I will admit something up front. I’m not a big horror guy. Most of the “scary” movies aren’t that scary to me. Blood and guts on screen don’t freak me out. What I love is the chill. The locked room. The face in the window. The story that might be a ghost and might be a lie, and you will not know which until the last chapter.
If you are the same way, this list is for you. These are mysteries and classics with a shiver running through them, perfect for October nights when you want to be unsettled but still want to sleep. I have put them in order from oldest to newest.
1. The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe, 1841
This is where the detective story starts. Two women are found brutally killed in a Paris apartment, locked from the inside, and nothing about it makes sense. Poe’s detective, C. Auguste Dupin, paved the road Sherlock Holmes would later walk. It is short enough to read in one sitting with the lights low.
2. The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins, 1859
A young drawing teacher walks a moonlit road outside London and meets a woman dressed all in white who seems to have escaped from somewhere she should not have been. What follows is secrets, asylums, and stolen identity. It is one of the first great mystery novels, and it was a sensation in its day.
3. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886
Everybody thinks they know this one. Read it anyway. It is built like a mystery, told through a lawyer trying to figure out why his respectable friend keeps company with a brutal stranger. The fog of London practically drips off the page.
4. The Turn of the Screw
Henry James, 1898
A governess takes charge of two children at a lonely country house and begins to see figures that should not be there. Are they ghosts, or is something wrong with her? People have argued about it for more than a century. That is the fun.
5. The Hound of the Baskervilles
Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902
A family curse, a fog-covered moor, and a giant hound that may not be of this world. This is Holmes at his spookiest, and it is the perfect example of a mystery that plays with the supernatural without ever letting go of logic.
6. Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier, 1938
A young bride arrives at Manderley, her new husband’s grand estate, and finds the house still belongs to his first wife. Rebecca is dead, but she is everywhere. There is no ghost in this book, and it is still one of the most haunting novels I know.
7. Falling Angel
William Hjortsberg, 1978
This one is for my fellow hardboiled fans. In 1959 New York, private eye Harry Angel is hired by a mysterious client to find a missing singer. It reads like classic noir right up until it does not. It was later filmed as Angel Heart. Read the book first.
8. The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield, 2006
A quiet biographer is summoned by a famous, reclusive novelist who has lied about her past for her whole career and now wants to tell the truth. Twins, a burned house, and a family secret. It is a love letter to the Gothic novel.
9. The Little Stranger
Sarah Waters, 2009
After the Second World War, a country doctor is called to a crumbling estate where the family’s fortunes and their house are both falling apart. Strange things start to happen. Waters never tells you more than you need, which makes it creepier.
10. Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 2020
In 1950s Mexico, a stylish young socialite travels to a remote mansion after her cousin sends a frightening letter. The house is decaying, the family is cold, and something is very wrong. This one leans darkest on the list, but it is a page-turner.
ONE MORE, IF YOU WILL INDULGE ME
If you like your shivers with a Victorian setting, I would be remiss not to mention my own book. The Petticoat Society opens with an inspector catching Spring-Heeled Jack, the leaping, fire-breathing figure who terrorized real Victorian London for decades. When the mask comes off, things get much worse. You can find it here.
And for my fellow hardboiled fans, Garrison Chase returns November 7 in Chasing Daylight, the newest book in my PI series. You can preorder a signed copy here.
What is your favorite creepy read that is not quite horror? Leave it in the comments. I am always looking for my next one.
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