Five top thrillers featuring the dead/surviving girl trope

Emily Smith is a New Jersey native, who pursued her BFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU and her MFA in Creative Writing at American University.

In her spare time, she enjoys writing novels, gardening, reading, and caring for her rambunctious Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.

Smith's new novel is You Always Come Back.

At CrimeReads she tagged five top thrillers featuring the dead girl and the survivor trope. One title on the list:

Jar of Hearts, by Jennifer Hillier

Jar of Hearts in many ways takes the dead girl and the survivor trope and flips it on its head.

No one was more broken hearted when sixteen-year-old Angela Wong was murdered than her two best friends Georgina Shaw and Kaiser Brody.

Now, fourteen years later, Kaiser is a Seattle PD detective and is the one who has to investigate Angela’s murder when her body is discovered. She is one of many victims of serial killer Calvin James. The twist – Calvin was Georgina’s high school sweetheart and when caught, provides evidence that Georgina helped cover up Angela’s murder.

So begins the twisty tale of whether Georgina was another one of Calvin’s victims or the murderer herself. For those who love an unreliable narrator, full of moral ambiguity, Georgina as the survivor is one you won’t want to miss.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Jar of Hearts is among B. R. Myers's top ten quietly effective suspense novels and Alice Blanchard's ten chilling thrillers to get you through the winter storms.

--Marshal Zeringue