Books like “The Girl on the Train”

What to read after “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “The Girl on the Train”

Another favorite book?

Or start with a well-known book

1
Before I Go to Sleep
S. J. Watson · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Each morning Christine wakes with no memory of her life, and each day her husband explains who she is. When she starts a diary at a doctor's suggestion, she finds entries in her own hand that contradict what he tells her, and that suggest her past holds a crime.
2
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Alicia Berenson shot her husband five times and then never spoke again. Six years later, psychotherapist Theo Faber takes a job at the secure unit where she is held, determined to make her talk. As he digs into her diary and her past, his own reasons for being there come into question.
3
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Child psychologist Anna Fox lives alone, unable to leave her home, and spends her days watching her neighbours through a camera. When she sees something in the house across the street, no one believes her, and she is left to work out whether the danger is real or in her mind.
4
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Twist Ending
Years after her mother and sisters were killed and her teenage brother was convicted, Libby Day is approached by a group of true-crime enthusiasts who believe he is innocent. Short of money, she agrees to ask questions, and the answers force her to revisit what she remembers of that night.
5
Sometimes I Lie
Alice Feeney · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Amber Reynolds is in a coma, though she can hear the people around her and cannot move or speak. In her mind she sifts through the days before the accident and the diary entries from years earlier that do not quite match the life she thought she had.
6
Shutter Island
Dennis Lehane · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
In 1954 two US marshals travel to a hospital for the criminally insane on an island off Massachusetts to find a patient who has disappeared. As a storm cuts the island off, one of them begins to suspect the investigation is not what he was told.
7
Rock Paper Scissors
Alice Feeney · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A couple whose marriage is failing take a weekend trip to a remote chapel in the Scottish countryside. Cut off and cold, they each keep a secret, and the anniversary gift they open is not what either of them expects.
8
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears from a rented house and her husband Nick becomes the prime suspect. Two narrators tell very different versions of the same marriage.
9
Then She Was Gone
Lisa Jewell · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Ten years after her teenage daughter disappeared, a mother learns what happened and tries to rebuild her life. Meeting a new partner and his young daughter, she is unsettled by small resemblances to her lost child, which reopen the case.
10
The Couple Next Door
Shari Lapena · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A couple leave their sleeping baby at home while they attend a dinner party next door, checking on her every half hour. They return to an empty crib. The police suspect the parents, and both of them start learning what the other has been hiding.
11
In the Woods
Tana French · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
When a girl is found dead in a wood outside Dublin, detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox take the case. For Rob the woods hold an old horror: as a child he was found there after two friends vanished, and he has never told anyone the full truth.
12
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted tells a stranger that he wishes his cheating wife were dead. Lily calmly offers to help him plan it. As their murder scheme takes shape in Boston, each of the narrators hides a past the others know nothing about.