10 Most Suspenseful Stephen King Books, Ranked

Stephen King is best known for horror, and much of his work is built on suspense. He’s written thrillers and stories that lean toward mystery, but plot twists aren’t his strong suit; instead he excels at keeping readers uneasy by letting anything—often terrible things—happen to prominent or likable characters.

Frequently he blends suspense and horror, and both elements drive many of his strongest novels. Rose Madder is a quieter, perhaps more obscure King novel about a woman fleeing an abusive husband and the brutal pursuit that follows; the book’s back-and-forth structure between pursuer and pursued is key to its tension, even when the story grows a bit fantastical near the end.

‘Salem’s Lot, only the second novel King published, finds dread building steadily as vampires begin to take over the Maine town of Jerusalem’s Lot, never wasting time or losing momentum.

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