Top Thriller and Mystery Selections from the Good Morning America Book Club

Brendan Slocumb’s “The Violin Conspiracy” stands out amongst the Good Morning America Book Club’s selection — not just for its pitch-perfect Goodreads rating (a solid 4.12 across more than 62,000 reviews), but for the way it reframes what a mystery novel can be. The story centers on Ray McMillian, a young Black violinist whose fortunes shift dramatically when he discovers his family heirloom — a long-dismissed instrument gifted to him by his grandmother — is a priceless Stradivarius

Suddenly, Ray finds himself playing a far more complicated piece. The revelation invites attention, not all of it welcome. Ray’s family, once indifferent to his musical ambitions, now see dollar signs. Meanwhile, a wealthy white family, descended from those who once enslaved his ancestors, claims legal ownership. Then, just as Ray is preparing to compete at the prestigious Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, the violin vanishes — and the tempo picks up.

Though it has the infrastructure of a classic whodunnit, “The Violin Conspiracy” is more concerned with the deeper dissonances of race, legacy, and artistic gatekeeping. Slocumb, himself a seasoned musician, brings an insider’s ear to the material. The plot may hit a familiar note or two, but its take and texture are unique.

Brit Bennett’s “The Vanishing Half” resonated with the Good Morning America Book Club audience and beyond, holding a steady 4.13 rating across more than 816,000 readers on Goodreads — making it one of the club’s most widely read selections.

The story begins with two sisters, Desiree and Stella, raised in an insular Louisiana town. At sixteen, these twins run away, imagining they can leave all that behind. One sister comes back years later with a daughter, the other disappears entirely into a new life, passing for white on the other side of the country. Their stories unfold in parallel as two diverging melodies but never fully untethered from the same root.

In measured but stirring prose, what Bennett orchestrates so deftly here is not just a meditation on race and color, but on how the past reverberates through every choice. The novel moves through decades, but the central tension remains: how much can you rewrite your own history before it comes back to claim you? There are no easy answers in the spaces between reinvention and return. But that complexity is what has kept “The Vanishing Half” in conversation well beyond the morning television circuit. It found another life as one of the top picks in Dua Lipa’s Service95 book club, with the pop star praising “how the novel so cleverly raises questions of heritage and identity while remaining non-judgmental, empathetic, and full of heart.”

Disha Bose’s “Dirty Laundry” comes with a glowing endorsement from Taylor Jenkins Reid (the mastermind behind Reese’s Book Club pick “Daisy Jones & The Six” and TikTok favorite “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”), who called it “utterly engrossing.” It’s an apt description for a novel that plays so well with one of the thriller genre’s favorite tricks: immaculate settings that, on closer inspection, distract from the ugliness that festers beneath.

In this case, the facades belong to a small Irish community where Ciara Dunphy plays the part of influencer, mother, and local queen bee. Her social media presence is flawless – skincare tips, parenting advice, the requisite soft-focus glow. But her real life is more brittle, and her husband, though aware, is kept at arm’s length. When Mishti Guha, newly arrived from Calcutta, joins the neighborhood, she’s drawn into Ciara’s orbit. Her arranged marriage provides her little comfort, but at least Ciara offers proximity to belonging (though the price of admission remains unclear). Watching from the margins is Lauren Doyle, the outsider neighbor whose refusal to conform keeps her at odds with the rest.

Then, a murder occurs. But the question of the culprit almost feels secondary. “Dirty Laundry concerns itself with the slow, inevitable unraveling that precedes it. Bose writes with a steady hand — attuned to perfect settings fraying at the seams, and what happens when the illusion wears thin.

Deepti Kapoor’s “Age of Vice” arrives with the heft and ambition of a sprawling epic — a literary thriller that deals in both spectacle and social critique. The novel begins with a collision, both literal and thematic: a Mercedes plows through a group of street sleepers in New Delhi, leaving five dead and setting the novel’s tangled plot in motion. From the start, Kapoor signals her interest in the jagged intersection of fortune and deprivation, and the currents of power that pull her characters towards ruin.

This is a narrative of labyrinthine scope — one that moves between Ajay, a young man sold into servitude as a child and later drawn into the orbit of the Wadia crime family; Sonny Wadia himself, heir to that empire; and Neda, a journalist seduced by Sonny’s swagger but appalled by what it conceals. The three of them are bound together by circumstance, mutually descending into dissolution.

“Age of Vice” is the first in a planned trilogy, leaving readers with ample intrigue to savor. Still, as a portrait of power and moral decay, it’s more than just a prelude. It holds the reader fast, never sacrificing momentum for depth (or vice versa). The effect is immediate and difficult to relinquish.

Bookworms seeking a somber thriller need look no further than Liz Moore’s “Long Bright River.” Some may know it through its Peacock adaptation, featuring the exquisite Amanda Seyfried as determined Philadelphia police officer Mickey Fitzpatrick, others through its esteemed place on President Obama’s reading list. But ultimately, the heart of this book lies in its harrowing tale of addiction and violence.

The fractured landscape of their Philadelphia upbringing casts enduring shadows upon sisters Mickey and Kacey. Whilst Kacey wrestles with the persistent grip of addiction from her teenage years onwards, Mickey sought both solace and purpose as a police officer in Kensington, a district ravaged by the opioid crisis. Now a single mother to a young son, Mickey’s badge serves a dual purpose: a shield against her sister’s turmoil and a tenuous thread of connection that allows her to observe from a distance. But the emergence of a serial killer preying on sex works threatens this delicate equilibrium, thrusting Mickey’s personal and professional lives into a devastating collision. All this to say, this is a work that confronts harsh realities. But for those who can stomach its grit, it’s a worthwhile, if challenging, read.

Our selection process began with the complete list of titles chosen by the Good Morning America Book Club, with a specific focus on the thriller and mystery genres. To catch the most compelling titles for the Women readership, we evaluated press reviews, author recommendations, and the opinions of those ardent bookworms on Goodreads. Our final choices reflect books that exhibit enticing premises and plots, well-developed characters, and strong literary merit — characteristics consistently appreciated by our readers in popular thriller books.