Thrillers arguably have more riding on their opening pages than almost any other kind of literary genre. After all, they need to grab the reader’s attention quickly and reel them in, all in just a scene or two. Plenty succeed at producing an effective hook, but the truly great ones offer something more.

The titles below all establish immediate, undeniable stakes, whether that’s through visceral violence, a shocking revelation, a particularly memorable character, or simply gorgeous, atmospheric prose. From the sci-fi tension of Dark Matter to the masterful true-crime of London Falling, here are some thrillers that start strong and sustain that quality till the end.

‘Killing Floor’ (1997)

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“I was arrested in Eno’s Diner.” It’s difficult to imagine a more efficient introduction to Jack Reacher. Killing Floor, the first entry in the Reacher series, begins with its wandering protagonist quietly eating breakfast in a Georgia diner when police arrive and arrest him for murder. Lee Child doesn’t waste time on an elaborate introduction or pages of backstory. Reacher is dropped straight into trouble. And thus one of the most iconic action/thriller protagonists was born.

The character’s unusual lifestyle is fascinating from the outset. He owns almost nothing, has nowhere particular to be, and can therefore walk directly into situations most sensible people would flee. In other words, Reacher is the quintessential “lone wolf” folk hero. On the prose side, author Lee Child writes all this in short, rapid-fire, punchy sentences, with no-nonsense first-person narration stripping away all filler.

‘Her Last Breath’ (2026)

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“By the time they found her, she had been dead for hours.” The majority of the book is set deep inside “Devil’s Staircase,” a remote, pitch-black cave system in the Cascade Range. Main character Tess reluctantly agrees to join her friend Allie for a caving expedition, only for them to be preyed upon by a mysterious man. The plot switches back and forth between Tess’ ordeal in the caves and her interview with the police the following day, where dark secrets about Allie’s begin to come to light.

The tale is full of twists, and it really hits the ground running. From the beginning, we’re dealing with rockfalls, trapped characters, a dead body with a gunshot wound, and police suspicions falling on the protagonist. Ultimately, Her Last Breath is an intense, claustrophobic book, perfectly capturing the terror of isolation and tight crawlspaces.

‘Wrong Place, Wrong Time’ (2022)

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“Jen is waiting for her son to come home.” In this one, Jen waits up late for her teenage son Todd, watches him approach the house, and then sees him stab a stranger. Her ordinary life is destroyed in seconds. She eventually falls asleep after the nightmare of his arrest… only to wake up the previous morning, before the murder has happened. Then she wakes up another day earlier. Author Gillian McAllister turns that time-travel device into an ingenious mystery structure.

Rather than just being a gimmick, the time-travel becomes a procedural puzzle. To stop the future murder, Jen must play detective in her own past, searching for the chain of events that eventually leads her son to commit an apparently inexplicable act of violence. Sci-fi and domestic thriller mechanics fit together surprisingly naturally here, serving as a way to engage with themes of regret, parental guilty, and the difficult of really knowing another person, even family.

‘Dark Matter’ (2016)

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“Are you happy with your life?” This is a fantastic sci-fi thriller by Blake Crouch, who also wrote the Wayward Pines trilogy (adapted into a TV show starring Matt Dillon and Carla Gugino). In this one, protagonist Jason Dessen is a physics professor with a wife and son. He loves his family, yet there are roads not taken lingering beneath that happiness. This becomes frighteningly real when Jason is abducted by a masked stranger, drugged, and wakes in a reality where the life he remembers apparently never happened.

From here, Crouch takes a concept rooted in quantum mechanics and gives it the momentum of a chase thriller. The science matters in this book, but the character’s emotions matter more. Jason doesn’t want to explore infinite realities for their own sake; he wants to get home. While the mechanics of the multiverse are vast and dizzying, the thriller stays grounded because Jason’s motivation is simple and pure: love.

‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ (2018)

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“Ayoola summons me with these words: Korede, I killed him.” Protagonist Korede’s younger sister Ayoola has killed another boyfriend, and Korede is once again called upon to help clean up the mess. There is no prolonged mystery about whether Ayoola is responsible and very little initial interest in why she did it. The darkly funny question is considerably more practical: what exactly do you do when someone you love keeps murdering people?

So begins Oyinkan Braithwaite’s subversively funny, razor-sharp satirical thriller, one that took home a bevy of crime fiction awards on release. The tone is delightfully dry and cynical. For example, there are scenes that contrast the horrific reality of scrubbing blood out of car trunks with everyday sibling annoyances, like Ayoola posting glam shots on Instagram while her boyfriend is missing. Yet beneath the comedy, My Sister, the Serial Killer has a lot to say about toxic bonds and the dark side of family loyalty.

‘Mr Mercedes’ (2014)

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“Augie Odenkirk was the first of the city-center hopefuls to get up that morning.” Mr Mercedes is a gripping, old-school cat-and-mouse detective thriller from the master himself, Stephen King, and it opens with an act of violence that ranks among the most disturbing scenes the author has written (which is truly saying something). In it, hundreds of desperate people are gathered outside a job fair before dawn. King spends time introducing several of them, creating little lives and relationships within the crowd. Then a Mercedes emerges from the fog and deliberately plows into them.

The driver escapes, leaving eight people dead and many more injured. From here, the plot focuses on Bill Hodges, a depressed, retired homicide detective on the brink of suicide, and the unhinged Brady Hartsfield, who sends Bill taunting letters taking credit for the crime. The suspense comes from watching both characters try to outsmart and manipulate the other.

‘Gone Girl’ (2012)

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“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.” A landmark of 2010s thriller writing, Gone Girl begins when Amy Dunne disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary. Her husband Nick naturally becomes the center of suspicion, and his strange behavior hardly helps his case. From the very first pages (heck, even the first paragraph), the writing sounds affectionate and vaguely sinister at the same time, immediately establishing the uneasy ambiguity that will define the whole book.

Indeed, the masterstroke here is making the reader’s relationship with information itself unstable. Nick narrates the present while entries from Amy’s diary gradually reconstruct their marriage, and the discrepancies between those accounts become impossible to ignore. There are unreliable narrators, juicy twists, shocking bursts of violence, and a savage autopsy of a modern marriage soured by resentment and unmet expectations.

‘In Cold Blood’ (1966)

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“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’” This iconic book, a cornerstone of modern crime writing, is a novel that recounts a true story. The opening pages describe the isolated rural community of Holcomb, Kansas, a sleepy place where nothing particularly extraordinary seems likely to happen. Yet the reader already knows that something did. In 1959, Herbert and Bonnie Clutter and two of their children, Nancy and Kenyon, were killed inside their home.

That knowledge hangs over Truman Capote‘s descriptions of the Clutter family and their final ordinary day, transforming mundane details into sources of dread. Over the rest of the book, he reconstructs the crime and its aftermath while also zooming in on the killers, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock. In the process, he practically single-handedly created what we now call true crime.

‘The Secret History’ (1992)

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“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?” The Secret History doesn’t make readers wait long to discover that Bunny Corcoran is dead. Author Donna Tartt reveals his murder almost immediately, then turns backward to explain how a group of privileged classics students at an elite Vermont college reached the point where killing one of their friends seemed necessary. It’s an opening that inverts the usual machinery of a thriller.

The question isn’t really who committed the murder, but why, and what living with it will do to everyone involved. Indeed, the novel brilliantly explores the characters’ psychology, particularly their guilt and paranoia. This comes through on the prose level, too. Unlike fast-paced techno-thrillers, The Secret History is a slow-burn literary thriller. Tartt’s writing is rich, decadent, and deeply immersive, paying homage to Greek tragedy.

‘London Falling’ (2026)

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“A whole life that was just an edifice of lies.” This is another work of nonfiction, but it’s as tense and compelling as any made-up thriller. Written by Say Nothing‘s Patrick Radden Keefe, it tells the story of Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old middle-class teenager who leaped to his death from a luxury balcony into the River Thames in 2019. Through interviews and investigations, Keefe reveals that Zac had been socializing with sleazy London businesspeople and even gangsters… and that he had been telling them he was the son of an uber-wealthy Russian oligarch.

The book meticulously pieces together a character study of Zac, asking why he began spinning these elaborate lies, as well as reconstructing the timeline of events that led up to him plunging into the cold water below. In doing so, Keefe paints a broader, damning portrait of a city unmoored and morally bankrupt. Compulsively readable yet sobering and eerie.

Days of Our Lives fans know that Kristen DiMera (Stacy Haiduk) is gone right now, but she returns to Salem this fall and brings back somebody shocking with her. So, could it be a DiMera thought to be dead or some other stunning return? Knowing Kristen, it honestly could be somebody truly horrifying.

Days of our Lives: Kristen Takes Off

So, let’s dive in. As you know, Kristen DiMera left Salem late this summer to protect her daughter Rachel Black (Lorelei Olivia Mote) from EJ DiMera‘s (Dan Feuerriegel) wrath. Although, let’s be real, EJ DiMera never intended to hurt Rachel. He just wanted to put a scare into Kristen because she tried to kill his son Johnny DiMera (Carson Boatman). Crazy Kristen of course blamed EJ for Rachel shooting him because the tween was upset that EJ sent her grandmother Rachel Blake (Roslyn Gentle) away.

And with Kristen bringing somebody back with her, I initially wondered if it might be Sophia Choi (Rachel Boyd) only because she’s been name dropped a lot lately with Holly Jonas (Ashley Puzemis) and this new guy Mason Whitfield (Brandon Butler). But as far as Kristen knows, Sophia is dead.

Dead DiMera Resurrected   on DOOL

And after Kristen clocked her in the head with a rock, I just doubt Sophia would hang out with her. I have a feeling that we’re going to see Kristen’s big return during November sweeps, which kicks off the last week of October on the 29th. And yeah, Kristen might bring back a dead DiMera with her, or one who’s presumed dead, but she found alive. Or it could be somebody alive but just not seen yet.

So aside from Sophia, the first person that sprung to my mind is Dominic Marino. We know he’s got Stefano DiMera‘s (Joseph Mascolo) ring on his finger and Rita’s loyalty and Dominic bought the Kiriakis mansion and he had Dante Vitali (Franco LoPresti) try to make sure Philip Kiriakis (John-Paul Lavoisier) didn’t win at the poker table and that way Philip couldn’t save the mansion. And of course Xander Cook (Paul Telfer) didn’t get the text and went ahead and signed the papers. But Gabi Hernandez (Cherie Jimenez) and Philip gambled big at the roulette wheel and hopefully they’re still going to be able to save Titan.

We know Dominic’s still in Italy and Kristen might wind up there while she’s on the run. Dominic may introduce himself to Kristen, the sister he’s never met. By the end of this week, Steve Johnson (Stephen Nichols) gets Dominic’s birth certificate from Bo Brady (Peter Reckell) and Hope Brady (Kristian Alfonso). And it shows Dominic is Stefano’s son. And it looks like he is also going to be Marlena Evans‘s (Deidre Hall) son, which is truly terrible.

Days of our Lives: Kristen Targets EJ

So, I know Kristen would love to see EJ squirm. Dominic may know from Rita Lesley (Maggie Carney) that Kristen and EJ are at odds. While we expect Dominic in Salem soon, November Sweeps makes a lot of sense for his big debut. Given how much Kristen hates EJ right now, there’s no telling what she might do. And I could totally see Kristen making an alliance with Dominic and embracing him as Stefano’s true heir.

And that would absolutely infuriate EJ. But another person Kristen might bring back with her is her nephew Dmitri von Leuschner DiMera (Peter Porte) because he still wants to prove that EJ and Gwen Rizczech (Emily O’Brien) were the ones who kidnapped him and held him captive in Alamania. So, Dmitri may offer Kristen protection from EJ because he’s got all his ISA double agent skills, and he’s ruthless.

Kristen Helps Dimitri on Days

Dmitri may ask for Kristen’s help proving what EJ and Gwen did in exchange for keeping her safe. And since Leo Stark (Greg Rikaart) and Javi Hernandez (Jacob Martinez) are finally reuniting, it would be terrible timing for Kristen to show back up with Leo’s hunky ex, Dmitri. I think Kristen would make an alliance with absolutely anybody if it would save her from EJ’s wrath. So, there’s also the chance that Kristen brings back her brother Tony DiMera (Thaao Penghlis) with her to Salem.

That wouldn’t be shocking though. But that being said, Kristen has sought Tony out countless times when she’s making a power grab or if she needs backup against the rest of the family. Kristen and Tony could return and take sides in the Dominic versus EJ war that I feel is coming soon. Recently, Sydney DiMera (Sydney Malakeh) mentioned that she saw Tony during fashion week in Milan. The writers often drop little foreshadowing hints.

Kristen Laying Low on DOOL

So, I always pay attention to the offscreen characters that are mentioned. So, Kristen is hiding out over in Italy. She might even be staying with Tony and Anna DiMera (Leann Hunley), hiding out from EJ. On the weird flip side, Kristen may bring back somebody who was presumed dead. Now, we know her brother Peter Blake (Dan Gauthier), who’s an adopted DiMera, died after the Crypt crew kidnappings. Dr. Wilhelm Rolf (Richard Wharton) snuck into his room and injected Peter and then he flatlined and obviously it looks like Dr. Rolf staged Peter’s death and he probably stuck him in a cryo-pod. That seems like something Dr. Rolf would do on Days of our Lives.

And if you recall, Peter was furious at Kristen for turning against him during the kidnappings. And it was Kristen’s actions that led to Peter being impaled on one of Stefano’s loose bones, and that made him so sick. But before all of that, Kristen and Peter had been really close. So, if Kristen finds out Peter’s in a cryo-pod, she may have Dr. Rolf resurrect her biological brother and hand him over. And then Kristen may bring Peter back to Salem with her for help in taking down EJ. Peter’s insane, but so is Kristen. I mean, so is their mom, Rachel Blake. Hopefully, it’s not Peter.

Days of our Lives: Abigail Back from the Dead

Now, there is another dead DiMera that Kristen might find while she’s on the run. That wouldn’t be quite so scary, but it would be shocking. We’ve all been waiting to find out if Abigail Deveraux DiMera (AnnaLynne McCord) is really dead or alive. Her name was dropped again recently when Chad DiMera (Connor Floyd) and Belle Black (Martha Madison) were talking about Cat Greene‘s (AnnaLynne McCord) fakery. If you remember when Chad and Jack Deveraux (Matthew Ashford) had Abigail’s grave exhumed, there were no remains inside.

That was done partly to help Cat carry out her subterfuge that Clyde Weston (James Read) was making her do. And if you remember, Cat’s brother Mark Greene (Jonah Robinson) faked the DNA test. But since then, Abigail’s remains have never been found. And on Days of Our Lives, that means that person is likely not dead. It is the perfect time for Abigail to come back since Chad is falling for Belle and Cat’s no longer in his life. So, it could be that Kristen finds Abigail while she’s on the run, maybe hidden somewhere by hillbilly Clyde, who as far as we know is still in a coma.

Sophia Returns to Days

And if Kristen returned to Salem with Abigail and reunited her with Chad, that means Chad would probably side with Kristen in a family battle with EJ. It feels like they’ve been hinting around about Abigail’s return for a while. So maybe that’ll manifest.

And while Kristen did seem to have murdered Sophia, the fact that her body was never found is a red flag. So yes, Sophia might return at some point. I don’t think Kristen would be the one to bring her back unless it was to torment EJ’s ex-stepdaughter, Holly. I feel like Sophia is a long shot for the person to come back with Kristen. I’m leaning towards Kristen showing up in town with Dominic because that would be the biggest slap in EJ’s face.

It would be kind of interesting if Kristen and Dominic set up an alternate DiMera family base over at the former Kiriakis mansion. You know, DiMera 2.0. And then they start pulling other DiMeras over to their side. I won’t call it the dark side because EJ is also dark. It feels like they’re going to be two DiMera dark sides and Kristen would definitely be on the darker side of those two. And I think that lands with Dominic. So maybe those two come to town together, which would be truly terrifying.

It’s a precious enough rarity to find a book that’s genuinely great, but to find one that’s downright perfect? That’s the sort of thing that tells you that the pages in your hand are truly special. But while many of history’s greatest literary masterpieces are so dense that they make re-reads daunting, there are others that, for one reason or another, make the idea of re-visiting their world and characters immediately irresistible.

From mind-bending surrealist masterpieces like I’m Thinking of Ending Things to cornerstones of postmodern literature like If on a winter’s night a traveler, these are books that aren’t just re-readable: They make you want to start over right after you get to the final period of the story. Whether it’s because of plot twists, mind-twisting elements, or simply just a tremendous level of quality, they’re the sort of novels that you’ve only ever fully experienced if you’ve read them twice.

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‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ (2016)

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Canadian literature has offered plenty of masters and plenty of masterpieces over the years, and recently Iain Reid gave us his remarkable debut novel, the psychological horror thriller I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It follows a young woman who has many doubts about her relationship with her boyfriend, and is specifically structured as a sort of psychological puzzle box that feels like exploring the fractured psyche of a fascinating protagonist.

Upon publication, most critics hailed I’m Thinking of Ending Things as one of the boldest, most creative, and most philosophically dense thrillers that bookstore shelves had seen in years—but in spite of that density and its undeniably bleak tone, it nevertheless makes an instant re-read irresistibly tempting. As it slowly moves and then dramatically careens toward its ending, the book keeps recontextualizing itself in all sorts of engrossing ways. By the time it’s all over, you practically need a re-visit in order to properly understand everything you’ve just experienced.

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‘Piranesi’ (2020)

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People who love books that are structured like puzzle boxes ought to consider Susanna Clarke‘s Piranesi a must-read. After Clarke wrote her Hugo-winning debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, she suffered almost two decades’ worth of a severe, debilitating case of chronic fatigue syndrome. Powering through her illness, she finally put Piranesi out into the world. Not only was the result worth it: It’s one of the best fantasy books published since 2020.

Structured like a journal and following a gentle man living in a seemingly infinite building known as the House, it’s such a powerful thematic exploration of memory and identity that its enrapturing emotional atmosphere alone makes it worth a re-read. Add to that some of the most beautifully dreamlike world-building and some of the most memorable prose that the fantasy genre has seen in some time, and you get a book that’s bound to be remembered as a 2020s classic a couple of decades from now.

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‘Fight Club’ (1996)

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Is the book better or is David Fincher‘s iconic film adaptation better? It doesn’t really matter, since the fact of it is that Chuck Palahniuk‘s satirical novel Fight Club is among the greatest American novels of the ’90s. It was Palahniuk’s debut novel, and it’s about an unnamed insomniac protagonist who finds relief in a series of support groups, where he eventually meets a mysterious man with whom he establishes an underground fighting club.

What at first starts reading as a thrilling story about a weak-willed man and a charismatic nihilist gradually starts revealing itself to be something far more sinister, and the book’s iconic twist completely flips everything that came before on its head. Even knowing the reveal beforehand, re-reading Fight Club becomes immediately enticing upon finishing it, all thanks to the engrossing character writing and Palahniuk’s punchy, transgressive writing style.

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‘Annihilation’ (2014)

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Written by American author and critic Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation is the first book of the Southern Reach series, and it’s about a team of women sent into a government-managed, deserted location called Area X to study and survey the land. Winner of the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel, this cosmic horror sci-fi gem is an absolute page turner whose 208 pages feel even shorter.

What makes Annihilation so deeply re-readable is a big part of what makes it so special, and it’s not just the dreamlike atmosphere and fast-moving pace of VanderMeer’s writing. Where many instantly re-readable novels tend to rely on a big twist that shifts the meaning of the whole story, Annihilation‘s re-readability instead comes from how, on a second visit, you start to gradually notice the exact moments the influence of Area X alters the narrator’s perceptions and memories. For how brilliantly written these mysteries are, this is easily one of the best American books of the last 15 years.

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‘The Secret History’ (1992)

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The first novel written by Donna Tartt, The Secret History has aged beautifully as one of the most acclaimed English-language fiction books of the ’90s. A cornerstone of the campus novel and a pioneer of the dark academia genre, it’s one of those books that are real page-turners from start to finish, a fresh twist on the tropes of the murder mystery genre which has only gotten better with age.

What makes Secret History so unique and so instantly re-readable is the fact that Tartt structured it as a sort of inverted whodunnit—a whydunnit, if you will. We open by knowing exactly who died and exactly who killed him, and by granting the reader the logistical answers to the crime right off the bat, Tartt makes the whole mystery about why this could have possibly happened. It’s a delectably genius creative decision that makes re-visits of The Secret History endlessly rewarding.

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‘If on a winter’s night a traveller’ (1979)

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Postmodernism was born in the Western world right after World War II, rejecting the dogmas of modernism and the Enlightenment as a result of post-war disillusionment. From this movement came several of the greatest masters of 20th century literature, which includes Italian writer Italo Calvino. His If on a winter’s night a traveller is one of the best books of the 1970s, and is about an unnamed Reader who buys a new book and discovers that a printing error cuts the story short and repeats the first chapter.

This genius piece of masterful metafiction is pretty much entirely and purposely designed specifically to be re-read, since it’s a book that’s overtly about the physical and psychological act of reading. The book’s final sentence loops directly back to complete the structure of page one, and as such, no reading of If on a winter’s night a traveller could ever be comprehensive without at least two read-throughs. The best part? This is one of those postmodern classics that feel not at all like a chore, but like a proper delight to experience.

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‘Peace’ (1975)

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Gene Wolfe was one of the most respected and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of modern times, perhaps best known for his magnum opus, the tetralogy The Book of the New Sun. Since that science fantasy epic is such a perfect masterpiece, it often overshadows the rest of Wolfe’s masterpieces—which definitely includes Peace, a ghost story about a man from a small Midwestern town who narrates various memories from different parts of his life.

Neil Gaiman once famously called Peace “a gentle Midwestern memoir the first time you read it, and a horror novel the second time.” Instead of feeding you the big twist that makes the novel instantly re-readable, Wolfe forces you to do the detective work yourself, finding the contextual clues that reveal you’ve been reading a ghost tale all along. As such, it’s impossible to finish reading Peace and not want to pick it back up for another go instantly.

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‘Gone Girl’ (2012)

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Gillian Flynn‘s Gone Girl, one of those mystery book masterpieces that became the blueprint for the genre going forward, altogether revolutionized the domestic thriller genre by shattering its usual tropes. It’s a psychological thriller about a husband who becomes the prime suspect of his wife’s mysterious disappearance. The suspense then comes from wondering whether the husband actually is or isn’t behind the disappearance, and it makes for one of the most riveting reading experiences that any thriller from this century has had to offer.

You don’t have to wait too long to find out what’s really going on, and that earth-shattering midpoint twist not only makes your recollection of everything you’ve read up to that point collapse into itself, but also makes a re-read pretty much mandatory. On a re-read, Gone Girl‘s thought-provoking themes and intricately-plotted story become even more worthy of admiration.

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‘The Sound and the Fury’ (1929)

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William Faulkner was one of the definitive architects of early 20th-century American literature, a radically revolutionary writer who unsurprisingly won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. That prize would have most likely never come, however, were it not for how unprecedentedly groundbreaking the modernist Southern Gothic masterpiece The Sound and the Fury was. Written quite experimentally as a sort of stream of consciousness, it’s about the collapse and moral decay of a once-aristocratic family in Mississippi.

Though it wasn’t commercially successful, the book started growing in popularity after the publishing of Faulkner’s 1931 novel Sanctuary. Today, it’s widely regarded as one of the top contenders for the title of The Great American Novel. It’s one of those books that may feel like a true test of patience on one’s first read-through, but as Faulkner gradually starts to make everything feel clearer as the novel goes on, a second read-through immediately becomes a must.

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‘Pedro Páramo’ (1955)

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Between the 1960s and 1970s, Latin America became the epicenter of world literature, and Mexican writer Juan Rulfo was one of this cultural wave’s most important writers. He was far and away one of the most critical and foundational voices in the history of modern magical realism, largely thanks to what’s universally recognized not just as his magnum opus, but at times even referred to as the greatest Mexican book of all time: Pedro Páramo, about a man who travels to a desolate ghost town to fulfill the promise he made to his dying mother: that he’d find his estranged father and demand what he is owed.

Everything that ensues from that fascinating premise makes Pedro Páramo one of the best book masterpieces of the 20th century. Rather than a linear story, it’s a remarkably challenging collection of echoes that doesn’t quite become entirely clear even after one’s nth reading—and that impenetrability is an essential part of the book’s timeless charm. It may sound cheesy, but Pedro Páramo is a book to be experienced, not understood. Decoding the many nuances of the story of the town of Comala is something that takes several re-visits.

Dave Bautista is officially stepping into the role of Kratos.

The Guardians of the Galaxy and Dune star has finalized a deal to play the legendary Spartan warrior in Prime Video’s upcoming live action adaptation of God of War. Bautista replaces Ryan Hurst, who was originally cast as Kratos before exiting the series following an on set injury.

Hurst reportedly suffered a torn bicep while performing a stunt during production and required surgery, forcing the series to find a new actor for its leading role. Bautista had been reported to be in negotiations for the part earlier this month, and the deal has now officially been completed.

The casting puts Bautista at the center of one of Prime Video’s biggest upcoming video game adaptations. Best known to mainstream audiences as Drax in Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy films, Bautista has steadily built a dramatic résumé that includes Dune, Dune: Part Two, Blade Runner 2049 and Knock at the Cabin.

Kratos, God of War [Santa Monica Studio]

Prime Video’s God of War is being led by Ronald D. Moore, the veteran producer behind Battlestar Galactica, Outlander and For All Mankind. Moore serves as writer, showrunner and executive producer, while Frederick E.O. Toye, whose credits include Shōgun and The Boys, is directing the first two episodes.

The series is expected to draw heavily from the Norse era of the God of War franchise, following Kratos and his young son Atreus on their journey through the Nine Realms. Callum Vinson is set to play Atreus, with the ensemble also including Teresa Palmer as Sif, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Thor, Mandy Patinkin as Odin, Max Parker as Heimdall, Ed Skrein as Baldur, Danny Woodburn as Brok and Jeff Gulka as Sindri. Alastair Duncan will reprise his video game role as Mimir.

Amazon has already made a significant commitment to the adaptation, with God of War receiving a two season order. No official premiere date has been announced.

For Bautista, Kratos represents another major franchise role following his run as Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His imposing physical presence makes him an obvious fit for the character, but his increasingly dramatic work could prove equally important in bringing the older and far more emotionally complex version of Kratos to live action.

With Bautista now officially wielding the Leviathan Axe, one of gaming’s most recognizable characters finally has his new live action star.