I went to an event with Nathan Johnson, the composer who scored all three Knives Out films including Wake Up Dead Man, and he said something that nailed the whole genre for me: “The little secret with detective fiction [is] the detective is the lead but also not the main character. […] Each movie, we find our way into it through his sidekick. Blanc does have a couple motifs that peak their heads up through the different movies. I’m finding all new things to explore with the new characters.” What he’s pointing out is that normally you develop a story around your main character, but in a whodunit the protagonist is almost beside the point. Who people are really watching for is the quirky cast of characters — each with their own secrets, their own voice, their own goals, all butting heads while they’re trapped together trying to figure out which one of them is a killer. The cast of suspects IS the story.
Table of Contents
- The short version
- How I picked these 10 books like Knives Out
- How do these 10 compare at a glance?
- Which books are most similar to Knives Out?
- The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
- The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
- The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
- An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena
- One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
- In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
- Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson
- Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
- Which one should you read tonight?
- FAQ
Looking for a closed-circle whodunit where everyone’s a suspect?
Get the first few chapters of The Storm Reaper free — a Fire Island barrier-island whodunit where the hurricane shuts down the ferry, the suspects are all locals the lead detective has known her whole life, and one of them is a serial killer who uses hurricanes to hide his murders. Written by a viral standup comic.
“The Storm Reaper was a fast paced easy read that kept pulling you in with the ‘who done it’ theories.”
— Tarina Kofoed, Goodreads Reviewer
Read Now for Free →That tracks with everything I know about comedy, too. Before I started writing thrillers, I did standup and improv five nights a week — first in Shanghai, then in Los Angeles. COVID shut the stages down and I pivoted to writing, but the comedy never left. My editor is always telling me, “We need to take this joke out — this scene is supposed to be scary.” The best whodunits work the same way improv does: you put a group of wildly different characters in a room, give each of them a secret, and watch them collide. Somebody ends up dead. The audience suspects everyone. The laughs come from watching the collision.
The short version
- If you want a whodunit where the detective went to school with every suspect, The Storm Reaper (Kristen Van Nest) puts Violet Crisp on an island of 100 year-round residents with a hurricane closing the ferry.
- If you want the closest match to the Thrombey family, read Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Benjamin Stevenson).
- If you want the book Rian Johnson was riffing on, read And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie, 1939).
- If you want Glass Onion’s rich-friends-trapped-somewhere-pretty energy, read The Hunting Party (Lucy Foley).
How I picked these 10 books like Knives Out
First: the suspects are trapped together. An island, a lodge, a hotel, a detention room. Nobody leaves until somebody talks.
Second: every suspect gets a secret and a voice. If I can’t tell two of them apart, the book is out.
Third: somebody has to be funny. Knives Out works because Ransom is awful in a way you can’t stop watching, and every book here has at least one character like him.
How do these 10 compare at a glance?
| Book | Why it’s like Knives Out | Where they’re trapped | Suspects | Detective | Funny? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The Storm Reaper, Kristen Van Nest (2026) | The closest match here for a detective who knows every suspect personally | Fire Island, ferry shut down by a hurricane | 100 year-round residents | Violet Crisp, the cop nobody believed | Yes, the cat sits on the evidence board |
| 2. And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (1939) | The template Rian Johnson modernized | An island off the Devon coast | Ten strangers | None | Darkly |
| 3. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton (2018) | Knives Out’s country-house party, seen through eight guests | A 1920s English estate | A houseful of liars | The narrator, in a new body each day | Wry |
| 4. The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley (2020) | Glass Onion’s golden friend group with a body in the snow | A Scottish Highlands lodge | Old college friends and the staff | None | Sharp |
| 5. An Unwanted Guest, Shari Lapena (2018) | And Then There Were None, faster and meaner | A mountain hotel in an ice storm | Strangers on a weekend away | None | No |
| 6. One of Us Is Lying, Karen M. McManus (2017) | Five suspects, five narrators, one dead gossip | High school detention | Four students | The suspects themselves | Yes |
| 7. The Sanatorium, Sarah Pearse (2021) | A Benoit Blanc figure trapped with the suspects | A Swiss Alps hotel after an avalanche | Hotel guests and staff | Detective Elin Warner | No |
| 8. In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware (2015) | A reunion where every guest resents the guest of honor | A glass house in a forest | A hen party | The narrator, who can’t remember | A little |
| 9. Eight Perfect Murders, Peter Swanson (2020) | Knives Out’s wink at the genre | A Boston bookstore | Anyone who read the blog post | An FBI agent and a bookseller | Dry |
| 10. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson (2022) | The Thrombeys, in the Australian Alps | A snowed-in mountain lodge | One very guilty family | The narrator, a crime writer | Very |
Which books are most similar to Knives Out?
Books similar to Knives Out are ranked below by how close the setup is to Rian Johnson’s. In #1 and #10, the person solving the murder is also one of the suspects.
1. The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest (2026)
Read this if: the part of Knives Out you loved was a town full of people with history and no reason to tell the truth.
What you’re getting: Violet Crisp is a patrol officer who has spent a decade trying to prove that a serial killer uses hurricanes to disguise murders as storm-related deaths. Nobody believed her because of her reputation as the town drunk’s daughter. The old chief told her she was making things up for attention. But when a body washes up after a hurricane and the new chief (the first person in authority to actually take her seriously) opens the case, every interview is with someone she went to school with, whose friends know her dad, or who works at the local bar. The island is half a mile wide with 100 year-round residents. Based on real American folklore, the Gray Man legend of Pawleys Island, South Carolina.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: The whodunit mechanics are classic Agatha Christie closed-circle — small island community, limited suspect pool, no way off once the brewing hurricane hits. But the voice is Violet’s. Sharp and self-aware in the way of someone who has been dismissed for so long that humor became her default setting. Her cat, Purrmaid, sits on the evidence board. Her ex-hookup works the only grocery store. The medical examiner has a mug that says “Cause of Death: Mondays.” The community runs on ferry schedules, tip money from summer renters, and a shared agreement not to talk about anything that might hurt the summer season’s business. Of the ten here, it’s the only one where the detective is related to half the suspect pool by gossip.
What readers say: From Goodreads, verbatim:
- “The Storm Reaper was a fast paced easy read that kept pulling you in with the ‘who done it’ theories.” (Tarina Kofoed)
- “Absolutely gripping plot that I couldn’t put down, great characters and twists I didn’t see coming.” (Melinda Smith)
- “I actually loved all the characters.” (Mary)
2. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939)
Read this if: you want the book that invented “nobody can leave the island.”
What you’re getting: Ten strangers arrive on an island off the Devon coast, each invited under a different pretense. At dinner, a recorded voice accuses every single one of them of a past murder that escaped justice. Then they start dying — one by one, matching the verses of a nursery rhyme framed in each bedroom.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: There’s no detective here. No Benoit Blanc sweeping in with a magnifying glass. Every character is both suspect and potential victim, and Christie gives each of them just enough backstory that you believe they could be the killer and just enough guilt that you’re not sure they don’t deserve what’s coming. The trapped-island setting became the template for every “no one can leave” mystery that followed, including Knives Out’s snowbound mansion. If you’ve never read the book that sold over 100 million copies and invented the formula Rian Johnson modernized 85 years later, start here. If this is the one that hooked you, I ranked nine more thrillers built on the same island-with-a-killer bones.
Fair warning: It’s from 1939, and some of the dialogue reads like it.
3. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018)
Read this if: you want the Knives Out country house turned into a puzzle box.
What you’re getting: Imagine Knives Out’s country estate, but the protagonist keeps reliving the same murder from eight different perspectives — waking up each morning in the body of a different party guest. Each host has different access, different secrets, different physical limitations. One is a butler. One is a drunk aristocrat. One can barely walk. The murder happens every night at 11pm regardless, and the protagonist has to piece together the truth by experiencing the same event through wildly different eyes.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: Stuart Turton builds a 1920s country house party full of liars, drunks, and schemers. The exact kind of dysfunctional rich people who populate a Knives Out dining room, except now you’re forced to see every one of them from the inside. The class commentary is baked into the structure itself: who has power at a party depends entirely on which body you’re wearing.
Fair warning: Keep notes. You’re tracking eight hosts and a time loop, and the first fifty pages won’t explain either.
4. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (2020)
Read this if: Glass Onion’s friend group is the part you want more of.
What you’re getting: A group of old college friends reunites at a remote Scottish Highlands lodge for New Year’s Eve. They’re the kind of friend group that looks golden from the outside — glamorous careers, expensive coats, inside jokes that have calcified into weapons. Beneath the champagne toasts, there are affairs, resentments, and a class divide between the guests and the lodge staff that nobody acknowledges but everyone feels. Then someone turns up dead in the snow.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: Foley rotates perspectives between the friends and the staff, building an ensemble where every character has a motive and every conversation has a subtext. The Scottish lodge works the way the Thrombey mansion does: no cell service, snowbound, miles from the nearest village. The rich friends can’t leave, and the staff can’t stop watching them self-destruct. If you liked Knives Out’s class commentary, The Hunting Party is the closest thing in novel form. It’s also a strong companion to the funny mystery novels list.
Fair warning: Foley doesn’t tell you who died until late in the book.
Want more closed-circle whodunits with dark comedy?
Get the first few chapters of The Storm Reaper free — written by a viral standup comic, a barrier-island whodunit where the quirky small-town residents blame the disappearances on a ghost and Detective Violet Crisp has to prove they’re wrong before the killer reaches her.
★★★★★
“Absolutely gripping plot that I couldn’t put down, great characters and twists I didn’t see coming.”
— Melinda Smith, Goodreads Reviewer
Read Now for Free →5. An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena (2018)
Read this if: you want the Christie setup at twice the speed.
What you’re getting: A boutique hotel in the mountains loses power during a brutal winter storm. The roads are impassable. Cell phones are dead. The guests are stuck with each other, strangers who booked a quiet weekend retreat and are now trapped in something much worse. Then someone is found dead at the bottom of the staircase. Accident? Maybe. Until the next body turns up.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: Lapena strips the whodunit formula to its bones: a group of people who don’t know each other, a location they can’t escape, and a body count that keeps climbing. Every guest has a secret — an affair, a past crime, a reason they chose this particular hotel at this particular time. If And Then There Were None is the original template, An Unwanted Guest is the version for readers who want books like Knives Out but faster and meaner.
Fair warning: There’s no detective on site, so nobody gets a Benoit Blanc speech at the end.
6. One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus (2017)
Read this if: you want each suspect to narrate their own chapters.
What you’re getting: Five students walk into detention. The brain, the beauty, the criminal, the athlete, and the outcast — yes, it’s The Breakfast Club, but one of them doesn’t walk out alive. The dead kid ran a gossip app that was about to expose secrets from all four survivors: an affair, steroid use, a cheating scandal, and something worse. Every suspect has motive. Every suspect has something to lose.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: McManus uses the high school hierarchy as her class system, the same power dynamics that drive the Thrombey family but filtered through cafeteria politics instead of inheritance law. Each character narrates their own chapters, and each voice is distinct enough that you genuinely can’t tell who’s lying. Peacock adapted it into a series in 2021.
Fair warning: It’s shelved as YA. The suspects are seventeen, and so is some of the drama.
7. The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse (2021)
Read this if: you want a working detective trapped in the building with the suspects.
What you’re getting: A converted sanatorium turned luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. The kind of place where the renovation is gorgeous and the history is horrifying — patients were sent there to die. Detective Elin Warner arrives for her brother’s engagement party, already uneasy. Then an avalanche seals every exit. Then a guest disappears. Then another.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: Pearse gives you a detective figure who’s actively trying to solve the case while trapped with the suspects, closer to the Benoit Blanc model than most books like Knives Out on this list. The ensemble of hotel guests and staff each carry secrets tied to the sanatorium’s dark past, and the class tension between the hotel’s sleek rebrand and the suffering that happened in the same rooms gives the whole book an unsettling double identity.
Fair warning: It’s the least funny book here. Elin is anxious from page one and stays that way.
8. In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware (2015)
Read this if: you want a reunion where every guest has a grudge against the guest of honor.
What you’re getting: A hen party at an isolated glass house in the middle of a forest. The bride-to-be has invited her closest friends and one woman she hasn’t spoken to in a decade — our narrator, Nora, who has no idea why she was included. Old secrets, old rivalries, too much alcohol, and a house made entirely of windows in a place where no one can hear you scream. Someone ends up in the hospital. Nobody remembers the night clearly.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: Ware builds her ensemble the way Rian Johnson does — by making every character’s relationship to every other character loaded with history, jealousy, or guilt. The unreliable narrator energy runs strong here, but it’s the group dynamics that drive the plot. It’s the bridal party version of a Thrombey family reunion — except instead of an inheritance, they’re fighting over who gets to be the favorite friend.
Fair warning: Half the book is Nora in a hospital bed trying to remember. If you want the whole cast on the page, it thins out.
9. Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson (2020)
Read this if: the Agatha Christie portraits on the Thrombey walls were your favorite joke.
What you’re getting: A bookstore owner named Malcolm once wrote a blog post listing eight “perfect murders” from classic mystery fiction — Agatha Christie, Patricia Highsmith, Donna Tartt. Then an FBI agent shows up because someone is methodically recreating the murders from Malcolm’s list. Every kill mirrors a fictional one. The suspect pool includes anyone who read the post — which is basically everyone.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: This is a whodunit about whodunits. Swanson writes a meta-mystery that’s part love letter to the genre, part locked-room puzzle, and part character study of a man whose obsession with mystery fiction might have created a real killer. For readers who love Knives Out because of its genre-awareness, Eight Perfect Murders delivers that same self-referential energy in novel form.
Fair warning: It spoils the endings of the eight classics it names, including The Secret History. Read those first if you care.
10. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (2022)
Read this if: you want the Thrombeys, but Australian and snowed in.
What you’re getting: Ernest Cunningham, a crime writer, goes to a family reunion at a snowy mountain lodge in the Australian Alps. On the first page, he tells you: everyone in my family has killed someone. Then he lays out the rules of fair-play mystery fiction and promises he’ll play by every one of them. Someone dies at the reunion. Ernest has to figure out which family member did it while also confronting the fact that his entire family tree is, statistically speaking, terrifying.
Why Knives Out fans will like it: Dysfunctional family. Isolated location. Dark humor so sharp it could cut glass. A narrator who’s both detective and suspect. Every Cunningham has their own secret, their own justification, and their own body count, and Stevenson makes you care about all of them even as you’re calculating who’s the most likely murderer. If you also loved the comedy-mystery energy of Only Murders in the Building, Stevenson hits that same gear with a family you’d never want to spend Christmas with.
Fair warning: Ernest talks to you directly all the way through. If a narrator winking at you is annoying, this will be too.
Which one should you read tonight?
- The detective knows everyone: The Storm Reaper for the island, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone for the family.
- The original and its fastest descendant: And Then There Were None, then An Unwanted Guest.
- Glass Onion’s rich friends: The Hunting Party.
What to Read Next
The Storm Reaper is my dark comedy mystery set on Fire Island where the suspect pool is 100 year-round residents who all have history with each other. The bartender. The grocer. The corrupt county executive. And a cop whose ex-hookup works the only register in town. According to Mary on Goodreads, “Hurricanes and Serial Killers, what could be better?”
Want the first chapters of a Fire Island whodunit free?
Get the first few chapters of The Storm Reaper free — a closed-circle mystery set on a barrier island during a hurricane, where catching the killer might mean arresting someone the lead detective loves.
★★★★★
“I actually loved all the characters.”
— Mary, Goodreads Reviewer
Read Now for Free →FAQ
Is Knives Out based on a book?
No. Rian Johnson wrote the screenplay himself, and he has talked publicly about how much of it came out of loving Agatha Christie. People search for the novel constantly and there isn’t one, which is a shame because that cast deserves 400 pages. The closest you can get is And Then There Were None, the 1939 Christie that built the shape Johnson is playing with, and Murder on the Orient Express (1934).
What Are the Best Whodunit Books With Dark Humor?
If dark humor is the priority, start with Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson — the family reunion whodunit is pitch-black funny from the first page. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton blends its humor with puzzle-box complexity, and Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson delivers dry wit alongside genre-savvy suspense. For even more mystery books with dark humor, check out our list of funny mystery novels that go beyond cozy.
Are There Books Like Glass Onion Too?
Glass Onion used the same whodunit formula (ensemble cast, trapped setting, class satire) but moved it from a mansion to a private island. Several books on this list hit that exact vibe: The Hunting Party (isolated Scottish lodge), The Sanatorium (snowed-in Swiss Alps hotel), and And Then There Were None (the original island-murder template). If you’re specifically looking for books like Glass Onion with a tech-billionaire angle, the ensemble mystery novels on this list lean more toward inherited wealth and old-money secrets — but the trapped-with-terrible-people energy is identical. We also have a full list of island thriller books if the setting is what hooked you.
What Makes a Good Ensemble Mystery Novel?
Nathan Johnson, the composer who scored all three Knives Out films, put it perfectly: “The little secret with detective fiction [is] the detective is the lead but also not the main character.” The real draw is the ensemble — each character with their own secrets, voice, and goals, all colliding while trapped together. A good whodunit gives every suspect enough depth that you could imagine the story told from their perspective. That’s why ensemble mystery novels work best when the author invests in each character’s motive equally — not just who has the strongest alibi, but who has the most to lose.
What Should I Read After Knives Out If I Want More Whodunits?
For the closest match to the Knives Out experience, start with Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. Dysfunctional family, dark humor, a narrator who knows the rules. For the original template that started it all, read And Then There Were None. And if you want knives out book recommendations that push the formula into unexpected territory, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle reinvents the country-estate whodunit with a time-loop structure that Agatha Christie would have loved. For broader whodunit books with a comedic edge, our Books Like Only Murders in the Building list covers the comedy-mystery crossover.
For readers who want more closed-setting suspense, our roundup of authors like Riley Sager covers eight writers who turn location into antagonist.
What’s the Closest Book to Knives Out?
Three picks: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (closed retirement-village suspect pool + ensemble investigators), The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (snowed-in mansion + every guest a suspect), and The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest, a Fire Island closed-circle thriller where the suspect pool is fixed (one island, 100 year-round residents).
Are There Books Like Knives Out With a Female Detective?
Yes. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (Susan Ryeland), The Appeal by Janice Hallett (Femi/Charlotte), and The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest, with Officer Violet Crisp, NYPD-trained, working a Fire Island serial killer case with the same Benoit Blanc puzzle-box energy.
What’s the Best Closed-Circle Mystery Book?
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (the genre prototype), The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley, and The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest, a single-island closed-circle where the killer has to be one of the residents.
Are There Knives Out Books That Work as Audiobooks?
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, narrated by Lesley Manville, and The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest, also available in audio.
What’s a Knives Out-Style Book Set on an Island?
The Guest List by Lucy Foley (Irish island wedding) and The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest (Fire Island, ferry-only access, 100 year-round residents). Both keep the suspect pool fixed and force the detective inside the circle.
What are mystery books like Knives Out for adults who want something funny?
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson is the funniest book on this list, and The Storm Reaper is the one written by a former standup comic, where a cat named Purrmaid sits on the evidence board. For more, my funny mystery novels list goes past cozy.
Is There a Knives Out Book Series?
Rian Johnson wrote and directed Knives Out, Glass Onion and Wake Up Dead Man, and nobody has turned any of the three into a novel. He told Netflix’s Tudum that he gives each film its own title, “just like Agatha Christie’s books do,” and called each one “a different novel on the shelf.” The books he points at, though, you can actually buy. The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr turns up all through Wake Up Dead Man, and the twist in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one he calls audacious (imagine being handed that compliment by the man who wrote Benoit Blanc!). Start with the Carr.
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