Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Six crime titles with astonishing narrative turns

Gillian McAllister is the New York Times bestselling author of Reese's Book Club Pick Wrong Place Wrong Time, Caller Unknown, Famous Last Words, Just Another Missing Person, Everything but the Truth, The Choice, The Good Sister, The Evidence Against You, How to Disappear, and the Richard & Judy Book Club pick That Night. She graduated with an English degree before working as a lawyer. She lives in Birmingham, England, where she now writes full-time.

At CrimeReads McAllister tagged six top novels in which you should guess the twist but probably won't. One title on the list:
Tana French, The Witch Elm

Toby Hennessy is an easy-going PR guy from Dublin who is living a charmed life until he is brutally assaulted by two burglars in his apartment and left with a brain injury and memory loss. He moves into his dying uncle’s home to recuperate and what follows is a surprising and astonishing unravelling of long held family secrets and loyalties when some human bones are discovered. As Toby grapples with his returning memory, we watch him begin to question everything he thought he knew.

Beautifully written and perfectly paced, I loved the way this novel gradually revealed itself. The ending ticks the perfect twist box for me of being both surprising and totally, damningly inevitable.
Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

The Witch Elm is among Jane Cockram's seven books in which families are destroyed by their own secrets, Scarlett Harris's eight books about male protagonists by female authors, and Ani Katz's top ten books about toxic masculinity.

--Marshal Zeringue