Books like “The Killer Inside Me”

What to read after “The Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Nightmare Alley
William Lindsay Gresham · 1946
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Noir
- Psychological Thriller
Stan Carlisle works the carnival, watching the geek at the bottom of the show and vowing never to fall that low. Clever and ambitious, he moves from a mind-reading act to spiritualist con, fleecing the rich, until his own past catches up with him.
2
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith · 1955
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Tom Ripley, a poor young man in New York, is sent to Italy by a rich shipbuilder to bring home his son Dickie. Instead Tom is drawn into Dickie's comfortable world and, when it is threatened, does whatever it takes to keep it.
3
A Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
As a child she helped put her father away for killing girls. Twenty years later she is a therapist about to marry, when young women in her town begin to disappear again and the old case follows her into the present.
4
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A husband and wife in a Florida suburb look like an ordinary couple, but they share a secret pastime that has to stay hidden. As the double life grows harder to manage, the narrator finds the person he knows best is the one he trusts least.
5
The Dry
Jane Harper · 2016
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Small Town Secrets
A federal agent returns to the drought-stricken town he left twenty years ago, for the funeral of a childhood friend believed to have killed his family. Old questions about the death that drove him away surface again while he helps the local police look into a new one.
6
Brighton Rock
Graham Greene · 1938
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Seventeen-year-old Pinkie Brown runs a small gang on the Brighton seafront and commits a murder to hold his position. A cheerful, persistent woman who barely knew the victim decides to find out what really happened, closing in on a boy who believes he is beyond ordinary justice.
7
Strangers on a Train
Patricia Highsmith · 1950
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Noir
- Psychological Thriller
On a train, a charming stranger proposes an idea to architect Guy Haines: each man could murder the person ruining the other's life, since no one would suspect them. Guy dismisses it as a joke, until the other man acts on the plan and pulls him into a nightmare of guilt that neither can escape.
8
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson · 2005
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Noir
- Psychological Thriller
A disgraced financial journalist is hired by an old industrialist to solve the decades-old disappearance of his niece. His researcher is Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant, guarded hacker with her own scores to settle.
9
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.
10
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Small Town Secrets
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.
11
Double Indemnity
James M. Cain · 1936
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Villain Protagonist
Insurance salesman Walter Huff is drawn to Phyllis, the alluring wife of a client, and agrees to help her kill her husband and make it look like an accident. Their scheme is carefully plotted, but the company's claims investigator begins to notice details that do not add up.
12
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.