The best dark psychology in thriller fiction

This book really hooked me because mass hysteria is such a rare and bizarre psychological phenomenon, and Abbott portrays the creepiness and weirdness of it perfectly!

Perhaps also because my own teenage years were so turbulent and I still feel so connected to my younger self, I love to read and write about teenage friendships—in all their dark, obsessive intensity.

The Fever takes you there perfectly, and my fourth novel, A Guilty Secret (which is set in a remote Scottish boarding school), took special inspiration from Abbott’s brilliant tale.

I first read this YA novel as a teenager and have never forgotten it.

The book has long been out of print in the UK, but a few years ago, I laboriously tracked down an Australian ex-library copy to re-read. I was fascinated to realise the book actually falls into the (psychological) horror genre (having thought I hated horror after being traumatised as a kid by Nightmare on Elm Street!). I could also now see how, at heart, it is also a heartbreaking family drama.

Del-Del later became a huge inspiration for my debut novel Little White Lies, a psychological thriller about a family desperately struggling with the miraculous return of their teenage daughter Abigail following her abduction seven years previously.

To me, this book brilliantly and unapologetically explores one of the darkest and most taboo areas of human psychology: a mother’s fear and hatred of her own child.

I don’t have children of my own (through choice), but my mother and sister both struggled in their roles as parents, so this theme has always been very personal. We Need To Talk About Kevin bravely spoke the “unspeakable,” bringing into the light thoughts, feelings, and experiences that I had perhaps never been fully able to articulate for myself.

In turn, Shriver’s book paved the way for me to explore similar themes in my own writing, particularly in my second novel.

I admit: Gone Girl was my gateway drug into psychological thrillers, a genre I remain addicted to this day.

Before that, I mostly read literary fiction and Penguin Classics, (which was fine, but a little dull). I consider Gone Girl an absolute masterwork and must have read it at least five times, studying every detail of how she pulled it off!

Flynn turns Amy’s utterly taboo actions into a highly-astute commentary about women’s experiences in modern society, articulating and expressing suppressed aspects of the female psyche in a way that I found incredibly validating. IMO, her “Cool Girl” manifesto ought to be a warning to us all!

Firstly, I absolutely love that this book is presented in the form of a podcast!

Maybe it’s just me, but epistolary novels always makes me feel the story is more “real”! I love how Wesolowski cleverly blurs the lines between madness, evil, and the paranormal, asking whether “monsters” really exist or are simply manifestations of our human selves.

This resonates so much with me as a clinical psychologist, because mental illness have been demonised and “monstered” throughout history, and I am always working to educate and defeat stereotypes and stigma.