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

122 replies

RachelMumsnet · 27/09/2015 23:10

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

The most gripping thriller? share your thoughts to win £50 Selfridges vouchers
OP posts:
quirkychick · 22/10/2015 22:16

Oh, I have Sister on the bookshelf waiting for me.

HannahHobbins · 23/10/2015 06:18

A few!
The Hunger Games trilogy I read in a weekend.
Chaos Walking trilogy kept me up for about a week too! (Patrick Ness)

More recently I read The Martian which was really sciency but so,so gripping!

Bolshybookworm · 23/10/2015 07:16

I have read many, many thrillers, but the ones that stick in my mind are:

Cocaines Nights and Super Cannes by JG Ballard- these are dark, dark books, but incredibly gripping. It's the way he makes the outlandish seem plausible that's truly terrifying.

The early Patricia Cornwall Scarpetta novels. Unputdownable, and I loved Scarpetta.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver- it's a ghost story but I devoured it in two days.

Also, anything by Belinda Bauer and Mo Hayder- two of my fav thriller writers.

overitalready · 23/10/2015 07:41

Didn't enjoy little girl gone.

Very long, drawn out and nothing much happens

hopelesslydevotedtoGu · 23/10/2015 09:59

The Farm by Tom Rob Smith

FreckledLeopard · 23/10/2015 11:11

Ira Levin's "A Kiss before Dying" was a brilliant thriller. So cleverly written.

More low-brow, I found the Jack Reacher novels quite gripping too!

PallasCat · 23/10/2015 13:16

The Hunger Games trilogy - kept me up to 3am every night for a week.

minesapintofwine · 23/10/2015 15:53

Is it wrong that I came here with nothing to offer, just to get some recommendations Grin

chickensaresafehere · 23/10/2015 16:05

So many! I love a really good thriller.But the ones that stand out for me are,

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier,a gripping classic.
The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert,I read this whilst doing evening shifts in the local crematorium & cemetery,having to walk home through there in the pitch dark!!
The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke,just picked it up in the library one day & couldn't put it down.

I'm sure there are many more,especially the majority of Stephen King,but I supposed they would be classed as horror?

chickensaresafehere · 23/10/2015 16:07

The Firm by John Grisham - forgot that one,page turningly brilliant!

SecretLocation · 23/10/2015 18:10

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco has to be my all time favourite. I love a historical mystery/ thriller. It's both a fascinating glimpse of life in a medieval monastery and a gruesome murder mystery complete with a labyrinth, secret codes and symbolism, and most importantly of all, a totally unpredictable ending.

Bolshybookworm · 23/10/2015 19:33

Ooh, love the Name of the Rose.

cansu · 23/10/2015 23:15

I am pilgrim was v gripping.

quirkychick · 24/10/2015 09:10

I had forgotten The Name of the Rose. Umberto Eco is a great writer.

MrsMolesworth · 24/10/2015 13:09

The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood. Also loved her second one, The Killer Next Door, and can't wait for the third to come out. She's a very distinctive writer and gets deep inside her characters' heads. Also, even though her thrillers are as full of ridiculous, melodramatic plot twists at the end as all other thrillers, I find I believe hers; she paves the way better psychologically. Whereas I loved the start of Paula Daly's Just What Kind of Mother...? and Girl on The Train but the endings felt random, not like they were building to a specific denouement.

ButterflyOfFreedom · 24/10/2015 16:19

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Or actually any of those in that trilogy. I read them all super quickly as they were such page turners and I couldn't wait to fund out what would happen next!

RoosterCogburn · 24/10/2015 18:21

A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine

AnneElliott · 24/10/2015 19:48

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

DinosaursRoar · 24/10/2015 21:25

This is just a thread of new books I need to read!

For thrillers, there's lots I've loved over the years, but as classic thrillers go, agree with Rebecca - everyone should read it, and
Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None is wonderfully dark.

campocaro · 25/10/2015 08:09

Girl with the Dragon Tatoo and its sequals-luckily I was on holiday so I was abe to read all night and sleep all day!

Valski · 25/10/2015 09:01

Most definitely a translated book called Woman of the Dead by Bernhard Aichner.. Translated from German and it a read you will never forget.. First in a trilogy about a female undertaker..! Look this one up.. Little known but I promise you will not regret it!

X

DurhamDurham · 25/10/2015 09:12

As soon as I began reading Ruth Rendell's 'Sight for Sore Eyes' I was hooked, it was such a page turner I couldn't put it down. I like to read when I'm having a bath and I got so engrossed in the story that the water would be stone cold before I realised. I couldn't wait to get to the end but when I finished the book I was gutted.....I didn't want to stop reading about the characters. I've read it three times now over the years, obviously there's no longer the surprise element but it's so well written that it's worth revisiting.

dippydeedoo · 25/10/2015 10:57

The little house by Phillipa Gregory....such a build up to a twisted ending all written with a contrasting cold apple pie and fresh cream innocence with tension slowly building ....love it,must have read it 3 times now (the drama on TV was nowhere near as good as the book)

DeccaMitfordsEntryVisa · 25/10/2015 18:12

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
The Moonstone
Secret History
The Quincunx

We are just about to read The Tea Planters Wife (?) for our bookgroup, as suggested by a friend who liked the reviews.

saltedcaramelhotchoc · 25/10/2015 21:21

Donna Tartt, The Secret History is a stand-out book for me, too.

I second whoever mentioned Douglas Kennedy, particularly A Special Relationship and The State we were in.

Nicci French's Beneath the Skin and Killing Me Softly, too.

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