded, Paul is kidnapped by Annie Wilkes, a woman who claims to be his biggest fan. She threatens his life, forcing him to rewrite a sequel to the series' final novel that changes the... Read Misery Summary

When Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn first appeared in 1999, critics hailed the novel as an homage to classic 1930s hard-boiled crime fiction. In his novel, Lethem bends the traditional elements of the genre, creating a detective story that is both an enthralling crime story and a clever parody of one. Wannabe detective Lionel Essrog, who has Tourette’s syndrome and is given to involuntary outbursts, relates the narrative in strings of often rhyming and obscene words... Read Motherless Brooklyn Summary

Murder on the Orient Express, first published in 1934, is a mystery by Agatha Christie featuring one of her most famous characters, the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. A locked-room mystery, the novel unfolds in a train, the Orient Express, which has become stranded in a snowstorm. Poirot happens to be on the train when a man named Mr. Ratchett is murdered. Poirot is called upon to solve the case, and the book follows his investigation... Read Murder on the Orient Express Summary

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My Friend Dahmer is a graphic novel/memoir by American cartoonist and writer Derf Backderf, known for utilizing darkness and shading in his comic strips and graphic novels. Evolving from a 24-page cartoon created in 2002, My Friend Dahmer (2012) depicts the author’s memories of his high school friend, notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, in novelistic form—exploring the ways Dahmer himself could have been helped and his 17 murders prevented. The graphic novel was adapted into... Read My Friend Dahmer Summary

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My Sister, the Serial Killer, is a novel by Nigerian-born British writer Oyinkan Braithwaite, originally published in the UK in 2019. Set in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, this darkly satirical, structurally experimental crime story about the extremes of family bonds bears an unusually revealing and literal title, and it has been longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize. The novel was also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2019 Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards... Read My Sister, the Serial Killer Summary

Dennis Lehane’s 2001 thriller/mystery novel, Mystic River, follows the lives of three childhood friends who suffer a traumatic event. Twenty-five years later, they are forced back into one another’s lives when one of their daughters is found murdered. In 2002, the novel earned the Dilys Award and was made into an Academy Award-winning film directed by Clint Eastwood. This study guide uses the 2003 First Dark Alley edition of the book. Plot SummaryIn 1975, Dave... Read Mystic River Summary

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Written by celebrated British fantasy author Neil Gaiman and published in 1997, Neverwhere was originally created as a BBC television series that aired in 1996 and was also written by Gaiman. However, because the practical limitations of the production process necessitated many changes to the original story, Gaiman created the novel to correct and improve upon the series and more fully encapsulate his vision. The novel follows the London-based misadventures of Richard Mayhew, who comes... Read Neverwhere Summary

Nine Perfect Strangers is a 2018 novel by Liane Moriarty. Set in Sydney, Australia, the novel follows a group of strangers who gather at a wellness retreat to receive treatment from a mysterious health guru. The novel was adapted for a 2021 television series starring Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, and Michael Shannon.Other works by this author include Apples Never Fall, What Alice Forgot, and Here One Moment.This guide uses an eBook copy of the text... Read Nine Perfect Strangers Summary

Ninth House is a 2019 contemporary occult fantasy novel by American writer Leigh Bardugo. Inspired by the author’s undergraduate experiences at Yale University, Ninth House is part of the Alex Stern series with the next book planned for release in 2021. The novel is also popular on BookTok, a community of readers and book content creators on TikTok. The story is set in a macabre version of the real world and focuses on the occult... Read Ninth House Summary

In No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell investigates a sudden spate of murders in his typically quiet corner of the Texas borderlands. Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam vet and hunter, gets caught up in the aftermath of a drug-deal gone wrong, and soon both Sheriff Bell and a mysterious hit-man race to be the first to track Moss down: one with the intention of saving his life and the other... Read No Country for Old Men Summary

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South African author Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014) published the short story “Once Upon a Time” in 1989 while South Africa was still under apartheid, an institutionalized system of racism that from 1948 until 1994 discriminated against all people who were not white. Gordimer was the daughter of Jewish immigrants. Though not an Afrikaner (a South African descended from 17th-century Dutch colonizers), Gordimer was white and therefore part of South Africa’s ruling minority. Gordimer wrote about characters... Read Once Upon a Time Summary

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One Second After is a 2009 dystopian alternate history novel by Dr. William Forstchen depicting what might happen to a small American town after an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike. The book is the first in a trilogy known as the John Matherson series. The remaining titles are One Year After (2015) and The Final Day (2017), and all three books are New York Times bestsellers.Forstchen took his inspiration for One Second After from a 2004... Read One Second After Summary