The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine is a psychological thriller. The story is about a young woman named Amber Patterson, who is trying to insert herself into the lives of a wealthy, well-to-do couple in the Long Island area.
So she’s trying to break up the family, get close to them, and we are given some teasers as to the reasons why she’s doing these things in her past. But most of that is revealed towards the end of the book, so it does keep you in suspense. Stay with me if you want to read books like The Last Mrs. Parrish.
10 Books Like The Last Mrs. Parrish
If you love psychological thrillers, murder, mystery, intrigue, all of that, The Last Mrs. Parrish would be perfect because it does have all of those elements. Also, it has many different plot twists, which are purely psychological thrillers. After reading this book, I went through a hangover, and it took four days! I think you also got these feelings. I will review 10 thriller suspense books similar to The Last Mrs. Parrish to keep your excitement alive. Let’s go!
1. Written in Blood (Robert Hunter)
It is a dark and gruesome serial killer police procedural novel based on Robert Hunter. He is a detective with the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. There’s no previous context needed to get into this book. The story begins with a young woman called Angela, a pickpocket in L.A., and she ends up stealing a bag from the wrong man. Inside the bag, there’s nothing but a leather-bound journal that depicts many gruesome crimes.
The man, whoever he was, has written in detail about all these murders that he’s committed, including details about where he buried bodies, how he killed them, who these people were. Angela sends the book to the police, and the hunt is on for the killer. The killer is also hunting Angela. There are no huge twists or turns, which is unusual for this genre. Like The Last Mrs. Parrish, the storytelling in this book keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Author: Chris Carter
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Gothic Romances
Number Of Pages: 496
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
2. The Killing Lessons (Valerie Hart)
This is a police procedural book with a serial killer storyline very similar to The Last Mrs. Parrish. It’s super engaging and is a frightening read. The story opens with two strangers turning up an isolated country house, and they murder a mother in front of her 10-year-old daughter. Homicide detective Valerie Hart is put on the case, and she follows a trail of victims who are all abducted, tortured, and left with seemingly random objects inside of them.
The key to the answer is held by a 10-year-old girl who witnessed her mother being murdered. You’re taking away from the main storyline with sidelines about the lead character. Also, you do have a side storyline here about Valerie. I recommend it to everyone, and I’m recommending it to you are a fan of the crime thriller.
Author: Saul Black
Average Customer Review: (4.1 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Serial Killer Thrillers
Number Of Pages: 416
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
3. Eeny Meeny (Helen Grace)
It is another police procedural that sticks out in my mind were very similar reasons. The Killing Lessons is intense, gory, disturbing, dark, twisted. This one focuses on Detective Inspector Helen Grace, who has a very dark past. According to investigating detectives, when a series of couples are abducted, they’re given impossible choices to gain their freedom.
It’s all about the disturbing mind games that think very similar. I saw one quote from the book on the fire floor. “You’ll find a gun. It has one bullet in it for Sam. That is the price of your freedom, and you must kill to live. Do you want to live, Amy?” The plot of this book super well is very twisty as The Last Mrs. Parrish. You want to get to the end and find out who it was and what happened.
Author: M. J. Arlidge
Average Customer Review: (4.2 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Police Procedurals
Number Of Pages: 448
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
4. The Hunting Party
A friendship group goes to a cabin in the woods, and something bad happens. One of the members of the friendship group is found dead. You don’t know who is dead until quite far into the book. So you try to figure out which of the party killed this person. It’s one of those books where each chapter is written from a different character’s perspective. Moreover, it takes a while to get used to the different voices of each character, but you do get into the swing of it eventually.
It’s also a good read, so I spent much time reading reviews and Goodreaders. Someone described it as an Agatha Christie’s novel. It’s the story that you’ve read a million times before, but it brings something very fresh to the genre. You can relate the mystery with The Last Mrs. Parrish.
Author: Lucy Foley
Average Customer Review: (4.1 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Crime Thrillers
Number Of Pages: 406
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
5. One of Us is Lying
This book is described as The Breakfast Club meets critical liars, five high schoolers going to detention after school for misdemeanors. They’re sure that they didn’t commit, and only four of them walk out alive. Each teenager is from a different social group. They’re all very fundamentally different people. Yet they all teamed up to figure out what on Earth happened because they’re all suspects.
Don’t dismiss this because it’s why a book it’s so well-written. Like The Last Mrs. Parrish, the storyline unravels so nicely, and I read this sat on a beanbag in my living room in about four hours.
Author: Karen M. McManus
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Mystery & Detective Fiction (Best Seller)
Number Of Pages: 416
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
6. In a Dark, Dark Wood
The main protagonist is invited to a hen party of someone she hasn’t seen in literally years. She’s not even invited to the wedding, the hen party. So she contacts another old friend who’s also been invited, and they make a pact to go together again. It’s a book with a cast of characters who have very little in common. They all have very different stories and backgrounds. None of them know each other.
As you read, you’ve put the puzzle together yourself. The first chapter is Nora waking up in hospital with no memory of what’s happened. She’s told that she’s been in a car accident, but she has no memory of it at all. It’s clever how the story slowly unravels through Nora’s memory. The story unfolds as she fades in and out of this morphine haze. There’s always a big twist, which shocked me after The Last Mrs. Parrish.
Author: Ruth Ware
Average Customer Review: (4.3 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-In Fiction, Horror & Crime Fiction
Number Of Pages: 308
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
7. Gone Girl
If you want a psychological thriller, this is the book for you. It has its hype for a reason, and it’s the reason why I love this genre so much. There’s nothing quite the thrill of a story, as you’re like turning the pages, but this is one of the rare times when a movie does live up to the book, so do both anyway.
The story is about Nick and Amy Dutton. It’s their fifth wedding anniversary when Amy suddenly goes missing. Nick arrives home to the whole house overturns. We report it to the police, who find that Amy, this ever-doting wife, has left her annual treasure hunt for him, leading to his anniversary present. The police are convinced that Nick has murdered his wife, but he’s insisting on his innocence. The storytelling and plotline match with The Last Mrs. Parrish.
Author: Gillian Flynn
Average Customer Review: (4.1 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Mystery Thriller
Number Of Pages: 415
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
8. The Silent Patient
This is the story of Alicia Berenson, a woman with a seemingly perfect life. She’s a famous painter married to this popular photographer, Gabriel. They have a very nice life, nice friends, a seemingly very happy until one evening. Alicia shoots Gabriel in the face five times and then refuses to repeat another word.
Nobody has a clue what happened, and she was shipped off to a psychiatric hospital where therapists of therapists failed to make any progress with her. Criminal psychotherapist Thierry Fabre finds out that a job is opening a hospital, and he makes it his mission to make her speak. It takes over his entire life. It’s a real page-turner again, another one that I read quickly. If you love The Last Mrs. Parrish, you will also love it.
Author: Alex Michaelides
Average Customer Review: (4.5 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Crime Suspense
Number Of Pages: 325
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
9. The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway)
This is a suspense book with a difference because it centers around a forensic archaeologist, Dr. Ruth Golway, instead of the usual detective. It adds a different perspective to this country. Ruth happily lives alone in an area near Norfolk, in an area sacred to the people of the Iron Age. She spends her days exploring the area, digging up ancient objects, and occasionally digging up bones. But then, one day, Ruth gets a call for help when remains are found, who the police believe may belong to a young girl called Lucy Downey. She went missing a decade beforehand.
It is an area where many ancient bodies are buried. They need Ruth to confirm if the bones are new or Iron Age. But then a second girl goes missing. Not only that, the detective chief inspector has been receiving taunts from Lucy’s abductor for years. Can Ruth help them figure out what happened? It was set in these salt marshes of Norfolk, whose main character was salt marshes. They bring a sense of foreboding to think it says a lot about how well this book was written.
Author: Elly Griffiths
Average Customer Review: (4.4 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Literary Fiction, Detective
Number Of Pages: 304
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
10. The Kind Worth Killing
It’s about Ted, who meets Lily on a night flight from London to Boston. They get to know each other, with Ted telling Lily about his dead-end marriage with a wife who he sure is cheating on him. They eventually come to an agreement that Lily is going to help Ted to kill his wife.
Lily hasn’t shared everything about her dark past, even though some crazy twists in the story wouldn’t quite work in any other book that is always somehow entirely believable through the eyes of Lily. This book is written through the eye of the story’s villain or the anti-hero instead of the actual hero or the victim. The murder suspense and thrilling events make the story more exciting, like The Last Mrs. Parrish.
Author: Peter Swanson
Average Customer Review: (4.4 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Suspense & Crime Thrillers
Number Of Pages: 311
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
Read More Similar Books: 10 Crime Thriller Books Like The Guest List
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