If you like your fiction to surprise you with lots of unexpected twists and turns, then you’ll enjoy the many unpredictable books like Shutter Island listed below.
dennis lehane has written many a series of exciting psychological thrillers, but his standalone novels are perhaps even more amazing with his 2003 follow-up novel us marshal teddy daniels being just one example.
You are reading: Books like shutter island
teddy has been called to the ashecliffe hospital for the criminally insane on shutter island to track down an escaped killer, multiple murderer rachel solando, but when she arrives with her partner chuck aule, nothing is as it seems.
With a hurricane hitting the island and patients disappearing from locked rooms, Teddy’s investigation is anything but simple, it seems the closer he gets to the truth, the harder it becomes to determine what he’s really looking for.
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Thanks to lehane’s old-school style, not to mention this mind-blowing plot, the novel is completely absorbing and hooks you from the very first sentence. Prepare to guess, prepare to be manipulated, prepare to question your grip on reality in these books like Shutter Island.
8 books as shutter island
rebecca, by daphne du maurier
There aren’t many characters I feel sorry for, but Maxim de Winter’s poor, meek, mild-mannered second wife in Daphne du Maurier’s rebecca is one of them. Her whirlwind romance with the charming Mr. Winter is short-lived when she moves in with him in Manderley, the grand Cornish stately home she shared with his late wife, the titular Rebecca.
Forced to live in Rebecca’s shadow, she struggles to adjust to her new role as mistress of the house thanks to some of the staff, in particular Mrs. danvers, the head of the family and close friend of rebecca. The second Mrs. Winter decides to find out what happened to Rebecca to put an end to her waking nightmare, but she never expected what she finally finds out.
du maurier was lighting up her characters before lighting entered our vernacular, rebecca is eerily atmospheric, an old-school psychological thriller, and the perfect book to kick-start this list. from novels like Shutter Island.
Do you already know and love this classic thriller? Check out our list of books like Rebecca!
lost girl, by gillian flynn
Gillian Flynn’s exciting novel Gone Girl certainly has a twist most readers don’t see coming, making it the perfect book as Shutter Island.
On the outside and according to his diary, Nick and Amy Dunne were like the dream of young lovers when they met in New York. They married, but the honeymoon period soon faded when they returned to Missouri after Nick’s mother’s health deteriorated.
on their fifth wedding anniversary, amy mysteriously disappears and unassuming nick is the police’s prime suspect thanks to accounts from amy’s friend that she was afraid of him and his strange behavior, certainly not the behavior of a worried and grieving husband.
Unraveling dual narratives, we follow Nick on the search for his missing wife as we get to the bottom of his diary entries and the secrets he told his friends. flynn writes in such a way that it’s easy to devour lost girl, compulsively trying to figure out what happened with an ending you won’t believe.
Have you already read this exciting novel? check out our list of books like lost girl!
before I go to sleep, yes. J. watson
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If it’s the exploration of memory and trauma that has you on the hunt for more novels like Shutter Island, look no further than Before I Go to Bed s. J. watson where memory, or lack thereof, is at the center of the narrative.
Christine wakes up every morning to a living nightmare. She doesn’t know where she is, who the man sleeping next to her is, nor does she recognize her face staring back at her in the mirror.
Each day, Christine’s husband, Ben, has to explain to her that thanks to a terrible accident she had decades earlier, every time she goes to sleep she forgets everything, a condition he calls anterograde amnesia. Every day, Christine tries to piece together what she can about her life only to forget it all again the next day.
as the novel unfolds, along with christine, we realize that not everything ben tells her is true. Before I Go to Sleep has a fantastic premise that any reader looking for psychological thrills will enjoy.
the woman in white, by wilkie collins
Like many recent books like Shutter Island, they have been influenced by some of the classics, and Wilkie Collins’s 1859 novel The Woman in White is one such example that combines Victorian Gothic perfection and psychological realism.
walter hartright has seen the woman in white before, in the dark streets of london at the beginning of the novel, and then realizes that she is a patient who has escaped from an insane asylum. He remembers this creepy encounter when he starts working as a drawing teacher for the fairy family, as one of her students, Laura Fairlie bears a striking resemblance to her.
Despite falling in love with Walter, Laura marries the cunning Sir Percival Glyde, who has his sights set on her inheritance. And so unfolds a story of mistaken identities, madness, corruption, and greed that unfolds through the corridors of English country houses and city asylums.
I’m just as scared of this novel now as I was after the first read, prepare to get goosebumps and blood run cold thanks to the woman in white.
don’t tell anyone, by harlan coben
any of harlan coben’s novels would have been at home on this list of amazing books like shutter island as he is known for his gripping plots and suspenseful narratives, but i chose not to be tell no one thanks to the protagonist tormented by a tragic past.
On the anniversary of their first kiss, newlyweds David and Elizabeth Beck celebrate at a secluded lake, but tragedy strikes and Elizabeth is kidnapped and murdered.
even though the perpetrator is caught, david is still reeling from the loss 8 years later. Having never been able to escape the tragedy, it becomes even more impossible to hide when two more bodies are found near the lake where Elizabeth disappeared and the police suspect David had something to do with it.
We follow David as he tries not only to prove his innocence, but also to find the source of a suspicious email that alluded to his wife being still alive, a seemingly impossible task when he is asked not to tell anyone. nobody.
coben barely lets go of the throttle in don’t tell anyone, once you start reading you don’t stop until you get to the bottom of the mysterious goings-on.
watch jane run, by joy fielding
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There is a further exploration of memory in the 1991 novel see jane run.
by joy fielding.
the headline jane can solve many things, such as determining the length of a hypotenuse. However, she can’t figure out how she came to be on a Boston street corner in a blood-soaked dress hidden in a coat with $10,000 in the pockets.
after spending a few days in a motel trying to remember and figure out what to do next, jane decides to go to the police station. she ends up at the hospital for an exam where a dr. Whittaker introduces himself claiming to be her husband. hoping that dr. Whittaker can fill in some of the blanks, Jane is whisked back to her suburban home and forced to take a variety of pills under the watchful eye of Paula Marinelli, her faithful housekeeper.
Clearly, all is not as it seems, fueled by suspicion, Jane tries to piece together the horrific events of her past that her mind would clearly prefer to forget. see jane run is a compulsive, explosive and exciting read with an ending you won’t believe, it’s the perfect book similar to shutter island.
the murder of roger ackroyd, by agatha christie
Said to be agatha christie’s most daring crime novel, the queen of the unexpected ending is next on our list of novels like shutter island with an early hercule poirot mystery, the murder of roger ackroyd .
They say that knowledge is power. But unfortunately for Roger Ackroyd, knowledge means death; his death. Roger knew that his wife killed her first abusive husband by poisoning him. she also knew that she was being blackmailed for what she did, which led to her suicide. just as she receives her suicide note confirming all this and more, someone stabs him!
Enter everyone’s favorite Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot to investigate.
With a host of suspects to choose from, including regular housewives, townspeople and relatives who would stand to benefit from a handsome inheritance, Poirot deduces who the blackmailer and murderer is in an unexpected twist: the murder of roger ackroyd is christie at his best!
strangers on a train, by patricia highsmith
the plots of books like the island of the blind are as important as the characters that compose them, and the timeless novel strangers on a train by patricia highsmith is another example of this.
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The inspiration behind Alfred Hitchcock’s 1952 film of the same name, Highsmith features Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno, both passengers on the same train. Guy is a successful architect in the midst of a bitter divorce, and as a result, Bruno is a manipulative psychopath who manages to persuade Guy to trade murders with him.
bruno will kill the boy’s wife if the boy will kill bruno’s father for him.
highsmith expertly shows how even the most ordinary people are capable of committing the most dastardly crimes under the right circumstances, as the guy unknowingly gets caught up in bruno’s twisted plan.
still as good as then, strangers on a train begs the question of whether one is born with a predilection for violence or is it a result of our environment.
Apart from their remarkable plots, what I love most about books like shutter island is that as a reader you solve the mysteries and discover the answers alongside the characters who, for the most part, are as much in the as dark as you are, enjoy it!
Are you looking for more books similar to shutter island? Do you have any recommendations that are not on the list? tell us in the comments!
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