What is the most suspenseful book you ever read?

The Firm, by John Grisham. Made me very paranoid.

My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier. Keeps you guessing till the final page.

Believe Me, J P Delaney

Ghost Story, by Peter Straub.

The Poet by Michael Connelly

Early Nelson DeMille. Cathedral was probably my favorite, suspense-wise.

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith

Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters

Middlesex.

If only they had made a novelization of "Jill Learns About Periods"!

The Shining. The book was much better than the movie.

I read The Exorcist in one night so maybe that one.

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Lord Tweedsmuir had a flair for creating page turners.

The Running Man by Stephen King

I find hardcore/dark sci-fi to be the most terrifying of all genre fiction - like Pandora's Star, Hyperion Cantos, and The Three Body Problem, but I don't know if it's really all that suspenseful. MorningLightMountain and the Shrikes are scary as fuck though.

The Secret History

My Way of Life by Joan Crawford

Intensity by Dean Koontz. The only book I’ve ever read by him. I could not put it down. Made into a decent TV movie.

Per Wikipedia:

Intensity is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 1995. According to Koontz, he wrote the novel with the intention of subverting the commonly-held idea that thrillers must have periods of low action to move the pace along, instead opting to keep the tension high throughout the novel and moving from conflict to conflict without periods of released tension.

I read that, r17, and a crapload of Koontz, but that was years ago.

Spare

I know I have read a Dean Koontz book and yet I cannot identify or remember which one it was. I can remember nothing of the storyline or characters. I don't even remember it as being a bad book.

My friend Julie's favorite author is Koontz.

Deception Point

Gone Girl

Flavor of the Month (Olivia Goldsmith)

It

My Passion for Design, by Barbra Streisand

Salem's Lot . Scared the absolute shit out of me.I cant believe none of you listed it.

[quote]I read The Exorcist in one night so maybe that one.

I did the exact same thing. I bought a used paperback for 50 cents at a yard sale, started reading it that evening and didn't sleep until I finished it. And I had seen the movie already and it was still the most terrifying thing I've ever read. The movie is excellent, but it doesn't capture the lengths Karras goes to to try to disprove the possession before he finally accepts that it's real. And everything he does just ratchets up the tension even more.