Riot Headline Book Riot’s 2025 Read Harder Challenge
Lists

10 Mystery Novels To Prepare For THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW Movie

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Silvana Reyes Lopez

Senior Contributor

Silvana Reyes is a Mexican book blogger. She enjoys all types of sub-genres, but loves a good love story. Romance fiction is her heart and joy and you might find her screaming about book releases on her Twitter account.

Up next? The Woman in the Window, this May. It’s the newest mystery-thriller adaptation we are seeing on the big screen. Recently my favorite picture is definitely Knives Out, directed and written by Rian Johnson. That movie was a delicious treat of well-written material and a murder mystery you definitely didn’t see coming. I just hope The Woman in the Window delivers as well. Secrets between families, between friends, you have it all here. Everyone is lying, who is telling the truth then? Let’s look at this list of 10 mystery novels to prepare for this upcoming thriller-y experience.

Night Film coverNight Film by Marisha Pessl

Horror, mystery, and thriller: these describe Night Film so perfectly. But you will never know what lies in the depth of this story if you don’t take a look.

24-year-old Ashley Cordova is found dead and her death is ruled a suicide. Veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath says otherwise and suspects that there is more to this story. McGrath is drawn to the Cordova legacy, especially Ashley’s father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror film director Stanislaus Cordova.

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

Terror returns when Tessa, almost two decades after being found barely alive, sees a freshly-planted part of black-eyed Susans just outside her bedroom window. You see, these black-eyed Susans are a symbol to what happened to her many years ago. It was what the public named the victims of this serial killer, because they were all found on top of a yellow carpet of wildflowers.

She thought she sent the right man to jail, but this new twist of events is telling her otherwise. It seems that Tessa and her younger self have secrets they need to uncover and truths they need to find out.

Security by Gina Wohlsdorf

Who loves hotels and mysteries? Security brings you this and more puzzles that you could possibly imagine.

Manderley Resort is a gleaming, new hotel in California. It’s about to open, but someone is making it hard to happen. Everyone is being watched. But over the next 12 hours, one by one, they will be killed off. Expect twists and turns from this novel.

searching-for-sylvie-lee-by-jean-kwokSearching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

A disappearance. Two sisters and their mother are in the center of this suspenseful drama and they and we are ready for some answers.

A mystery. Sylvie, the eldest daughter, goes to the Netherlands to visit her dying grandmother, and then she vanishes. But what happened to Sylvie?

Tell Me Your Secret by Dorothy Koomson (March 17)

This gripping new mystery-thriller novel is ready to haunt your dreams. Because ten years ago when Pieta survived a weekend with a serial killer, she lived to tell the story. Now she has tried to forget the event and go on with her life, but the man who kidnapped her has return, hunting down his past victims, and he is coming for her…

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

It seems small towns are where every mystery and haunting thing happens because in Miracle Creek, in this small town in Virginia, secrets are people’s currency.

A group of people are part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions. So when the chamber unexpectedly explodes and two people die, it’s clear to everyone it wasn’t an accident.

The Other MrsThe Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

New psychological thriller is here to keep you up at night. When you just move with your husband to a new neighborhood and one of your neighbors turns up dead, it doesn’t really look good. Sadie, the wife, is shaken to the core. Soon enough, their little town’s eyes turn to the new family and Sadie is suspecting some secrets are better hidden than thrusted into the light.

No Bad Deed by Heather Chavez

Nothing is as it seems. One night, Cassie Larkin sees a woman and man fighting on the side of the road. Here is where everything changes, where her life becomes complicated and her future uncertain. She makes a decision: help the woman. But when the man steals her car, now he has everything to track her down. Her name. Her address. And he knows about her children. Matters get worse when her husband disappears the next day. Is it all a coincidence or the beginning of a horrifying nightmare?

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

In Littleport, Maine, visitors and residents don’t really become friends. But this changes when Sadie and Avery meet. For a decade, they see each other each summer, until Sadie is found dead. Her death is ruled a suicide, but is that what really happened to her? Many in the community, including the local detective and Sadie’s brother, blame her. There is someone who knows everything and isn’t telling.

Someone We Know by Shari Lapena book coverSomeone We Know by Shari Lapena

Someone, a teenager, is sneaking into houses, going into the residents’ computers. Knowing all their secrets. Maybe even sharing them. Who is this teenager? Who is entering people’s houses and getting to know them in a deeper level? When a neighbor is found dead, who is to blame?


Thrillers are exciting to read, but horrible to experience alongside the characters because of many aspects coming together, like the creepy atmosphere, the serial killer coming for them and the numerous unexpected twists. But everything is worth it when you finally reach that ending and you find out the truth. Well-written novels become your favorites and you fully expect them to become movie adaptations because you know they will make very good films.