Sudden headlights on a dark and empty highway … a getaway driver taking on one last job … a mysterious stranger who needs a ride. Cars, driving, and road trips have always been fertile territory for literary thrills and chills, and these seven suspenseful novels are no exception.
More Behind-the-Wheel Thrills: Read our review of Blacktop Wasteland
Product Details: 384 pages (paperback)
Original Publication Date: 2022
Combining thriller, horror, and sci-fi elements, Look Both Ways is the page turning-answer to a question that might not be as far-fetched as it first sounds: What would happen if an experimental fleet of self-driving cars went rogue and started murdering people?
Product Details: 362 pages (paperback)
Original Publication Date: 2016
In this white-knuckle horror-thriller, a band of sadistic vampires prowls the highways of 1960s America in souped-up muscle cars, causing bloody crashes and feeding on the victims — that is, until an unlikely survivor decides to fight back.
Product Details: 472 pages (hardcover)
Original Publication Date: 2018
After a war photographer’s wife is murdered in 1970s Los Angeles, he’s determined to hunt down her killers. With his life and career in tatters, he gets a job as a late-shift taxi driver and haunts the city’s streets in a nightmarish quest for revenge.
Product details: 384 pages (paperback)
Original publication date: 2004
An expert car mechanic looking for her missing brother and a NASCAR driver looking for his stolen boat team up in an attempt to take down the bad guys. Chaos ensues, wisecracks fill the air, and romantic sparks fly hot and heavy. (The author brought both characters back for a sequel, Motor Mouth, in 2006.)
Product Details: 368 pages (paperback)
Original Publication Date: 2018
In this chilling psychological thriller, a young woman embarks on a road trip across Texas with a suspected serial killer who claims to have dementia — but who might know more than he lets on about her sister’s long-ago disappearance.
Product Details: 352 pages (paperback)
Original Publication Date: 2022
A killing brings two young women together, forcing them to go on the run across the remote Australian outback. Driving a stolen “ute” carrying stolen gold, this unlikely pair hurtles through the hot, dry wilderness with the law — and the lawless, too — in close pursuit.
Product Details: 288 pages (paperback)
Original Publication Date: 2023
Featuring classic muscle car chases, good ol’ boys who might be meanin’ some harm, a corrupt sheriff, and nonstop murderous mayhem revolving around a load of stolen weed, Lowdown Road is a ridiculously entertaining tribute to the sleazy drive-in thrillers and low-budget “hicksploitation” films of the 1970s.
Product Details: 352 pages (paperback)
Original Publication Date: 2016
Prefer your vehicular thrills in smaller doses? Check out this pedal-to-the metal anthology. Edited by Patrick Millikin, it collects 15 dark and suspenseful tales about cars and driving by top authors like Michael Connelly, Sara Gran, Diana Gabaldon, and C.J. Box.
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A longtime editor/writer and recently transplanted Hoosier, Caleb Cook lives in Xenia, Ohio. His favorite activities are reading and listening to music, although he occasionally emerges from the heap of books and vinyl records in his basement to stand blinking in the sunlight. Once fully acclimated to the outside world again, he can be observed hanging out with his wife, attempting a new recipe in the kitchen, attending movies, walking the dog, or wandering into a local brewery to inquire about what’s on tap. See more articles by Caleb.
