Four Great Psychological Thrillers for the Kindle

The psychological thriller genre boasts so many terrific reads that it would be difficult to narrow it down to 40 recommendations, let alone four. Below, however, you’ll find four great selections to get you started — two classics and two contemporary. All four are available for the Kindle, so you can download right now and get started reading!

1. The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith is one of the acknowledged masters of the genre, and this, the first in her series of books about con man Tom Ripley, is one of her best. The Ripley novels have been filmed several times, most recently with Matt Damon in the lead, but it’s more than worthwhile going back to the original source material. Here, Ripley’s life of deception begins when an obsession with an old acquaintance he’s visiting in Italy leads to murder and more.

2. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

Du Maurier is another top author in this genre, and the great director Alfred Hitchcock agreed, adapting three of her works for the screen. In this, her best-known novel, a young woman marries a man she barely knows and returns home with him to his estate, Manderley, a place locked in secrets. Who was her husband’s first wife Rebecca? What became of her? And why does her presence still seem to haunt the estate and the lives of those who live there? Seeking the answers to these questions proves to be extraordinarily dangerous for everyone.

3. Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane has been turning out some of the best crime novels and psychological thrillers of the last two decades, and Shutter Island is one of his strongest. This period piece, set in the 1950s, tells the story of U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who travels to an isolated island hospital for the criminally insane. He’s purportedly there to investigate the disappearance of a patient, Rachel Solando, who vanished from the room where she was kept under lock and key. Once at the hospital, however, Teddy and his partner begin to discover things are far more sinister than either of them imagined and that the hospital may be conducting experiments not only on the patients but on them. Lehane’s novel is full of twists and turns and journeys deep into the human psyche. In 2010, director Martin Scorsese made Shutter Island into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

4. The Dark Rose, by Erin Kelly

Louisa is hiding a secret twenty years in her past. Paul, half her age, was involved in the commission of a heinous crime and is fleeing a terrifying future. The two of them meet while working in a place that ought to bring some peace to them both, a project restoring a once-grand garden in a remote rural village. Damaged and drawn to one another, it seems there might just be a chance for them both to heal. But Louisa’s past is in pursuit as are Paul’s former criminal associates, and both of them will be forced to face the things they’ve tried so hard to put behind them. Kelly is a new writer on the scene, but based on her first two novels she stands to join the others in this list as one of the best.

Karen Hester is a clinical psychologist and guest author at Best Online Psychology Schools, a site with resources and guides to top-rated psychology degree programs online.