Mystery & Thriller – Page 39 – Trigger Warning Database

Black by Fleur Ferris

Black by Fleur Ferris

Ebony Marshall is in her final year of high school. Five months, two weeks and four days . . . She can’t wait to leave the town where she’s known only as ‘Black’. Because of her name, of course. But for another reason, too. Everyone says Black Marshall is cursed. Three of her best friends have died in tragic accidents. After Oscar, the whispers started. Now she’s used to being on her own. It’s easier that way. But when her date for the formal ends up in intensive care, something in quiet little Dainsfield starts to stir. Old secrets are revealed and terrifying new dangers emerge… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Domestic violence
Suicide
Death of a friend recounted
Murder
Physical assault
Car accident
Kidnapping
Bullying

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Quinn Maybrook just wants to make it until graduation. She might not make it to morning. Quinn and her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. But ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can. Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Medical trauma & treatment
Amputation & loss of limb
Graphic burns
Dead bodies
Murder & mass murder
Gun violence
Knife violence
Physical assault
Fire
Death from a fall
Hostage situation

Confessions by Kanae Minato

Confessions by Kanae Minato

After calling off her engagement in wake of a tragic revelation, Yuko Moriguchi had nothing to live for except her only child, four-year-old Manami. Now, following an accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation. But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that upends everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a maniacal plot for revenge.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Parental neglect & abandonment
Transphobia mentioned & misgendering
Depression
HIV/AIDs (theme)*
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a father in a car accident mentioned
Death of a mother from illness mentioned
Murder of a daughter from drowning
Attempted murder of a child from electrocution
Murder of a teen girl from strangulation
Mass death of a family from poisoning discussed (mother, father & child)
Explosion, off-page
Animal death & cruelty mentioned

*Context: A teacher purposefully infects the two teenage boys who murdered her daughter with HIV/AIDs. The aftereffects of being infected are explored in depth. Mentions of HIV+ stigma and how the teacher’s ex-husband is dying of HIV/AIDs.

Killer Content by Kiley Roache

Killer Content by Kiley Roache

The six teenagers who make up the Hype House seem to have it all. A beachfront Malibu mansion, millions of TikTok followers, model good looks, and sponsorship deals up to $30,000 per post. Everything’s pretty much a Gen-Z paradise. Except that one member of the house has just turned up dead in the infinity pool. And the rest of them are suspects. When the group’s TikTok account starts posting cryptic messages about the murder, the police limit their investigation to the members of the house. Now old joke videos are filed as evidence and past rivalries start to look like motives. As investigators dig into these influencers’ lives beyond their glossy internet personalities, they discover all… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Suicide
Alcohol consumption
Blood & gore depiction
Death of a friend
Murder
Gun violence

The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

On an isolated farm in the United Kingdom, a woman is trapped by the monster who kidnapped her seven years ago. When she discovers she is pregnant, she resolves to protect her child no matter the cost, and starts to meticulously plan her escape. But when another woman is brought into the fold on the farm, her plans go awry. Can she save herself, her child, and this innocent woman at the same time? Or is she doomed to spend the remainder of her life captive on this farm?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Physical injury (broken ankle)
Pregnancy from rape & childbirth
Kidnapping & captivity

Watch Out for Her by Samantha Bailey

Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey

Sarah Goldman, mother to six-year-old Jacob, is relieved to move across the country. She has a lot she wants to leave behind, especially Holly Monroe, the pretty twenty-two-year-old babysitter she and her husband, Daniel, hired to take care of their young son last summer. It started out as a perfect arrangement—Sarah had a childminder her son adored, and Holly found the mother figure she’d always wanted. But Sarah’s never been one to trust very easily, so she kept a close eye on Holly, maybe too close at times. What she saw raised some questions, not only about who Holly really was but what she was hiding. The… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Child neglect & emotional abuse

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder. Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing’s simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past. Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion—and, rumour has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls. None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see. On top of that, some… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Prescription drug abuse
Blood depiction
Gun violence

Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s found some stability and peace. But when they meet the neighbours next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen knows because she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder—an obsession… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Ableism
Bipolar Disorder
Murder

Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson

Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson

Abigail Baskin never thought she’d fall in love with a millionaire. Then she met Bruce Lamb. But right before the wedding, Abigail has a drunken one-night stand on her bachelorette weekend. She puts the incident—and the sexy guy who wouldn’t give her his real name—out of her mind, and now believes she wants to be with Bruce for the rest of her life. Then the mysterious stranger suddenly appears—and Abigail’s future life and happiness are turned upside down. He insists that their passionate night was the beginning of something special and he’s tracked her down to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Rape by coercion, on-page
Domestic abuse & violence
Cheating
Alcohol consumption, on-page
Recreational drug use & smoking, on-page
Drugging, on-page
Blood & gore depiction
Death of a husband, on-page
Graphic murder & attempted murder, on-page
Knife violence & stabbing, on-page
Bow & arrow violence
Torture & psychological torture
Kidnapping & captivity
Stalking
Bullying mentioned

The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

A lot has changed in the years since Ambrosia Wellington graduated from college, and she’s worked hard to create a new life for herself. But then an invitation to her ten-year reunion arrives in the mail, along with an anonymous note that reads, “We need to talk about what we did that night.” It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it with larger-than-life Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, Amb’s former best friend, who could make anyone do… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape, on-page
Alcoholism
Suicide, on-page
Murder
Bullying