Gay thriller books
(Image credit: Various publishers / Future)
When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you require your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we complete the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.
In this author-curated rendition, Andrea Bartz, the New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Hereand brand-new thriller The Last Ferry Out, plus the Substack Get It Write,shares her favorite queer thrillers.
Uh, happy Pride? (Ilana Wexler air-quotes around “happy,” of course.) As a multi-attracted writer, I hope I’m not alone in feeling bummed about the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights. Earlier this year, I watched in dismay as many major brands dropped their Pride support, while gender non-conforming creators saw their books banned for having Diverse representation (hi, Station Eleven).
You may likeYou see where this is going, right? The way to support the collective this month is not by buying rainbow caps from Uniqlo but rather directly buying the pro Task #3 of the 2025 Interpret Harder Challenge is “read a homosexual mystery” and I am happy to report that I had to labor to narrow this list down. Finding LGBTQ rep in mystery—or any other genre—shouldn’t require intense sleuthing, but it wasn’t that long ago that the mystery genre lacked diversity on every level. While we still have a long way to move towards parity in homosexual representation, it is really nice to have several titles to recommend in a list like this and not have it be the same handful of titles recommended over and over again. I have several series starters and a few standalones to recommend for this Read Harder task, all by and about gay people. Most of the titles are from the last few years, and a couple are 2025 releases. In historical mysteries, we’ll travel to Georgian London,1920s Harlem, and 19th Century Chicago. In contemporary mysteries, we’ll head to Salt Lake City game shop, an exclusive boarding school, the London performative scene, and more. Fetch ready to chase down clues, map out theories, and figure out whodunit. That’s right, folks: be gay, solve crimes. The comments section is moderated according to our collective guidelines. Please check them out so we ca 47 items Available at TCCL as a book; it is also available through hoopla as an ebook. This is the first novel in the Campbell & Strauss series. MC rep: lesbian female x queer woman female LI Available at TCCL as a book and ebook. This is the second book in the A Shay O'Hanlon Caper series. MC rep: queer woman female x lesbian female LI Available at TCCL as an ebook. This is the first book in the Sidewinder series. MC rep: demisexual biromantic male x bisexual male LI Available at TCCL as an ebook. This is the second book in the Sidewinder series. MC rep: bisexual male x demisexual biromantic male LI Available at TCCL as an ebook. This is the third book in the Sidewinder series. MC rep: double attraction male x demisexual biromantic male LI Available at TCCL as a book. This is the first publication in the Luce Hansen series. MC rep: sapphic female x wlw female LI Available at TCCL as a book and ebook. This is the third book in the Queers of La Vista series. MC rep: Mexican/Italian direct transgender male x female homosexual female LI who then IDs as queer after falling in love with the MC Available at TCCL as a book and ebook. This is the fourth book in the Queer The slogan “Be gay, carry out crimes” might have its origins in tongue-in-cheek tweets and memes, but I think one of the reasons why it struck such a nerve with audiences is because anyone who’s queer knows that sometimes just being yourself is a radical proceed in our society. For too many years, gay people have lived under the heavy expectation of being perceived as respectable, likable, and normal to gain the acceptance of cisgender and heterosexual people in power, and it can be exhausting. So what does this contain to go with YA books? Well, I consider it’s pretty amazing that these days we’re seeing more and more books that capture the packed range of queer lives and experiences, beyond that model gay person archetype that is, quite frankly, boring. We now own books where queer people are allowed to be a bit messy, shatter the rules, even partake in crime, and we get to see their full humanity as adequately. Plus, you gotta admit: The phrase is catchy! From heroes and heroines to villains and everything in the murky in-between, here are eight great YA mystery and thriller books starring LGBTQ+ teens! By day, Margo is a .
Death Prefers Blondes by Caleb Roehrig