Books like “The Wasp Factory”

What to read after “The Wasp Factory” by Iain Banks: 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 Last House on Needless Street
Catriona Ward · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
At the end of a quiet street live a man, his daughter and a cat, keeping to themselves. When a new neighbour comes looking into a child's long-ago disappearance, the house's careful routine bends and the story it protects begins to break apart.
2
A Head Full of Ghosts
Paul Tremblay · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
Fourteen-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to act strangely, and her family turns first to a priest and then to a reality-television crew. Years later her younger sister tells the story of what happened in the house, though her memory is not entirely trustworthy.
3
Rock Paper Scissors
Alice Feeney · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
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.
4
The Silence of the Lambs
Thomas Harris · 1988
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
A young FBI trainee asks a brilliant imprisoned psychiatrist to help catch another serial killer who abducts women. Their bargain-driven conversations become a psychological duel in which every answer carries a price.
5
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Iain Reid · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A man and his girlfriend drive to his parents' remote farm so she can meet them. Through the long winter journey she keeps turning over a private thought about ending the relationship, while small details around them begin to feel wrong.
6
The Turn of the Key
Ruth Ware · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A nanny takes a live-in post at a remote smart house in the Scottish Highlands, hoping for a fresh start. The children are troubled, the technology watches everything, and her employers are rarely home. Told in letters from prison, it asks who is really to blame.
7
House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski · 2000
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A tattoo artist assembles the scattered notes of a blind old man who wrote a study of a film. The film records a family discovering that their house is larger inside than out, with a hallway that opens onto darkness where the rules of space break down.
8
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.
9
Misery
Stephen King · 1987
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
After a car crash in a snowstorm, novelist Paul Sheldon wakes in the remote home of Annie Wilkes, who calls herself his number one fan. She nurses him back to health, then learns he has killed off her favourite character, and will not let him leave until he writes her a new book.
10
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Rachel rides the same commuter train every day and invents stories about a couple she sees from the window, until she learns the woman has vanished. Her memory of the night in question is full of gaps, and she cannot tell how much of what she believes is real.
11
Behind Closed Doors
B. A. Paris · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A woman marries a charming man and finds their perfect home is a prison he controls. As she learns the rules of her new life and fears for her sister, she starts looking for a way out before the arrangement closes around her.
12
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
An investigator of psychic phenomena invites several people to stay at Hill House, a building with a long history of death and madness. Among them is the fragile Eleanor, and as the house begins to single her out, the group's stay becomes a struggle to keep hold of sanity.