The most gripping thriller? share your thoughts to win £50 Selfridges vouchers

[RachelMumsnet]

We're wanting to find out which book have made your heart race, pulse jump and forced you to stay up reading long into the night.

To celebrate the publication of Alexandra Burt's debut Little Girl Gone, we're asking you to share your most unputdownable book. Join the discussion and tell us why it gets your vote. All those who join the thread will be entered into a draw to win £50 Selfridges vouchers

Little Girl Gone is the debut novel of Alexandra Burt and has been hailed as “impossible to put down” by Award winning author, Meg Gardiner and as a "thrilling, nail-shredding page-turner that fans of ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ won’t be able to put down".

This thread is sponsored by Harper Collins

Love all the P J Tracey books but my favourite has to be snow blind.

Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson. Brilliant page turner.

The Red Dragon By Thomas Harris is one I remember being gripped by.

Definitely The Secret History, in fact I may have to read it again as I've forgotten the detail but just remember the intensity of feeling as I was reading it.

Also I really enjoyed some of Douglas Kennedy's early thrillers - The Dead Heart and The Big Picture are thrillers in a blackly comic kind of way, but The Special Relationship is the best. I worried at first it was going to be very depressing, but it becomes an absolutely gripping court room battle (the main character is suffering post natal depression and is fighting for custody of her child). I definitely got 'one more chapter' syndrome with that one!

Into The Darkest Corner was the first thriller I ever read and I loved it. Before that, I read mostly fantasy and horror and now I enjoy reading thrillers.
I've enjoyed Gone Girl, Appke Tree Yard and Girl On the Train recently.

I don't think I blinked when I read "I Let You Go" by Claire Mackintosh, and definitely shrieked out loud at the mid story twist, drew breath and steamed right on through to the final gasp.....

I gave myself serious arm ache walking around the house and everywhere with the great big hardback of The Goldfinch - became surgically attached to it until I had read every single last word. Not an out and out thriller, but a racing read nonetheless.

And I am in complete agreement that Into The Darkest Corner was utterly terrifying, really was scared to breathe.

A Game For All The Family by Sophie Hannah - it has a story within a story and kept me gripped until the end.

One of the Mumsnetters in our MN Merton Book Group shameless self-promotion suggested we read The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty. It's not as heavy as many in the Nordic, Northern European and American genre (is that partly due to the Australian setting, I wonder?), but nevertheless a real page-turner, with a shocking denouement (but not necessarily in the way one would expect - but there again isn't that the mark of a great thriller?). Enough said...

Definitely The Secret History as others have said.
Not sure it qualifies as a thriller, but Girlfriend In A Coma by Douglas Coupland caused me to miss several stops on the bus I was so engrossed.

Another MN Merton Book Group member here - and a huge fan of page-turners for getting me through tough times.

I'm partway through The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty and enjoying it.

My faves are:

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (and her other works)
Gone Girl (and the author's other works)
Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
All the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo books by Stieg Larsson
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Is The Road by Cormac McCarthy a thriller? If so, then that. Certainly a page-turner.

The girl with the dragon tattoo by Steig Larsson. My mum enjoyed the film but I preferred the book.

The unknown soldier by Gerald Seymour kept me in the bath, emptying it out and refilling it with hot water as I didn't want to stop reading.

My first thought was The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and I'm glad to see a couple of other posters agree.

It's utterly gripping and a true thriller imo.

Loved The Missing File by DA Mishani. Enjoyed it on a lovely summer break a couple of years ago and it was great to be fully engrossed in a novel and have the luxury of not having to put it down!

Quite a few of these:

Into the darkest corner truly terrifying.
The Secret History really intriguing with a hint of Lord of the Flies.
The Woman in White classic Wilkie Collins.

I have nearly finished The Quincunx (mentioned upthread) a real page turner, a bit Dickens/Wilkie Collins but written with a modern eye.

Magpies - Mark Edwards -gripping, terrifying and utterly,plausible. Loved it!

Silence of the Lambs and the other one, Red Dragon I think. Both really enjoyable but scary.

Totally agree with annadale about Dick Francis books... I have a collection of his older books written in the 60's and 70's which I love to return to. Yes, they are dated but the plots are page turners, totally gripping. I've been scared of horror books since reading a couple of Stephen Kings when I was in my teens!

Tana French Broken Harbour kept me up at night when I was pregnant with my first DD. It was so quietly creepy, deeply rooted in the mundane everyday, that it made you feel that we all live our lives on the brink of disaster and a few bad decisions can push any of us over the edge.

Makes notes

girl in the red coat I think

The book series of the girl with the dragon tattoos did it me. Really really good.

Sister by Rosamund Lupton. I don't much like thrillers really but this had me gripped and terrified. Really surprised by the ending too.

I like ordinary thunderstoms by William Boyd. It was just so gripping. I basically ended up reading the whole book in a day!

House of sand and fog stole several hours of important sleep time from me.
It's really good