On April 29, it will be forty years since the great horror director passed on, but his films have remained Notorious. In his honor, we’re pairing a handful of his memorable (and some of his slightly under-the-radar) flicks with thrillers, mysteries, and suspense novels we’re totally not scared to read alone.
This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.
Movie: Rope
If you’re a fan of Hitchcock’s technical one-shot wonder masterpiece, Rope, then The Tenant is the novel you need to pick up. When a young woman is found mysteriously dead in her apartment, two detectives hone in on her landlady as the lead suspect after the tenant appears as a character in her newest novel. An eccentric aesthete, the landlady’s social personality is similar to that of the murderers in Rope, who kill their classmate as an experiment in social superiority. As suspicions continue to rise against the landlady, the detectives still struggle to find something to directly tie her to the murder. The Tenant, like Rope, will keep you pulling at threads the whole way through.
#1 international bestseller
An Indie Next Pick
An O, The Oprah Magazine Titles to Pick Up Now
A People Book Pick
A New York Post Best Book of the Week
A theSkimm Best Book to Read This Winter
A BookPage Top Ten Books for February
A Parade Most Anticipated Books of Early 2020
A Bustle Most Anticipated Books of January 2020
A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2020
A She Reads Most Anticipated Thrillers of 2020
An electrifying work of literary suspense from international bestselling author Katrine Engberg, this stunning debut introduces two police detectives struggling to solve a shocking murder and stop a killer hell-bent on revenge.
When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist—and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous.
But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit—or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance? Anette and Jeppe must dig more deeply into the two women’s pasts to discover the identity of the brutal puppet-master pulling the strings in this electrifying literary thriller.
Hailed as “inconceivably thrilling” (Fyens Stiftstidende, Denmark), The Tenant is a work of stunning originality that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
MENTIONED IN:
Movie: Marnie
One of the classics of Hitchcock’s oeuvre, Marnie is about a woman who hides her identity from her employers in order to steal money from them, but when she’s found out, instead of being turned over to the cops, the man who revealed her secret ends up blackmailing her into marriage. The plot only gets scarier, and sexier, from there. Similarly, Truth Be Told is a thriller about a woman who is running from her traumatic past, by cutting it off at the root and reinventing herself as someone totally new. When the lies unravel and her trauma is exposed on a megahit podcast, her marriage, family, and safety are all threatened. If you like main characters who are willing to do what it takes to survive at any cost, this is the book for you.
MENTIONED IN:
Movie: Vertigo
Vertigo is the best suited Hitchcock film for comparison with The Memory Police, a mind-bending, anti-authoritarian discourse on the nature of memory, art, and the lengths that people will go to in order to survive. As two people struggle with what is—and isn’t—real, who is telling the truth becomes less and less important. The most important thing is each other, and whether or not you can trust the other person, even if they are lying.
Movie: Vertigo Vertigo is the best suited Hitchcock film for comparison with The Memory Police, a mind-bending, anti-authoritarian discourse on the nature of memory, art, and the lengths that people will go to in order to survive. As two people struggle with what is—and isn’t—real, who is telling the truth becomes less and less important. The most important thing is each other, and whether or not you can trust the other person, even if they are lying.
Movie: The Man Who Knew Too Much; Topaz
The Man Who Knew Too Much is an infamous 1934 Hitchcock film—not least because the director remade it again in 1956—about a Switzerland vacation disrupted by a political assassination and a family in danger as a result; and Topaz is a spy thriller set in France involving NATO and the KGB during the Cold War. The masterful espionage novel The Coldest Warrior seems reminiscent of both films. Based on accounts from former spies, it retraces the steps of a real-life former CIA agent who either jumped or fell from a hotel room in New York City in 1953 during the Cold War, and the full scope of the political superpower machinations is incredible. Uncovering the bad agents, as well as the risks that still exist decades after the last spy came through the city, The Coldest Warrior is a non-stop novel that will make you thankful for the comfort of your own couch.
The new novel by acclaimed espionage author Paul Vidich explores the dark side of intelligence, when a CIA officer delves into a cold case from the 1950s—with fatal consequences.
In 1953, Dr. Charles Wilson, a government scientist, died when he “jumped or fell” from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. As his wife and children grieve, the details of the incident remain buried for twenty-two years. With the release of the Rockefeller Commission report on illegal CIA activities in 1975, the Wilson case suddenly becomes news again. Wilson’s family and the public are demanding answers, especially as some come to suspect the CIA of foul play, and agents in the CIA, FBI, and White House will do anything to make sure the truth doesn’t get out.
Enter agent Jack Gabriel, an old friend of the Wilson family who is instructed by the CIA director to find out what really happened to Wilson. It’s Gabriel’s last mission before he retires from the agency and his most perilous. Key witnesses connected to the case die from suspicious causes, and Gabriel realizes that the closer he gets to the truth, the more his entire family is at risk.
Following in the footsteps of spy fiction greats like Graham Green, John Le Carré, and Alan Furst, Paul Vidich presents a tale—based on the unbelievable true story told in Netflix’s Wormwood—that doesn’t shy away from the true darkness in the shadows of espionage.
Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 52
Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 52
Movie: Dial M for Murder
Another thriller full of mysterious characters, The Woman in the Dark centers around a mother fighting to protect her family after they all move to a seaside house with a gruesome history. While the supposedly haunted house is creepy enough, what the woman begins to realize is that maybe it’s her own husband she should be afraid of. As the lies and confusions pile up, the mysteries around Murder House do as well, giving us a terrifying unraveling of a dangerous, unstable man. Dial M for Murder is replete with intrigue, misdirection, sex, and unreliable perspectives, all of which you’ll find in the pages of this novel too.
Movie: Dial M for Murder Another thriller full of mysterious characters, The Woman in the Dark centers around a mother fighting to protect her family after they all move to a seaside house with a gruesome history. While the supposedly haunted house is creepy enough, what the woman begins to realize is that maybe it’s her own husband she should be afraid of. As the lies and confusions pile up, the mysteries around Murder House do as well, giving us a terrifying unraveling of a dangerous, unstable man. Dial M for Murder is replete with intrigue, misdirection, sex, and unreliable perspectives, all of which you’ll find in the pages of this novel too.
Movie: Family Plot
The final movie that Hitchcock ever made, Family Plot, is also the final pairing on this list. If you are intrigued by the odd couples of Family Plot, the strange, twisting mysteries, and the kind of person who might fake being a psychic, check out Please See Us. A supernatural thriller about missing women near the Atlantic City boardwalk, Please See Us is dramatic and intense, drawing on dark humor and grim circumstances to keep every reader on their toes.
In this sophisticated, suspenseful debut reminiscent of Laura Lippman and Chloe Benjamin, two young women become unlikely friends during one fateful summer in Atlantic City as mysterious disappearances hit dangerously close to home.
Summer has come to Atlantic City but the boardwalk is empty of tourists, the casino lights have dimmed, and two Jane Does are laid out in the marshland behind the Sunset Motel, just west of town. Only one person even knows they’re there.
Meanwhile, Clara, a young boardwalk psychic, struggles to attract clients for the tarot readings that pay her rent. When she begins to experience very real and disturbing visions, she suspects they could be related to the recent cases of women gone missing in town. When Clara meets Lily, an ex-Soho art gallery girl who is working at a desolate casino spa and reeling from a personal tragedy, she thinks Lily may be able to help her. But Lily has her own demons to face. If they can put the pieces together in time, they may save another lost girl—so long as their efforts don’t attract perilous attention first. Can they break the ill-fated cycle, or will they join the other victims?
Evocative, eerie, and compelling, Please See Us is a fast-paced psychological thriller that explores the intersection of womanhood, power, and violence.
MENTIONED IN:
