Books like “The Talented Mr. Ripley”

What to read after “The Talented Mr. Ripley” 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
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.
2
The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson · 1952
Similar atmosphere: “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.
3
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.
4
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.
5
The Likeness
Tana French · 2008
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A detective who closely resembles a murdered woman is asked to pose as her among the victim's friends. Living inside another person's life, she finds the group's shared past and its secrets closing in on her own sense of who she is.
6
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Dual Identity
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.
7
A Simple Plan
Scott Smith · 1993
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Villain Protagonist
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.
8
The Last Mrs. Parrish
Liv Constantine · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Villain Protagonist
An ambitious woman works her way into the life of a rich, seemingly perfect couple, planning to take the wife's place. The household she longs to join has secrets of its own, and neither woman is quite what she pretends to be.
9
Black-Eyed Susans
Julia Heaberlin · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
As a teenager, Tessa was the only victim to survive the killer who buried girls in a Texas field of wildflowers, and her testimony sent a man to death row. Nearly twenty years later, fresh flowers appear near her home, and lawyers ask her to recover the memories she lost.
10
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- 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.
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
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.