Best books… J.S. Monroe

The author of the bestselling novel Find Me picks his five favourite psychological thrillers. His new book, Forget My Name, is published by Head of Zeus at £18.99

The Magus by John Fowles, 1965 (Vintage £10.99). The book’s sheer delight in Scheherazade-style storytelling – tales within tales – is infectious, as layer upon layer of falsehoods are peeled back to reveal “truths” that prove to be anything but. I read it again this year, having first devoured it as a student, and realised that this is the book that made me want to write.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt, 1992 (Penguin £8.99). This cool, erudite page-turner also has a magus at its centre: Julian Morrow, a university lecturer in Greek myths. Tartt taps into that desire in all of us to want to be included in something select and exclusive. And she educates us along the way about Apollonian reason and Dionysian desire.

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh, 2014 (Sphere £8.99). Not only does Mackintosh mix up the genres – police procedural with psychological thriller – but she also pulls off one of the great narrative twists. I had to go back to the beginning to examine the wiring and plumbing of the book, as it were, to work out how exactly she had done it.

Sweet Tooth by Ian Mcewan, 2012 (Vintage £9.99). Tom Haley, a writer targeted by the MI5 operative Serena Frome in the early 1970s, is a thinly disguised young Mcewan. I’m a sucker for metafiction and the selfreferential elements of this book, which builds to a mercurial final twist, are delicious.

The Talented Mr. Ripley by

Patricia Highsmith, 1955 (Vintage £8.99). Highsmith is the doyenne of the modern psychological thriller, and the book’s central device of assuming another’s identity is much imitated today. Despite Tom Ripley’s obvious immorality, we find ourselves rooting for him. It’s a phenomenal authorial achievement, particularly as Ripley’s envy leads him to murder.