The Best Thriller Books of 2025

It’s that time of year again. If you are heading poolside, or even just to your in-laws’ place for a few days, you might be seeking a good old-fashioned thriller to keep you entertained during your well-earned time off. But where should you start, when searching for the best thriller books of 2025?

We tend to consult the shortlists put together by the International Thriller Writers (ITW), an organisation which “represents professional thriller authors from around the world.” Previous winners at the ITW Awards include Stephen King, Jeffrey Deaver, Lisa Gardner and Robert Harris. They offer awards in a number of different categories, but we find the ‘best standalone novel’ shortlist most useful when planning our summer reading. In 2025, there were five shortlisted books, all of them true page turners.

The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak

Ultimately, the ITW judges declared Jason Rekulak’s The Last One at the Wedding to be the best thriller of 2025. It follows Frank Szatowski, a widowed war veteran and UPS delivery guy who discovers that his estranged daughter is shortly to marry the son of a tech billionaire. Out of the blue, she asks him to walk her down the aisle and he happily agrees. But when he arrives at the event—hosted at a luxurious private estate in New Hampshire—Szatowski soon realises that all is not as it seems and he must race to uncover the truth about his daughter’s fiancé before it’s too late.

If you enjoyed Rekulak’s last book, the very creepy Hidden Pictures, then you will appreciate the plot twists in the tightly-plotted The Last One at the Wedding too—but this time expect family drama and conspiracy, not a supernatural thriller. Think Taken meets White Lotus. The Last One at the Wedding was also recommended for a Goodreads Readers’ Choice Award last year.

The Paris Widow by Kimberley Belle

There were four runners-up, including Kimberly Belle’s The Paris Widow, a story in which an American man is tragically killed in a gas explosion during a European holiday. But who was he, really? Soon his wife Stella is reeling from the news that her new husband was, apparently, an internationally notorious dealer of stolen art—and finds herself under surveillance.

The Paris Widow book leads us in a cat-and-mouse game through the streets of the French capital, as its fast-paced plot unfolds. This is a binge-worthy, escapist thriller that should be read in a rush. (And if you too are heading to France this summer, you may be interested in other novels set in Paris.)

The Chamber by Will Dean

The third of the books shortlisted for the title of best 2025 thriller was Will Dean’s claustrophobic The Chamber (published in the UK as One at a Time). It has a brilliant concept: six deep-sea divers are locked together inside a diving bell, or an underwater hyperbaric chamber. When one of their number is found dead in his bunk, it’s clear that the murderer is among them—but there’s no escape: it will take four uncomfortable days of decompression before they can leave the room. Until then, they must stay alert—or risk being unalived.

We love a high-concept plot here at Five Books, and what a great idea: perhaps the highest pressure locked-room mystery yet? As a reader, you will also learn a great deal about the technicalities of saturation diving, a fascinating and extremely hazardous profession.

Worst Case Scenario by T. J. Newman

Okay, the title gives you a good steer: in the fourth thriller on the 2025 ITW shortlist, an aeroplane crashes directly into a nuclear plant in Minnesota. It’s a terrifying notion, and after the initial, white-knuckle set piece, the action unfolds as fast and as furiously as you might assume.

Newman herself is a former flight attendant who now specialises in air disaster novels. Her bestselling debut Falling portrayed a plane hijacking, and her sophomore outing Drowning featured an aircraft crash at sea. James Patterson described this latest book as “the best thriller I’ve read so far this year. It’s a chilling idea with great characters and near-perfect execution.”

The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline

Which brings us to the final book on the ITW shortlist for the best standalone thriller of 2025: Lisa Scottoline’s The Truth About the Devlins. It features a Philadelphia clan of elite, high-achieving lawyers—and one drop-out son, T.J., who has struggled with alcoholism and spent time in prison. But when his more ambitious brother accidentally kills a client during a charged confrontation, T.J.’s criminal past proves surprisingly useful.

This is a long (400 pp.) but fast-moving story that rattles along, and will keep you happily occupied for a good few days while you top up your tan or wait in departure lounges. If you fancy a character-driven story featuring sibling rivalry, a sobriety journey and white collar crime, this could be the book for you.

If none of these catch your eye, you might be interested in the winners of several other categories. Kellye Garrett won the award for ‘best standalone mystery of 2025’ for her novel Missing White Woman, which flips the cultural and media obsession with a certain kind of victim on its head. Jaime deBlanc won the ‘best first novel’ category for her debut After Image, a suspense novel about a high-profile cold case, which might finally be on the verge of being solved. And David Baldacci won the award for the best new novel in a series for To Die For, the latest book in his Travis Devine sequence.

What new thrillers have you enjoyed best so far in 2025? Let us know on social media or by email.