Look Out! These best thriller books of 2021 will keep you on your toes. You might even have a few dreams that will keep you up. I’m giving you a sweet warning.

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I don’t know about you but 2020 gave us so many great thriller books that I became hooked. Granted, 2020 was its own form of thriller, but there were also loads of wonderful thriller books in 2020. It looks like 2021 is shaping up to repeat the pattern and grant us new psychological suspense novels to fall in love with.

One of the most exciting part of thriller books is the mystery between the pages that keeps us on the edge of our seats. There’s something excited about a book filled with suspense and angst on every page.

I seldom read thrillers in the past, but things changed in 2021. Now I can’t wait to read the most anticipated thriller books of 2021. Something tells me it’s going to be one of the best years for thriller novels.

With so many new thrillers set to be released in 2021, I thought I would do my best to narrow the list down for you a wee bit. Here are my picks for the best thriller books of 2021.

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Find more book releases here.

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Best Thriller Books 2021

Not My Boy by Kelly Simmons

Release date: January 5, 2021 – When Hannah packs up her past and moves to the cottage next-door to her sister, she hopes the luxe neighborhood and close family ties will be the perfect escape for her son and the shadows that trail them. But when a young girl goes missing days after they unload their final boxes and her son is quickly thrown under suspicion, Hannah must do whatever it takes to protect her child. Read More→

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The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

Release date: January 5, 2021 – Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name. Read More→

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Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner

Release date: January 19, 2021 – Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman with more regrets than belongings who spends her life doing what no one else will: searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking. Read More→

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Prodigal Son by Gregg Hurwitz

Release date: January 26, 2021 – As a boy, Evan Smoak was pulled out of a foster home and trained in an off-the-books operation known as the Orphan Program. He was a government assassin, perhaps the best, known to a few insiders as Orphan X. He eventually broke with the Program and adopted a new name—The Nowhere Man—and a new mission, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. But the highest power in the country has made him a tempting offer—in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. Now Evan has to do the one thing he’s least equipped to do—live a normal life. Read More→

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The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor

February 9, 2021 – A dark history lingers in Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, Protestant martyrs were betrayed—then burned. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And a few weeks ago, the vicar of the local parish hanged himself in the middle of the church. Read More→

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The Unwilling by John Hart

Release date: February 2, 2021 – Gibby’s older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison. Jason won’t speak of the war or of his time behind bars, but he wants a relationship with the younger brother he hasn’t known for years. Read More→

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Relentless by Mark Greaney

Release date: February 18, 2021 – The first agent disappearance was a puzzle. The second was a mystery. The third was a conspiracy. Intelligence operatives around the world are disappearing. When a missing American agent reappears in Venezuela, Court Gentry, the Gray Man, is dispatched to bring him in, but a team of assassins has other ideas. Court escapes with his life and a vital piece of intelligence. Read More→

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Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay

Release date: March 2, 2021 – After a late night of partying, NYU student Matt Pine returns to his dorm room to devastating news: nearly his entire family—his mom, his dad, his little brother and sister—have been found dead from an apparent gas leak while vacationing in Mexico. The local police claim it was an accident, but the FBI and State Department seem far less certain—and they won’t tell Matt why. Read More→

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The House Uptown by Melissa Ginsburg

Release date: March 16, 2021 – Ava, fourteen years old and totally on her own, has still not fully processed her mother’s death when she finds herself on a train heading to New Orleans, to stay with Lane, the grandmother she barely remembers. Lane is a well-known artist in the New Orleans art scene. She spends most of her days in a pot-smoke haze, sipping iced coffee, and painting, which has been her singular focus for years. Her grip on reality is shaky at best, but her work provides a comfort. Read More→

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You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes

Release date: April 6, 2021 – Joe is done with the cities. He’s done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now, he’s saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe. Read More→

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The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

Release date: April 13, 2021 – Here’s another thriller in 2021 – Utterly compelling, unpredictable, and addictive, The Good Sister is about the ties that bind…and the darkness that lives where you least expect it. Read More→

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The Devil’s Hand by Jack Carr

Release date: April 13, 2021 – It has been two decades since 9/11. Enemies have been patient. Enemies have been learning. The enemy has been adapting. The enemy is ready to strike again. A new president offers hope to a country weary of conflict. He’s a young, popular, self-made visionary . . . but he’s also a man with a secret. Read More→

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The Hunting Wives by May Cobb

Release date: May 18, 2021 – New anticipated thriller right here – Sophie O’Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life with a beautiful home in an idyllic rural community. But Sophie soon realizes that life is now too quiet, and she’s feeling bored and restless. Read More→

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The President’s Daughter by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

Release date: June 7, 2021 – Every detail is accurate—because one of the authors is President Bill Clinton. The drama and action never stop—because the other author is James Patterson. Matthew Keating, a one-time Navy SEAL—and a past president—has always defended his family as staunchly as he has his country. Now those defenses are under attack. Read More→

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Kingdom of Bones by James Rollins

Release date: August 17, 2021 – A United Nations relief team in a small village in the Congo makes an alarming discovery. An unknown force is leveling the evolutionary playing field. Men, women, and children have been reduced to a dull, catatonic state. The environment surrounding them—plants and animals—has grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. The insidious phenomenon is spreading from a cursed site in the jungle — known to locals as the Kingdom of Bones —and sweeping across Africa, threatening the rest of the world. Read More→

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Are you as excited as I am about the best thriller books of 2021?

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