I need a really gripping page turner

[spaceforthree]

Am plodding through the Millenium Trilogy at the moment. I am clearly the only person in the country who is not much taken with them. Before that I gave up half way through 'The Little Stranger' which was supposedly brilliant (actually incredibly dull) and am fed up with so so books.

Please please suggest some really good, gripping books for me to order of Amazon. Fiction or non fiction.

Definately 'We need to talk about Kevin'. Haunts you forever.
Also agree anything by Kate Atkinson
Fave forever is 'The God of small things' by Arundhati Roy. So beautifully written.

Just finished TRAIL OF THE DEAD By JON EVANS. Not my usual type of thing, but gripping as hell and couldn't put it down.

Have you read Margaret Atwood? All good, but Alias Grace especially.

Any of the Wallander series by Henning Mankell - brilliant page turners. And transcend the crime fiction stereotype imo.

I really like Patricia Highsmith's stuff - can't think of the most recent one I read but was definitely a page-turner (not the Ripley novels, a different one).

I'm reading Her Fearful Symmetry at the mo, I think it's not great...

The Harry Hole (no, really!) detective novels by Jo Nesbo are really good, imo.

I've recently read the 1st 2 Jake Arnott books - The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers - both really good.

Agree about Restless by William Boyd

WE Need To Talk About Kevin was dire in my opinion, and I agree with you about The Little Stranger.

I have Just read The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.

Operation Mincemeat and Agent Zigzag both good non fiction reads.

Currently reading The Case of the Missing Servant which I am finding very entertaining but it is a light read.

Restless - William Boyd, aslo Any Human Heart and The Ice Cream war by him.

Daphne Du Maurier.

I couldn't get through The Little Stranger.

It depends imo, how highbrow a recommendation you need. I'm not a highbrow book reader but I don't like chick lit/books obviously written to be films type nonsense.

If you want fast reading thrillers, you'd do no worse than a Harlan Coben (get his series of Myron Bolitar ones not the stand alone ones, and don't get Play Dead).

I liked Restless.

omni, I love the Wallander series. Loved them. They are so atmospheric. I think you have to be a big lover of writers who create descriptive pictures in your head to like those books. I love the Swedish scenery and the bleak pictures he creates. I have been rewatching series one on BBC4. I read a v sad story that after the actress who plays his daughter in the series committed suicide (in real life), he couldn't bring himself to write any further books in the series so devastated was he :(. V sad all round.

I've also just read the Snowman. Wasn't entirely convinced but having said that, I couldn't put it down lol!

The Little Stranger is better if you don't try to sympathise at all with the narrator, or anyone else for that matter.

i'd like to suggest American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld...

I just read Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld and loved it, it's quite long and probably doesn't look like a page turner, but I found it quite compulsive even though it's not really plot driven.

ooh thanks - more for the list.

I might try Wallander as I love all things Swedish. As a rule I don't really like 'series' books and am not big on any detective novels (but I might make an exception for Wallander as love the BBC4 series).

I liked Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale but found Alias Grace dull and gave up. Gave up on The God of Small Things too (I have no patience as you will have gathered).

I thought Harlen Coben was just for boys (i.e. my husband reads them on holidays and tells me the ridiculous plot lines) but should I try them?

I real all the Patricia Highsmith Ripley books so now I am inspired to try her other ones.

Am astonished how many books I have missed!

I HATED the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In terms of page turners, I loved Sophie Hannah's novels, esp The Point of Rescue and Hurting Distance and Linwood Barclay's No Time for Goodbye and Too Close to Home.

The God of Small ThIngs was just painful - I gave up on it too.
I felt it had to be read in a wafty, film-industry voice - it was written like the descriptive notes on a film script.

I can't agree with Bran

But I can with Chil

the vanishing act of esme lennox by maggie o farrell. great!