“I have no choice but to face whatever my reality has become.”
Adrian McKinty’s 2019 book The Chain offers one of the most psychologically gripping rides in the world of crime fiction. The story follows a mother named Rachel O’Neill, who, after the abduction of her daughter, Kylie, finds herself ensnared in a criminal kidnapping scheme known as ‘The Chain’. To save her daughter, she is forced to kidnap another child, becoming both victim and perpetrator, caught in a web of twists, intrigue and impossible dilemmas. Gripping and intense, join us at What We Reading for the best psychological crime books like The Chain!
The Good Girl – Mary Kubica
Kicking off our list of the best books like The Chain is Mary Kubica’s psychological thriller, The Good Girl. The book follows Mia Dennett, who enters a bar planning to meet her on-off boyfriend. When he doesn’t show, she ends up spending the night with the seemingly safe, albeit enigmatic, Colin Thatcher.
When Colin decides to hide Mia in a secluded cabin in rural Minnesota rather than delivering her to his employers, Mia’s mother, Eve, and Detective Hoffman will stop at nothing to bring them down. What they could have never prepared for themselves for, however, is the emotional entanglements and hidden motives at work that will sweep through all of them. Told from multiple perspectives, The Good Girl follows the course of these earth-shattering developments as they threaten to rip this family apart.
The Breakdown – B.A. Paris
Similar to The Chain, B.A. Paris’ The Breakdown is a crime psychological thriller that follows a woman becoming entangled in fear and paranoia after a tragic and mysterious event.
Readers follow Cass, a woman who is having a hard time after seeing the woman sitting in the car – the woman who was killed. Out during the middle of a heavy storm, she has been attempting to move on from the crime, attempting to justify that there was nothing she could have done. However, since witnessing it, she has begun to forget everything. Where she left her car, to take her pills, and why she ordered a pram when she doesn’t have a baby. The only thing she can’t forget is the face of the woman who she saw. Who she could have saved.
The Girl Before – J.P. Delaney
Nominated for Best Mystery & Thriller in the Goodreads Choice Awards, J.P. Delaney’s The Girl Before is the story of two women, separated by time, who live in the same house and increasingly become entangled in its dark web of secrets.
Jane stumbles upon One Folgate Street after a personal tragedy and is instantly caught in its allure. However, after moving in, she soon learns about the untimely death of its previous owner, Emma, a woman of similar age and appearance to Jane. As she attempts to untangle the truth from the lies, she unwittingly begins to retrace the steps of Emma, making the same decisions, encountering the same people and, eventually, facing the same terrors she did.
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The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides
Another one of the most gripping psychological thrillers comes from Alex Michaelides in The Silent Patient. The book follows the story of Alicia Berenson, a successfully renowned artist with seemingly the perfect life. One evening, her husband returns home from work. She shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
The mystery behind the violent crime and the longstanding silence from the perpetrator turns the case into a public spotlight and captures the imagination of criminal psychotherapist, Theo Faber. Taking a position at the secure forensic unit where Alicia is being housed, Theo makes it his sole mission to get her to talk and reveal her true motivations for killing her husband. This bestselling novel is the story of a woman’s violent crime, and the therapist obsessed with uncovering why – even if it ends up consuming him.
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The One – John Marrs
John Marrs asks the question: how far are you willing to go to find the ‘one’ in The One. In this sci-fi thriller, Marrs presents a dystopian world where one DNA swab is all takes to pair you up with your one true soul mate. Unfortunately, in the decade since Match Your DNA set up the test, millions of relationships have been broken up and upended the traditional ideals of love, romance and dating.
Five very different individuals are now set to meet their soulmates, receiving the notification that they have been ‘matched’. However, meeting their one true love doesn’t guarantee a happy ending for everyone. Even the most perfect of matches have secrets they are keeping hidden. And some are more shocking than others. The One’s fascinating premise is one that all readers can relate to and explores how even the most basic of discoveries can lead to profound and complicated consequences.
Behind Her Eyes – Sarah Pinborough
Louise is a single mum stuck in a rut. On a rare night out, she meets a charming man, they kiss and she enjoys the feeling of striking a connection with someone special. When she goes to work the following Monday, she meets her new boss David, the very man she kissed on her night out. The man reveals he is married and that their kiss was a big mistake. And then she bumps into Adele in town, a woman in need of a friend and who also just so happens to be married to David.
Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes follows Louise as she is increasingly pulled into David and Adele’s orbit. But, the closer she comes to the relationship that looks so picture-perfect on the outside, the more she begins to discover something is very wrong with this marriage, and how far someone is willing to go to protect their secrets. Like The Chain, Pinborough’s book sets readers up with a thrilling premise and reels them in by peeling back the layers one revelation at a time.
Before I Go To Sleep – S.J. Watson
Another book similar to The Chain thanks to its gradual revelations, suspense and psychological themes comes from S.J. Watson with Before I Go to Sleep. In it, readers follow Christine Lucas, a woman who suffers from amnesia. Every time she goes to sleep, she wakes up the next morning having forgotten everything about her past and the past couple of decades.
At the advice of her doctor, she begins to keep a journal to document her experiences and cope with her condition. But, as she reads back her previous entries, she begins to unravel a series of startling and unsettling truths about her life. Before I Go to Sleep is a suspenseful exploration of the mysteries of the human mind, trust and how memories define us.
The Couple Next Door – Shari Lapena
Another family-centred psychological thriller like The Chain comes from bestselling author Shari Lapena in The Couple Next Door. Anne and Marco Conti attend a dinner party hosted by their neighbours, leaving their baby, Cora, in the care of a baby monitor. When they arrive back home at the end of the evening, they find their infant missing.
As their investigation into the disappearance progresses, hidden secrets are brought to light and shocking new revelations are revealed. As well as dealing with every parent’s worst nightmare, The Couple Next Door mirrors McKinty’s work by exploring the lengths people will go to when pushed. Tossing away the pleasantries of suburban life, it is a chilling read that masterfully examines the complexities of human character as everyone in the neighbourhood finds themselves painted as suspects.
Check Out The Best Books Like The Couple Next Door
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
