5 Thriller Books That Need to Be Turned Into a Miniseries
If there’s one foolproof idea for a TV show, it’s adapting a thriller book for the screen. However, not all books make great source material for a must-watch miniseries. Whether it’s Netflix’s His & Hers, Prime Video’s The Night Manager, or HBO’s Sharp Objects, streaming platforms have found major success thanks to these book-to-screen adaptations. However, while television can hook audiences with jaw-dropping visuals and A-list stars, it ultimately boils down to how suspenseful the book is.
Both the book and the TV show must keep audiences glued to the mystery from start to finish, not letting them rest for a second until they get the answers. Even when audiences finally get the full picture, the answer should be something beyond their wildest deductions. From a plagiarism and identity case gone wrong to a battle between what your mind tells you and what other people say, here are five thriller books that need to be turned into a miniseries.
1
‘Yellowface’ (2023)
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Image via William Morrow</figure>
Granted, Lionsgate TV has technically optioned R. F. Kuang‘s Yellowface as a scripted series. But since the announcement back in 2024, there haven’t been any confirmed updates about the project. Still, Yellowface has all the more reason to be adapted into a television series. Raising uncomfortable truths about race-based privilege, the novel follows ambitious novelist June Hayward, who has a hard time generating any hype around her work. Compared to Athena Liu, a successful Chinese-American author, June pales in comparison. But when Athena suddenly dies, June discovers her unpublished manuscript and sees an opportunity to finally get the recognition she wants.
Stealing another person’s work is a cardinal sin, especially when you’re a writer. But even more atrocious is the fact that June, a white woman, steals the work of a writer of color who is not only dead but has written about experiences June could never relate to. But there’s another twist to this novel: Athena seems to “come back from the dead.” And so begins this twisty psychological thriller, where June is hunted by an anonymous person who knows about her plagiarism. A Yellowface adaptation could see June backed into one moral dilemma after another, and more often than not, she makes the least favorable choice just to save what remains of her struggling career. As her lies pile up, watching June desperately try to keep everything together could make for one seriously tense TV thriller.
2
‘My Sister, The Serial Killer’ (2018)
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Image via Doubleday</figure>
It’s tough having a sister, especially when she has a thirst for blood. Oyinkan Braithwaite‘s My Sister, the Serial Killer is set in Lagos, where Korede works as a dedicated nurse. But when her younger sister Ayoola keeps showing up with a corpse, usually a guy she’s dated, it becomes Korede’s job to clean up the mess. It’s an unlikely siblinghood, but when you’re bound by blood, it’s hard not to save your sister from her own misgivings. Things get even more complicated when Korede develops feelings for Tade, a handsome doctor who also happens to catch Ayoola’s attention.
As seen in hits like The White Lotus and Beef, audiences love watching twisted premises play out through dark comedy. There’s something absurd about seeing people take situations that would otherwise be considered serious crimes a little too lightly. My Sister, the Serial Killer is no exception. Korede and Ayoola repeat their cycle of murder and cleanup as if it’s just another part of their daily routine. But even with a dead body in the mix, the heart of the book lies in how far Korede is willing to go to protect her sister. With the sisters’ ordinary lives and their increasingly messy secrets, it’s only a matter of time before their bond snaps when their hearts get in the way.
A great detective is really just a personality with a method attached,
which is why we keep remaking the same four of them. Here is yours, what it says about you, and the
case for them being the best in the business.
You let people think you are not a threat and then you simply
never go away. Columbo is the only major detective show that tells you who did it in the
first ten minutes, because the pleasure was never the puzzle, it was watching a rich man
slowly realise he is in trouble.
- You are underestimated constantly, and you have stopped minding because it keeps
working. - The show invented the inverted detective format for television and nobody has bettered
it since. - Peter Falk won four Emmys for the part and played him across five decades.
- Your flaw is that one more question is rarely one more question.
You are the most interesting person in the room and you know
exactly how to use it. Rian Johnson built Blanc as a gentleman detective who is also an
outsider everywhere he goes, which lets him be charming at people who would never otherwise
talk to him.
- You read a room in seconds and you are not above performing a little to speed things up.
- Rian Johnson was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Knives Out in
2020. - Wake Up Dead Man arrived on Netflix in December, making three Blanc films in six years.
- Your risk is enjoying the performance so much that people stop taking the point
seriously.
Everybody tells you everything, and you have never once asked
them to. Jessica Fletcher is a crime novelist from a small town in Maine who is so warm and
so obviously trustworthy that suspects confess to her essentially as a social courtesy.
- You are the person friends call first, and you have a frankly alarming amount of
information about everybody. - Angela Lansbury was nominated for the Emmy twelve times for this role and never won
once. - The show ran twelve seasons, and Jamie Lee Curtis is now bringing the character back.
- Your flaw is that being told everything is only a gift if you know what to do with it.
You expect to be lied to and you are almost never disappointed.
Chandler wrote Marlowe as a man with a rigid private code in a city that has none, which is
why he takes the case, solves it, gets nothing out of it and takes the next one.
- You are the most cynical person your friends know and the one they would call at four in
the morning. - Bogart played him in The Big Sleep in 1946 and the plot is famously impossible to
follow, which matters not at all. - Elliott Gould, Robert Mitchum and Liam Neeson have all taken the part, and every version
says something about its decade. - Your weakness is a code so strict that it mostly punishes the person holding it.
3
‘The Spy Who Came in from the Cold’ (1963)
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Image via Victor Gollancz</figure>
John le Carré, the author behind The Night Manager (adapted for Prime Video and starring Tom Hiddleston), is also best known for his equally riveting work, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Set during the bleak Cold War of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the novel follows Alec Leamas, a disillusioned British intelligence agent stationed in divided Berlin. He has watched his agents get killed one by one by Hans-Dieter Mundt, a ruthless East German intelligence chief. But when Leamas is tasked with taking Mundt down himself, he must face one final mission despite being worn out by years of espionage.
Forget the James Bond and Jason Bourne tropes — Leamas is the definition of an exhausted spy, worn down by years of working during one of the most politically tense periods in history. He lives a lonely life and drinks to numb his pain, far from the glamorous image people often associate with espionage. Once Leamas enters East Germany, he’s surrounded by enemies, and even the smallest mistake could put him in serious trouble. But there’s more going on than Leamas realizes. He’s caught up in a much bigger plan, with the agency willing to keep him in the dark to serve its own interests and those of the nation.
4
‘The Silent Patient’ (2019)
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Image via Celadon Books</figure>
TikTok book recommendations often make the most sought-after shows, and Alex Michaelides‘ The Silent Patient became a BookTok sensation for good reason. Alicia Berenson seems to have the perfect life as a successful painter married to Gabriel, but everything changes when she shoots him five times. After his death, Alicia stops speaking and is admitted to a psychiatric facility, where years of treatment fail to uncover the reason behind her silence. Six years later, psychotherapist Theo Faber takes on her case, convinced he can finally get her to talk. But figuring out what happened proves much harder than he expects.
One of the thriller genre’s most effective tricks is the unreliable narrator, and The Silent Patient uses two. Through Theo’s investigation and Alicia’s diary entries, readers get different perspectives on the events leading up to Gabriel’s death. However, neither account necessarily tells the whole story. As Theo digs into Alicia’s past, he discovers troubling relationships and painful memories that only make the mystery harder to solve. With short chapters and carefully timed revelations, Michaelides keeps readers guessing about whom they can actually trust. After all, the murder is only part of the mystery; figuring out the truth behind Alicia’s silence is what makes the story so compelling.
5
‘Misery’ (1987)
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Image via Viking</figure>
If Stephen King‘s Carrie can get the modern TV treatment, the same can go for Misery. The psychological thriller feels especially relevant today, when stan culture can turn a harmless obsession into something much darker. Bestselling author Paul Sheldon finds this out the hard way after crashing his car during a Colorado snowstorm. He wakes up in the home of Annie Wilkes, his self-proclaimed number one fan, who claims to have saved his life. But Annie isn’t the sweet, caring fan Paul expects. With two broken legs and no way to escape, Paul is stuck writing a new Misery novel to keep her happy.
Fans can get pretty intense about the people they idolize, and the internet has made stan culture a regular part of everyday life. But Misery takes things much further by showing what happens when a fan gets the chance to control the person she’s obsessed with. Most of the story takes place inside a remote cabin, where Paul has nowhere to run and must deal with Annie’s unpredictable demands. She gives him enough medication to keep him alive and writing, but she’s also willing to torture him when he doesn’t do what she wants. Each episode would see Paul struggle to escape a toxic fan who believes her loyalty to him gives her the right to own his life.
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