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12 of the best race-against-time thrillers

by Rosamund Lupton and
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min read
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A tense thriller can change your perception of time – your journey doesn’t take as long, the wait for a doctor’s appointment goes faster, you thought it was only 11p.m. so how can it possibly be 1a.m. already? Thrillers that have a race against the clock are the ones that are most likely to make you forget not only what the time is, but what is going on around you – we call them escape pod books because you can temporarily lose yourself in their pages. With that in mind, here are 12 of the best race-against-time thrillers.

Room by Emma Donoghue

Room is about the most tense of all situations: not only is a young woman imprisoned with her child, but she fears that soon their captor is going to turn off the electricity and stop feeding them. Before they starve or freeze to death, they have to escape. Nobody, apart from her captor, knows where this young woman is, nor even that she’s still alive. It is a deeply personal and lonely race against the clock, told through the eyes of a five-year-old child.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

This is not a book to read at night. A terrifying ghost-thriller, it is set in the remote wilderness of the far north. Twenty-eight-year-old Jack is part of an Arctic expedition of five men and eight huskies who camp on a remote, uninhabited bay. But, one by one, Jack’s companions are forced to leave and winter closes in. Then Jack realises he’s not alone: something is out there in the dark. Soon, he will reach the point of no return – when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Uniquely, this story is told by the victim of rape and murder – a 14-year-old girl called Susie Salmon – who narrates the story from heaven. Susie tells us about that terrible afternoon and the identity of her murderer. The tension of Susie not being able to tell the police and her family is almost unbearable. This is the story of what happens when the race against the clock has been lost, when nobody realised in time. But it’s also about what happens next and that is where the depth and genius of the novel lies.