Books like “Strangers on a Train”

What to read after “Strangers on a Train” by Patricia Highsmith: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Postman Always Rings Twice
James M. Cain · 1934
From the same world: “Noir”
A drifter called Frank takes a job at a roadside diner and begins an affair with the owner's unhappy wife. Their plan to be together, a murder made to look like an accident, sets off a chain of events that neither of them can control.
2
Nightmare Alley
William Lindsay Gresham · 1946
Similar atmosphere: “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.
3
Double Indemnity
James M. Cain · 1936
From the same world: “Noir”
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.
4
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.
5
The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett · 1929
From the same world: “Noir”
A woman walks into Sam Spade's San Francisco office with a story about a missing sister, and the case becomes a hunt for a jewel-encrusted black bird. Spade's partner is killed, and he must decide whom to trust among liars, thieves and double-crossers.
6
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler · 1939
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Betrayal
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a dying general to deal with a blackmailer, and the case leads him through a family of drifters and gamblers to a missing man and a tangle of secrets. He keeps working even when the general tells him to stop.
7
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Betrayal
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.
8
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith · 1955
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Noir
- 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.
9
The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson · 1952
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Noir
- Psychological Thriller
Deputy sheriff Lou Ford seems like an ordinary small-town man, but his mild manner hides a violence he has carried since childhood. When old secrets and a woman from his past resurface, his two selves begin to pull him toward more killing.
10
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.
11
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Morally Grey Character
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.
12
A Simple Plan
Scott Smith · 1993
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Three men find a crashed plane, a dead pilot and a bag of money in the snow. What starts as a quiet decision to keep the cash spirals into suspicion, lies and violence, as each tries to hold together a plan that keeps changing.