In our ongoing quest to become better librarians by reading every genre (regardless of our actual interest) we tackle Psychological Thrillers.  

Listen to your hosts Anna Ferri,Meghan Whyte, and Matthew Murray discuss appeal factors (atmosphere vs plot, literature vs pulp), the violence against women trope,grown-ass women, the Twist (plot, not dance), reading a book because you mistake it for something else, search strategies,non-linear narratives and unreliable narrators, science with fairies, board games, word-cloud based thriller descriptions, and the Bestsellers problem.

Your Hosts This Episode

Anna Ferri| Meghan Whyte| Matthew Murray

Psychological Thrillers We Read (or kinda):

Recommended

• The Silent Wife by A.S.A Harrison (AF)
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (MW)
• Dare Me by Megan Abbott (MW)
• Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (AF/MW) (sci-fi crossover)

Other books read

• Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (MM)
• Along Came a Spider by James Patterson (MW) (beach read)
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
• Defending Jacob by William Landay
• Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (MW) (Catholic psychological thriller)
• The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (MW) (pulp)

Did Not Finish

• The Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen (MW)
• Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (AF)
• Gone Girl by Gllian Flynn(AF) – BTW follow-up to the episode, Anna had actually guessed the twist correctly on this one 🙁
• The Good Girl by Mary Kubica (AF)

A few more “books” we mentioned

• The Island (movie)
• Fairy Science Books
• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Just writing it here cause we said the title and you should read it!) 

Other Links

• Alex Barclay’s top 10 psychological thrillers from The Guardian. (The article Meghan unsuccessfully selected from.) 
• At Leisure with Joyce Saricks: Psychological Suspense, Horror’s Disturbing Sibling. 
• The word cloud and fake psychological thriller descriptions (ask to join the Facebook group) 

Questions

• Do “Cozy Thrillers”exist?
• Are there any psychological thrillers set in fantasy worlds?

Check out our Pinterest board, Tumblr posts, and big list of all the Psychological Thriller books people in our club read (or tried to read).