12 Of The Best Horror Books If You Love Crime Thrillers

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“The unrealized tragedies of life consumed me.”

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If you love the heart-pounding twists of crime thrillers but crave something darker, this list is for you. The best horror books for thriller lovers take the grit of detective stories and infuse it with spine-tingling dread, creating the perfect blend of suspense and terror. These horror mystery novels dig deep into the human psyche – where motives are murky, secrets fester, and justice isn’t always as it first appears. From psychological horror books that play with your mind to murder mystery horror stories soaked in atmosphere, each pick promises a chilling, unforgettable read. Whether you’re drawn to dark crime thrillers or books that blend horror and crime, these stories deliver the tension of a whodunit with the fear factor of a nightmare. Here are ten of the best horror thrillers to keep you hooked – and maybe leave the lights on. 

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Shutter – Ramona Emerson

First up on our list of horror books for crime thriller fans is Ramona Emerson’s Shutter. Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases – she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook. 

When Rita is sent to photograph the scene of a supposed suicide on a highway overpass, the furious, discombobulated ghost of the victim – who insists she was murdered – latches onto Rita, forcing her on a quest for revenge against her killers, and Rita soon finds herself in the crosshairs of one of Albuquerque’s most dangerous cartels. Written in sparkling, gruesome prose, Shutter is an explosive debut from one of crime fiction’s most powerful new voices. 

The Eyes Are The Best Part – Monika Kim

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother is distraught, and her sister is hurt and confused. Her dreams have become horrifying, yet enticing. In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Eyes that are the same shape and shade as George’s Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend, who has long overstayed his welcome. 

No matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and rage deserve to be satiated. The Eyes Are the Best Part is an inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unravelling. It’s a story about a family falling apart and trying to find a way back to each other, making a bold new voice in horror that is sure to leave readers mesmerised and craving more. 

Jackal – Erin E. Adams

Liz Rocher is coming home. Reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for the many awkward reunions that await her. Yet, on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing – and the only thing left behind is a piece of fabric covered in blood. 

As a frantic search gets underway, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern. She’s seen this before. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart missing. As Liz starts digging through the town’s history, she uncovers a horrifying secret about the place she once called home. Children have gone missing in these woods for years. All of them Black. All of them girls. 

Blizzard – Marie Vingtras

In the middle of a raging storm in Alaska, Bess stops to tie her shoes. And, just like that, the boy is gone in a flash, swallowed up by the snow. Bess is a California girl, while Benedict, with whom she and the boy live, is the last in his family’s long line of rugged Alaskans. Benedict knows better than to venture out in such weather. But he has no choice. He must find Bess and the boy before it is too late. 

Joining Benedict and Bess is Cole, an unsavoury figure downing moonshine, and Freeman, a Black Vietnam veteran who seems wholly out of place in the North. What secrets are they all hiding? And will they find the truth? Marie Vingtras’ Blizzard is a gripping race against death and destiny, and one of the best crime thrillers with just the right amount of horror to lap up. 

The Lamb – Lucy Rose

Margot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember. When Margot is not at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door – “strays,” Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she picks apart their bodies and toasts them off with some vegetable oil. 

But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make a bid for freedom. With this gothic coming-of-age horror crime thriller novel, Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts. 

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Just Like Home – Sarah Gailey

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called, and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories, she’s come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there. 

Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make matters worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting. But who else could it be? There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the infamous Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself how far the rot stretches. 

Something In The Walls – Daisy Pearce

Child psychologist Mina is short on experience. The only reprieve from her small, close world is attending the local bereavement group to mourn her brother’s death. Then she meets journalist Sam Hunter at the grief group, and he has a proposition for her. Thirteen-year-old Alice Webber claims a witch is haunting her. Living with her family in the remote village of Banathel, Alice’s symptoms are getting increasingly disturbing. 

But, instead of helping the child, Alice’s behaviour becomes inexplicable and intense. The town of Banathel has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft. They believe there is evil in the world. They believe there are ways of… dealing with it. And they don’t expect outsiders to understand. Brimming with mystery and suspense, Something in the Walls is one of the most gripping horror books for crime thriller fans. 

Nowhere – Allison Gunn

After losing her young son in an accident, Rachel Kennan throws herself into a career as the police chief of a small town in Virginia. Meanwhile, her husband, Finn, a washed-up writer whose alcoholism led to the devastating tragedy, struggles to redeem himself before his family entirely falls apart. Their two daughters are the only things keeping Rachel and Finn together, but the girls have demons of their own. 

At the same time, a disturbing crime rocks their tight-knit, religious community, sending Rachel chasing leads in a place that does not take kindly to strangers. When an ominous force in the forest starts calling to the children, fears spawn across the town, putting the Keenan family firmly in the line of fire. A haunting family saga and a disquieting horror debut, Nowhere draws from Appalachian folklore to caution us that true terror is what we bury within our hearts. 

Looking Glass Sound – Catriona Ward

In a lonely cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood summer companions and the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the body they found, and the horror of that discovery echoed down the decades. And of Sky, Wilder’s one-time best friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound. 

But as Wilder writes, the lines between memory and fiction blur. He fears he’s losing his grip on reality when he finds notes hidden around the cottage written in Sky’s signature green ink. Catriona Ward delivers a mind-bending and cleverly crafted tale about one man’s struggle to come to terms with the terrors of the past, making for one of the best horror books if you love crime thrillers. 

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The Best Of Both Worlds – S.P. Miskowski

Roland and his sister Pigeon are the sort of people most visitors to the small town of Skilute never notice: ordinary, hardworking folk who keep to themselves. They obey the speed limit and pay their taxes on time. Yet something isn’t quite normal about these adult siblings who perform strange rituals in the basement and tend to their garden late at night. 

To their affluent new neighbours, caught up in a fantasy of pastoral family life, Roland and Pigeon might as well be invisible. Old acquaintances take them for granted, as though they’re a part of the fragmented landscape. In truth, no one knows what secret worlds they may inhabit, whether stalking the living or speaking to the dead. 

When No One Is Watching – Alyssa Cole

Sydney Green is Brooklyn-born and raised, but her beloved neighbourhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, and the neighbours she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustrations into a walking tour and finds an unlikely assistant in one of the new arrivals, her neighbour, Theo. 

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbours may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalise the community may be more deadly than advertised. 

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The Ghost Tree – Christina Henry

When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smith’s Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won’t find the killer. After all, the year before her father’s body was found with his heart missing, and since then, everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids. 

So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can’t just do nothing. Not like the rest of the town. But as she draws nearer to the answers, she realises that the foundations of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the core. And if nobody else stands for the missing, she will. 

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