The one thing you need to know before going into The Last House on Needless Street is that nothing is what it seems, and yet everything is the truth. It’s why horror master Stephen King called it a “nerve-shredder” with “mind-blowing secrets." On the surface, you know there’s a killer. And you know someone is in danger. But what happens beneath the surface is so much more complex.
A good serial killer novel takes the reader’s expectations and flips them in shocking ways. It isn’t the clever killer or the high stakes chase that makes them so good, though, those are key ingredients. It’s more the way evil is often hidden in plain sight, making it feel closer than we ever want to admit it might be. Could your neighbor be a killer? Or your professor. Or maybe the unassuming stranger you pass on the street.
The horror stems not from the monster, but your proximity to the monster. With the supernatural, it’s easy to feel safe. Scared, yes, but deep in the recess of your mind, you know (or convince yourself) that the threat isn’t real. And that’s why serial killer novels are so much darker and so much scarier. They can be real. Killers can be anyone. And you never, ever really know when they might strike. Here are seven serial killer novels like The Last House on Needless Streets that will have you reading with the lights on because you can’t put the book down until you reach the last page.
Three Miles Past
Three road trips. Three serial killers. Each of them are caught up in their dark impulses for different reasons, and they all have different motivations. This collection of three novellas each feature unsettling and disturbing stories that could only come from the mind of Stephen Graham Jones.
Mister Slaughter
In 1702, New York City was a young city still growing into what we know today. Matthew Corbett is an apprentice “problem-solver.” His employer, the London-based Herrald Agency. When they accept an unusual commission, Matthew finds himself enroute to Philadelphia to escort the notorious serial killer, Tyranthus Slaughter, from an asylum to the docks in New York. But halfway on their journey, the killer makes his captors a surprising offer. And they’d be lying if they said it wasn’t extremely tempting.
THR3E
Sonny Boden served time in prison for killing his grandparents. Now he’s out. And instead of living life peacefully, he hides in plain sight, mastering the look of the everyman so he can lure hitchhikers to their death. But when a paranoid schizophrenic witnesses one of the murders, the man believes they now share a connection. One that allows him to start killing, too. Then there’s a third man, traumatized and shattered, who is drawn into the murders. Sonny finds himself caught between two killers. And if he can’t escape, all of his crimes might soon be exposed.
Headhunter
Detective Robert Declercq is hunting a killer. It began with one beautiful woman, brutally violated with her head cut off. More followed. As long as he’s free, no woman is safe. Declercq and the rest of the police comb the perverted depths of the sexual underground across two continents looking for him. The truth is far more shocking than anyone imagined—including you.
Vanishing Daughters: A Thriller
The nightmares began the night Briar Thorne’s mother died in their decaying mansion in Chicago’s South Side. A woman in white pleading, music coming from locked rooms, and the desperate panic of being consumed by the dark. Her journalistic side clings to reasoning, convincing herself that it’s only grief. When she meets a stranger while investigating an active serial killer who has already claimed fifty-one women’s lives, she learns that her dreams might be the key to finding a killer. But the killer knows Briar’s secret and is closing in, and if she can’t figure out what the dead are trying to tell her, she’ll end up joining them.
Heavy Are The Stones
Five years ago, Detective Jena Campbell locked the Leviticus Killer away. And with him, her darkest secret. But when a strange man calling himself Azreal appears on social media, Jena’s secret is no longer safe. Azreal claims to know the truth. And if the Leviticus Killer isn’t released, he is going to unleash 10 plagues causing ten deaths spread out across ten days until he is. With victims piling up and time running out, Jena turns to the one man who knows her secret where she quickly learns that the only thing more terrifying than facing a madman is facing herself.
American Psycho
At 26, Patrick Bateman seems to have it all. He’s young, trendy, handsome, well-educated and successful. Working as a broker on Wall Street, he makes a fortune during the day. But for Patrick, it’s how he spends his nights that matters most. Using his charisma and charm, he lures victims in, where their torture and death become his ultimate act of expression. This is who he is. Who he is meant to be. And when you have it all, why not take more?
Featured image: Nick Fewings / Unsplash
