Published Sep 11, 2026, 12:07 AM EDT
Dyah (pronounced Dee-yah) is a Senior Author at Collider, responsible for both writing and transcription duties. She joined the website in 2022 as a Resource Writer before stepping into her current role in April 2023. As a Senior Author, she writes Features and Lists covering TV, music, and movies, making her a true Jill of all trades. In addition to her writing, Dyah also serves as an interview transcriber, primarily for events such as **San Diego Comic-Con, **the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival.
Dyah graduated from Satya Wacana Christian University in October 2019 with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature, concentrating on Creative Writing. She is currently completing her Master’s degree in English Literature Studies, with a thesis on intersectionality in postcolonial-feminist studies in Asian literary works, and is expected to graduate in 2026.
Born and raised between Indonesia and Singapore, Dyah is no stranger to different cultures. She now resides in the small town of Kendal with her husband and four cats, where she spends her free time cooking or cycling.
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So many thriller books, so little time. When the weekend is all you have, a fast-paced thriller can be the perfect solution. Although some books may look intimidatingly thick, don’t be fooled by the sheer number of pages. While slow-burn thrillers leave plenty of room for contemplation,** there’s another section of the genre that keeps the pace moving without sacrificing quality**.
These books are packed with characters, storylines, twists, and turns that will keep you hooked long enough to finish the entire thing in 48 hours or less. From an underrated Gillian Flynn favorite to an Agatha Christie-inspired modern take, here are thriller books you can finish in a weekend.
It’s tough making money these days, but nobody has it harder than Millie Calloway from The Housemaid. After losing her job and struggling to find work because of her criminal record, Millie accepts a live-in housemaid position with the wealthy Winchester family on Long Island. Although the estate is the definition of luxurious, her employers hoard sinister secrets.
The Housemaid is relentless with its characters. As a rich family, the Winchesters are experts at keeping up appearances, but the cracks soon start to show. From matriarch Nina’s unpredictable behavior to the Italian gardener warning Millie of danger, readers are swept up in the family secrets that slowly spill onto Millie herself. The deeper Millie gets into the Winchester family’s affairs, the more unsettling her new job becomes. What initially seems like a quick-and-easy, menial labor job quickly turns into a domestic nightmare, making The Housemaid a sickeningly twisted tale of what happens behind closed doors.
Set in Lagos, My Sister, the Serial Killer follows Korede—nurse by day, corpse cleaner by night. The latter is an honest coincidence. Her younger sister Ayoola has a habit of killing her boyfriends, though her third killing was supposedly done in self-defense. Things shake up when Korede discovers that Ayoola’s new crush is the handsome doctor Tade, whom Korede is secretly in love with.
Despite its gory, crude premise, it’s difficult not to chuckle while reading My Sister, the Serial Killer. There’s a certain detachment in the way Ayoola treats the severity of her sociopathic behavior, remaining almost completely unserious about the whole thing. Meanwhile, Korede treats each murder as more of an inconvenience than a crime she needs to process fully. This bizarre dynamic between the sisters makes the story darkly funny, even as the situation becomes increasingly difficult for Korede to contain. It’s a twisted sisterly bond where murder becomes another family obligation.
One author’s unfinished draft is another author’s chance at literary superstardom—at the cost of being haunted. *Yellowface *introduces struggling white author June Hayward, who witnesses the death of her Chinese-American former classmate, Athena Liu. Instead of sending condolences, June steals Athena’s unpublished novel about Chinese laborers in World War I. June then publishes the book under her name, Juniper Song.
What June doesn’t expect is Athena’s “ghost” haunting her through an anonymous account, threatening her success with accusations of plagiarism and cultural appropriation. *Yellowface *becomes a cat-and-mouse chase as June tries to locate her accuser, spiraling into paranoia as the weight of her guilt swallows her. It’s one of those thrillers where readers are no longer rooting for the protagonist. Readers already know June is a bad person, and Yellowface forces them to reckon with the lengths someone like June would go to not only claim a work that’s not hers, but also **steal the identity and experiences of a person of color.
A wedding on an isolated Irish island should be romantic, but The Guest List quickly turns the celebration into a nightmare. Jules Keegan, a successful magazine publisher, has gathered friends and family for her marriage to Will Slater, a famous television personality. Unfortunately, a violent storm traps everyone on the island, leaving the guests with no way to escape. Then Will turns up dead.
A homage to the claustrophobic murder mysteries of Christie, particularly And Then There Were None, while borrowing the snarky sense of entitlement from Knives Out,* The Guest List* takes “something old, something new” literally. With a murderer hiding among them, the wedding party becomes a pressure cooker.** Almost everyone has a reason to despise the groom**, and those grudges trace back to something that could destroy Will’s reputation. Yet the deeper the investigation goes, the clearer it becomes that the victim’s demise feels like a tad bit of karma.
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
Sharp Objects begins with journalist Camille Preaker, a troubled reporter sent back to her Missouri hometown to investigate the murder of a young girl and the disappearance of another. Forced to stay with her estranged mother, controlling stepfather, and rebellious half-sister Amma, Camille finds herself confronting painful memories of her sister Marian’s death. When the missing girl is found strangled with her teeth removed, Camille realizes the case may hit dangerously close to home.
The grotesque murders are only one of the many disturbing elements of Sharp Objects. As Camille races to uncover the killer, she is forced to reckon with the reasons she left Missouri in the first place. The novel is a scathing portrayal of generational abuse and the damage it leaves behind. When trauma is allowed to fester for too long, it cannot remain contained within the household. Instead, it seeps outward, infecting relationships, perpetuating cycles of violence, and leaving destruction in its wake.
*The Silent Patient *became a BookTok phenomenon for good reason. Alicia Berenson appears to have the perfect life as a successful painter married to Gabriel, but that illusion shatters when she shoots him five times. Afterward, Alicia refuses to utter a single word and is committed to a psychiatric facility, where years of failed attempts leave the motive behind her silence a mystery. Six years later, psychotherapist Theo Faber becomes convinced he can reach her.
The best thrillers are the ones that require reading between the lines. It’s even more addictive when readers have absolutely no idea whose version to trust. The Silent Patient is clearly Alicia’s story, but it’s been six years, and she can barely speak about the incident. A newcomer like Theo comes along, thinking he’s got her records straight, but not all strangers are to be trusted so easily. Using short chapters, conflicting accounts, and timed revelations, one can’t help but sift through the pages quickly to get to the truth.
The hit Prime Video sensation ***Reacher ***has its origins in Lee Child’s novels, which are just as thrilling, if not more so, than the television adaptation. Slated to serve as the source material for Season 5, ***Make Me *is arguably one of the darkest books in the Reacher series. When Reacher arrives in the strange Midwestern town of Mother’s Rest, he meets Michelle Chang, an ex-FBI agent searching for her missing private-investigator colleague.
Reacher has dealt with illegal arms dealers, ex-military personnel, corrupt security directors, and countless other dangerous criminals, but** few villains are as heinous as those in Make Me**. The crimes Reacher uncovers are not only larger in scale than what he typically encounters, but the victims are subjected to something particularly deplorable. Still, like any Reacher story, the former military policeman wastes little time getting involved**. Once Reacher discovers what is happening in Mother’s Rest, he sets out to dismantle the operation and save its victims.
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Omar Madha, Carol Banker, Julian Holmes, Lin Oeding, M.J. Bassett, Norberto Barba, Stephen Surjik, Thomas Vincent