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A J Finn
(Daniel Mallory)
A J Finn is the pseudonym of Daniel Mallory, currently a senior publishing executive at William Morrow/ HarperCollins. An Oxford graduate and former book critic, he lives in New York City.
His debut novel, The Woman in the Window, is currently in development as a major motion picture at Fox.
His debut novel, The Woman in the Window, is currently in development as a major motion picture at Fox.
Genres: Mystery
Award nominations
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A J Finn recommends
Such a Nice Girl (2026)
Andrea Mara
"Mothers. Daughters. Killers. Victims. The combinations are deadly in Andrea Mara's clever, clever new thriller, a novel that pits its characters against one another with real invention, real force. It's genuinely involving, too, as an exploration of friendship and parenthood. This is a good one."
Strange Buildings (2026)
Uketsu
"So fizzy with invention and possibility that I almost pity the next novel I read."
A Bad, Bad Place (2026)
Frances Crawford
"A Bad, Bad Place is a great, great book - my favorite kind, in fact: the kind that illuminates the dark of the past by laying a bonfire of a story at its heart. Frances Crawford, the preternaturally gifted author of this magical new novel, works bright magic here; very rarely have I felt so transported by a story, or so enmeshed in a community of characters, bound by love and fear and language. Part To Kill a Mockingbird, part The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, part Louise Welsh, yet altogether incomparable."
A Murder in Paris (2025)
Matthew Blake
"An audacious, inventive mystery, a thriller of ideas, and - here's irony for you - a novel about sleep to keep you up late. Anna O reads like a dream but unsettles like a nightmare; the premise is original, the writing stylish, and the payoff unforgettable. You won't forget her name."
The Game Is Murder (2025)
Hazell Ward
"A high-energy mystery, both exclamation point and question mark - like Agatha Christie on amphetamines. Imagine a labyrinth packed with ninety-degree turns and spiralling staircases and art on the walls - and a ruthless guide addressing you directly from the page - and you've got a sense of The Game Is Murder, a striking, playful novel for neither the faint of heart nor the slow of wit."
Don't Let Him in (2025)
Lisa Jewell
"This is a dark house of a thriller, full of trapdoors and hidden rooms and steps that lead you where you least expect and rugs that get whipped out from beneath you. Nobody - nobody - does this better than Jewell. Don't Let Him In is the best book of Lisa Jewell's career - the pages practically shiver."
Bitter Sweet (2025)
Hattie Williams
"Wondrous . . . This instant classic of a debut - as innocent and enthralling as first love; as wise and (yes) bittersweet as the hangover - recalls the likes of Caitlin Moran and Curtis Sittenfeld, but Hattie's voice is all her own: honest, winning, breakable. What a defiant novel - you'll devour and savor it at once, impossibly, and turn the final page having made a friend for life."
The Hitchcock Hotel (2024)
Stephanie Wrobel
"Fans of Knives Out, Agatha Christie, and (of course) Alfred Hitchcock, rejoice! The Hitchcock Hotel is cool, classy - but such fun; reverent - yet so original. And - above all - almost biologically impossible to put down once picked up. Hitchcock would've loved it. I sure as hell did."
The Hollywood Assistant (2024)
May Cobb
"The Hollywood Assistant is as fun and as fresh as its title--and fast: think Frieda McFadden's The Housemaid--but sharp, too, and provocative, with a subtly retro attitude that recalls 80s cinema classics. I've said it before and I'll say it again: May Cobb writes suspense you can mainline."
Things Don't Break on Their Own (2024)
Sarah Easter Collins
"This is the One: the next must-read, must-recommend, must-discuss, must-re-read novel. A miraculous literary thriller, shocking, daring, moving, haunting, infinitely rewarding-as though Kate Atkinson and Ruth Rendell had joined forces. This, I hope, is the future of suspense writing."
Death in the Air (2024)
Ram Murali
"A warm broth of Golden Age mystery (both Agatha Christie and Richard Osman would be proud)... Evocative, provocative, and very, very fun."
Every Move You Make (2024)
C L Taylor
"A C.L. Taylor novel has style, speed, and more hooks than a tackle shop. By-the-throat suspense, unfussy and unmissable."
Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? (2024)
(Maud O'Connor Mysteries, book 1)
Nicci French
"Ingenious . . . This house of correction is booby-trapped with twists, the floors paved with trapdoors, quicksand churning in the garden. Enter if you dare."
The Last Word (2024)
(Harbinder Kaur, book 4)
Elly Griffiths
"Elly Griffiths is the oneof my flat-out favorite contempary suspense writers."
First Lie Wins (2024)
Ashley Elston
"What a box of tricks! First Lie Wins flickers past like a shadow-play: just when you think you've worked out what you're seeing, the shapes shift, the scene transforms, and -- hold on -- maybe you had it wrong a moment ago? Cool and clever and full-on fun, the sort of slippery high-stakes now-you-see-me-now-you-don't thriller that few novelists are bold enough to attempt these days. Pick it up, please. This is a good one."
Geneva (2023)
Richard Armitage
"Geneva is one of the best thrillers I've ever read. And I've read quite a few."
Come with Me (2023)
Erin Flanagan
"Erin Flanagan's debut novel, Deer Season, netted her the highest prize in mystery fiction. Her second, Blackout, confirmed her as a striking talent with a remarkable command of pace and place. And now, in Come with Me, this gifted author revives the female-friendship thriller - as immortalized in films like Single White Female and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle - with wit, with verve, with style... but (best of all) without mercy. There are passages in Come with Me so breathtakingly tense that I felt as though I were being held underwater; Flanagan knows just how to rattle us before going in for the kill. This is a splendid novel, scary and smart, and you'll want to discuss it with a friend. Just make sure that friend is who you think she is."
What Remains (2023)
Wendy Walker
"'What would you do?' asks this searing thriller in its opening pages. And then, just a few chapters later, another question, more unnerving: 'What would you do now?' Most novels would've quit by this point, but most novels aren't written by Wendy Walker, whose earlier stories of psychological suspense--humane, inquisitive, and sinister, often in the same sentence--showcased a rare talent. In What Remains, Walker smashes that showcase to rubble. I can't recall the last time a thriller kept me so alert, as though the muzzle of a gun were pressed to my temple. While the novel rotates through assorted genres (cop drama, psychological suspense, stalker scares--each meticulously evoked and arranged), this is from beginning to end absolutely splendid storytelling, a book to entertain, to immerse, and to challenge."
My Murder (2023)
Katie Williams
"When did I last read a thriller this cool, this confident? This clever? A novel so hard-charging yet light on its feet? But best and most of all, this book is F-U-N."
The Devil's Playground (2023)
Craig Russell
"Addictive. . . the most sheerly entertaining novel I've raced through in at least a year. . . fresh, forceful, elegant but wild."
The Senator's Wife (2023)
Liv Constantine
"A high-stakes paranoia thriller, slippery as a politician's handshake, that's both sophisticated and irrepressibly fun."
Going Zero (2023)
Anthony McCarten
"That can-you-beat-the-system hook recalls the juggernaut likes of Ready Player One and Lost, but Going Zero outpaces them both, and dives deeper: it's a speculative-fiction classic in the vein (and even in the league) of I, Robot and Jurassic Park. Provocative, perceptive, and - no other word will do - ingenious."
Death Under a Little Sky (2023)
(Jake Jackson, book 1)
Stig Abell
"What a gorgeous read. It has the halo of an instant classic. This is a deep, searching novel, as preoccupied with human nature and ordinary evil as it is with detection."
The Mother (2023)
T M Logan
"An irresistible new thriller . . . Logan has devised an intricate plot of shifting loyalties and duelling timelines, but the real triumph in The Mother is that fierce, flawed title character. She's a mother like no other."
The Enigma of Room 622 (2022)
Joël Dicker
"Dicker salutes Agatha Christie even as he drops the reader through one trapdoor into another, so that by the end, we doubt we've ever read another novel quite like it. (We haven't.) Fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley will hug this book in between chapters; the many readers who love Anthony Horowitz's mysteries will celebrate. And me? I'll be reading it again."
The Lost Kings (2022)
Tyrell Johnson
"The Lost Kings is a novel in disguise. You could easily (and happily) mistake it for a stellar psychological thriller, bristling with surprises and packed with secrets; but listen closely and you'll hear the beat of a dark, full heart, strong and loud. This is deeply moving fiction, humane and affecting - the sort of book that few writers dare attempt, and fewer still manage to achieve. And while plenty of heroines in plenty of novels have pivoted to the past in order to salvage their futures, few have done so with the force and guile of Jeanie King, whom I'll remember years from now. The Lost Kings will enrich you even as it excites you. Read it and weep."
Deep Water (2022)
Emma Bamford
"A mirage of a novel, seductive and slippery. Turn a page (you'll turn them fast) and the story shimmering before you might shape-shift: now it's a game of domestic cat-and-mouse, now a merciless survival narrative, now a feat of literary suspense... Above all, though, Emma Bamford's Deep Water - also the title of an early work by Patricia Highsmith, whose cool and control Bamford has inherited - is that most exciting, most evolved species of psychological thriller, one in which the darkest dangers lurk not in the next room, not in a secret kiss, not even in the ocean depths, but in a suspicious mind and a guilty heart. Perhaps you'll hear echoes of Alex Garland's The Beach, or Catherine Steadman's Something in the Water, or any number of distinctive mind-benders - yet Deep Water conjures a black magic entirely its own. Can't remember the last time a novel surprised you? Deep Water is the next time a novel surprises you."
The Beaten Track (2022)
(International Psychological Suspense)
Louise Mangos
"Don't let the title fool you. Not for a moment does The Beaten Track tread familiar ground. This inventive, relentlessly slippery thriller, taut as a piano wire, traps its sympathetic heroine in a nightmare that's both it-could-happen-to-you and made-for-the-movies. If you loved Before I Go to Sleep, if you enjoy contemporary paranoia classics like Sleeping with the Enemy or Run, then get on track."
No One Will Miss Her (2021)
Kat Rosenfield
"Blade-sharp, whip-smart, and genuinely original — a thriller to refresh your faith in the genre, your belief that a story can still outpace and outsmart you."
The Damage (2021)
Caitlin Wahrer
"A magnificent debut to rival the very best of Dennis Lehane, The Damage scores knockout thriller punches chapter after chapter. It's dense and exciting, as though Michael Connelly and Tana French had joined forces. A spectacularly plotted and powerful family drama."
The Collective (2021)
Alison Gaylin
"Aflame with tension, this intricate, powerful thriller rips a tunnel into a past as deep and dark as the midnight sky."
The End of Men (2021)
Christina Sweeney-Baird
"So much speculative fiction amounts to nothing more than just that: idle what-iffing, spitballed at the reader with little conviction and even less imagination. But The End of Men, like only a very few novels published since The Handmaid's Tale--think Naomi Alderman's The Power, think Children of Men by P D James--builds an alternate reality so persuasive, so confident, that it soon evolves from intriguing fiction to you-are-there docudrama, as vivid as Max Brooks' World War Z. Part parable, part thriller, and altogether provocative, this is the stuff that classics are made of."
Who Is Maud Dixon? (2021)
Alexandra Andrews
"Smoothly written, nimbly plotted—yet also buzzing with an irresistible intensity and relish. Roaring round of applause here."
Lola on Fire (2021)
Rio Youers
"Lola on Fire sizzles and scorches like fresh steak slapped on a red-hot grill. . . . . How often does a ferocious action thriller gather your emotions in a net and haul them to the surface writhing and shiny? What was the last novel to kick-start your brain and your pulse at the same time? Cross Elmore Leonard with Lisa Gardner and you get Rio Youers."
The Sanatorium (2020)
(Detective Elin Warner, book 1)
Sarah Pearse
"The Sanatorium is an absolutely splendid Gothic thriller - gracious in its nods to the classic locked-room mystery, yet bold enough to burst out of that room through the window. Pearse writes prose fresh and crisp as Swiss Alp powder, and her characters fascinate even as their numbers dwindle."
The Dead of Winter (2020)
(Giordano Bruno)
S J Parris
"If Hilary Mantel, John Le Carre and Michael Connelly were to join forces, they might gift us with a novel addictive as any of Parris's books featuring monk-turned-spy Giordano Bruno."
The Sicilian Method (2020)
(Inspector Montalbano, book 26)
Andrea Camilleri
"You either love Andrea Camilleri or you haven’t read him yet. Each novel in this wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction, blasts the brain like a shot of pure oxygen. Aglow with local color, packed with flint-dry wit, as fresh and clean as Mediterranean seafood — altogether transporting. Long live Camilleri, and long live Montalbano."
Goodnight, Beautiful (2020)
Aimee Molloy
"Constructed with house-of-cards precision, this cunning story surges forward as though powered by outboard motor. But Molloy proves equally skilled in the elusive arts of character and dialogue: Goodnight Beautiful isn’t only the most suspenseful novel you’ll read this year; it’s likely to be the funniest, too. I wish that every book, in every genre, were as deeply imagined and fully inhabited as this one."
The Girl in the Mirror (2020)
Rose Carlyle
"Ferociously entertaining. A novel like a triathlon: part evil-twin thriller, part howdunit (or did-she-do-it?), part juicy family drama. Drop Knives Out and Double Indemnity into the blender, shake some Dead Calm over the froth, power it on, and you’ve got a cocktail like The Girl in the Mirror—fresh, flavorful, and utterly intoxicating."
An Inconvenient Woman (2020)
Stéphanie Buelens
"A hangman's noose of a thriller, airtight and inescapable, each strand expertly braided, each loop perfectly knotted. Harrowing yet humane -- a novel as provocative as it is suspenseful."
The Less Dead (2020)
Denise Mina
"One of the most talented, most daring, most humane writers of the past twenty years, an artist whose thrillers double as embracing moral inquires."
The Eighth Detective (2020)
Eight Detectives
Alex Pavesi
"Dizzying, dazzling - a potent potion of a thriller, a brew of bibliophilia (think The Shadow of the Wind), wire-taut tension (The Talented Mr. Ripley), and plot swerves so sharp and sudden you risk whiplash with each turn of the page, as bold as the best of Michael Connelly and Lisa Gardner. When did you last read a genuinely original thriller? The wait is over."
The Other Passenger (2020)
Louise Candlish
"A novel like a roulette wheel at full tilt: smooth, hypnotic, relentless, exciting — and ultimately, just as unpredictable… Like every Candlish thriller, The Other Passenger is psychological suspense at its most elegant and sinister."
Don't Turn Around (2020)
Jessica Barry
"A novel like razor-wire: elegant, sinister, bristling with hooks. Who is the predator — and who is the prey? Is the danger behind you, a pair of headlights on that lonely highway… or right beside you, gripping the wheel with white knuckles? As you race down the roads that slice across Jessica Barry’s American Southwest, you might catch a glimpse of the desperate fugitives from No Country for Old Men, or the wayward college kids of Joyride, — but Don’t Turn Around is very much an original vehicle, part chase thriller, part psychological suspense, altogether audacious, wholly ingenious."
Hold Your Breath (2020)
B P Walter
"To open B P Walter’s exceptional new thriller is to step through a cellar door: the air cools, your vision dims… and just a few steps later, you’re tiptoeing across the floor, desperate to switch on a torch ? yet frightened of what the light might reveal. Attention, readers of Lucy Foley and Lisa Gardner: Hold Your Breath is your next favourite read."
Have You Seen Me? (2020)
Kate White
"Arms linked, breath held, we drop alongside Ally Linden into Kate White’s dagger-sharp, whip-smart new thriller Have You Seen Me?, the same questions burning like neon signs in our minds. . . . As nimbly plotted as Before I Go to Sleep, as winning as the best of Mary Higgins Clark, Have You Seen Me? showcases Kate White at her formidable best."
Our Little Cruelties (2020)
Little Cruelties
Liz Nugent
"A dark jewel of a novel - finely observed, swift and exciting."
The Holdout (2020)
Graham Moore
"Plunge a syringe filled with adrenaline into the heart of Twelve Angry Men and you’ve got The Holdout."
The Man in the White Linen Suit (2019)
(Stewart Hoag & Lulu Mysteries, book 11)
David Handler
"He's of my very favorites a novelist whose champagne-fizzy mysteries tickle the brain, heart and funny bone in equal measure."
A Stranger on the Beach (2019)
Michele Campbell
"Rides its rising tide of terror to a finale that blanched my knuckles. An exceptionally suspenseful thriller."
The Reunion (2019)
Guillaume Musso
"Witty, elegant, and peopled with complex characters, it's one of the most sheerly suspenseful novels I've read in years -- and among the most enjoyable, too."
Death in a Desert Land (2019)
(Agatha Christie, book 3)
Andrew Wilson
"Andrew Wilson's Christie novels do Dame Agatha proud."
The Island (2019)
(Hulda, book 2)
Ragnar Jónasson
"Ragnar Jonasson writes fire-and-ice novels: white-hot suspense stories set in the magnificent, forbidding terrain of his native Iceland. Few writers at work today conjure atmosphere with such power, or plot their mysteries with such craft. And The Island is his best book yet, an unflinching thriller that braids past and present, good and evil, love and loss. I can't wait for Hulda Hermannsdóttir's next case."
Courting Mr. Lincoln (2019)
Louis Bayard
"A miracle; an exquisite story exquisitely told If you love Jane Austen, or Hamilton, or fiction - of any era - that transports and transforms in equal measure, look no further."
1793: The Wolf and the Watchman (2019)
(Jean Mickel Cardell, book 1)
Niklas Natt och Dag
"Brawny, bloody, intricate, enthralling-and the best historical thriller I've read in twenty years."
The Woman Inside (2019)
E G Scott
"From its seize-you-by-throat opening to that jack-in-the-box finale, this slick, sleek thriller held me breathless. Psychological suspense at its brightest and boldest."
The Silent Patient (2019)
Alex Michaelides
"The perfect thriller. This extraordinary novel set my blood fizzing - I quite literally couldn't put it down. I told myself I'd just dip in; eleven hours later - it's now 5.47 AM - I've finished it, absolutely dazzled."
The Chestnut Man (2019)
Søren Sveistrup
"A full-throttle thriller in the tradition of classic Stieg Larsson, drenched in atmosphere and charged with adrenaline. Buckle up. You'll gulp down every word. I loved this book."
The Hunting Party (2018)
Lucy Foley
"A ripping, riveting murder mystery ? wily as Agatha Christie, charged with real menace, real depth. Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware."
Call Me Evie (2018)
J P Pomare
"Literary suspense as dark and fresh as midnight in winter, with a merciless twist-of-the-knife finale. One of the most striking debuts I've read in years and years."
Sadie (2018)
Courtney Summers
"Sadie: a novel for readers of any age, and a character as indelible as a scar. Flat-out dazzling."
Scrublands (2018)
(Martin Scarsden, book 1)
Chris Hammer
"A heatwave of a novel, scorching and powerful. This extraordinary debut, perfect for readers of the magnificent Jane Harper, seared my eyes and singed my heart. Don't miss it."
A Noise Downstairs (2018)
Linwood Barclay
"Linwood Barclay’s novels – as intelligent as Michael Connelly’s, as compelling as Harlan Coben’s – never fail to astonish. A Noise Downstairs, his best work yet, is a cobra of a story: smooth, slippery, unnerving . . . and likely to strike when you least expect it. I devoured this book."
The Last Time I Lied (2018)
Last Time I Lied
Riley Sager
"Breathtaking -- brightly written, scalpel-sharp, and altogether inspired. This swift, red-blooded thriller set my pulse thrumming."
Boy Swallows Universe (2018)
Trent Dalton
"Joyous. Simply joyous. I hugged myself as I read it. My heart raced, swelled, burst; my eyes leaked tears; my stomach ached from laughter. Boy Swallows Universe is--I can't think of a word more apt--magical. This vibrant, vital, altogether miraculous coming-of-age novel marks the debut of an exquisitely gifted storyteller. . . and what's more, it's transformative: After reading Trent Dalton's book, you won't be the same as you were before."
The President is Missing (2018)
Bill Clinton and James Patterson
"A bullet train of a thriller.The Day of the Jackal for the twenty-first century."
The Good Son (2018)
You-Jeong Jeong
"A cool, crafty did-he-do-it thriller buoyed by a rising tide of madness. Provocative yet profound, humming with mood and menace, The Good Son will rivet readers of Jo Nesbo and Patricia Highsmith."
The Death of Mrs. Westaway (2018)
Ruth Ware
"The Death of Mrs Westaway is Ruth Ware's best: a dark and dramatic thriller, part murder mystery, part family drama, altogether riveting."
The Burning Chambers (2018)
(Joubert Family Chronicles, book 1)
Kate Mosse
"Oh, what a glorious novel. A masterly tour of history; a rapturous romance; and?best of all?a breathless thriller, alive with treachery, danger, atmosphere, and beauty. This book will transport you. Kate Mosse is that rarest of writers: a storyteller who breathes fresh life into vanished worlds."
Splinter in the Blood (2018)
(Carver and Lake, book 1)
Ashley Dyer
"One of the boldest, most inventive serial-killer thrillers since The Silence of the Lambs...anchored by a protagonist as complicated as she is compelling."
Bitter (2018)
Francesca Jakobi
"Bitter, yes, but also sweet -- and moving, and searching, and quietly devastating: a novel to detonate the heart. Steep yourself in this exquisite story. You won't regret it, and you won't forget it. Fans of Gail Honeyman and Joanna Cannon will love Bitter."
The Chalk Man (2018)
C J Tudor
"Utterly Hypnotic. The Chalk Man is a dream novel, a book of nightmares: haunted and haunting, shot through with shadow and light - a story to quicken the pulse and freeze the blood. A dark star is born."
Magpie Murders (2016)
(Magpie Murders, book 1)
Anthony Horowitz
"An extravagant circus of a novel, part high-wire act, part funhouse mirror. Intricate, bold, stone-cold clever— both comfortably old-fashioned and thrillingly new."
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© 1999 - Fantastic Fiction
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© 1999 - Fantastic Fiction
