Book picks similar to
Mr. X by Peter Straub


horror
fiction
peter-straub
thriller

Praying for Sleep


Jeffery Deaver - 1994
    He'll show her what killing is all about...Praying for salvation...Lis knows he's out there. He's haunted every sleepless night, watching and waiting to take her to hell with him...And now Lis is Praying for Sleep.

The Store


Bentley Little - 1996
    Now everything you could possibly want is under one roof, at unbelievable prices. But you'd better be careful what you wish for. This place demands something of its customers that goes beyond brand loyalty. At The Store, one-stop shopping has become last-stop shopping.Bill Davis is the only one in town who senses the evil lurking within The Store. But he can't stop his two teenage daughters from taking jobs there and falling under the frightening influence of its sadistic manager. When Bill finally takes a stand, he will get much more than he bargained for. . . .

The Exorcist


William Peter Blatty - 1971
    In this stunning 40th Anniversary Edition, a desperate mother and two priests fight to free the soul of a little girl from a supernatural entity of pure malevolence.

Icebound


David Axton - 1976
    The fear is numbing. Screams freeze in the throat. Death arrives in shades of white. Cold-blooded murder seems right at home....the chill of the grave.

A Stir of Echoes


Richard Matheson - 1958
    Tom Wallace lived an ordinary life, until a chance event awakened psychic abilities he never knew he possessed. Now he's hearing the private thoughts of the people around him-and learning shocking secrets he never wanted to know. But as Tom's existence becomes a waking nightmare, even greater jolts are in store as he becomes the unwilling recipient of a compelling message from beyond the grave!

The Omen


David Seltzer - 1976
    Reissue.

Infinite


Brian Freeman - 2021
    Dylan initially chalks it up to trauma, but that changes when he runs into a psychiatrist who claims he’s her patient. She says he has been undergoing a unique hypnotherapy treatment built on the idea that with every choice, he creates an infinite number of parallel universes.Now those parallel universes are unlocked—and Dylan’s doppelgänger has staked a claim to his world. Can Dylan use these alternate realities to get a second chance at the life that was stolen from him? Or will he lose himself…to himself?

Seed


Ania Ahlborn - 2011
    His childhood is his darkest secret, but after a near fatal accident along a deserted road, the darkness he was sure he’d escaped rears its ugly head… and smiles.But this time, he isn’t the only one who sees the soulless eyes of his past. This time, his six-year-old daughter Charlie leans into his ear and whispers: Daddy, I saw it too.And then she begins to change.Faced with reliving the nightmares of his childhood, Jack watches his daughter spiral into the shadows that had nearly consumed him twenty years before. But Charlie isn’t the only one who’s changing. Jack never outran the darkness. It’s been with him all along. And it’s hungrier than ever. A new breed of dark fiction: the subtlety of Seed will haunt you, and the end will wickedly satisfy.

Abandon


Blake Crouch - 2009
    Recently, a similar party had also attempted to explore the town and was never heard from again. Now the area is believed to be haunted. This crew is about to discover, twenty miles from civilization with a blizzard bearing down, that they are not alone, and the past is very much alive.Revised edition: This edition of Abandon includes editorial revisions.

The Face of Fear


Brian Coffey - 1977
    With a beautiful, terrified woman. On the 40th floor of a deserted office building. By the psyshopath they call "The Butcher."DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause you're an ex-mountain climber. Because a fall from Everest left you with a bad leg... and a paralyzing fear of heights.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause he has slaughtered the guards and short-circuited the elevators. Because the stairways are blocked, and for you and the woman with you, there's only one escape route.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause 600 feet of empty space are looking back at you."A real breath-taker... should hold you glued to its pages till the wee small hours." --West Coast Review of Books

Those Across the River


Christopher Buehlman - 2011
    At first, the quaint, rural ways of their new neighbors seem to be everything they wanted. But there is an unspoken dread that the townsfolk have lived with for generations. A presence that demands sacrifice. It comes from the shadowy woods across the river, where the ruins of Savoyard still stand. Where a longstanding debt of blood has never been forgotten. A debt that has been waiting patiently for Frank Nichols's homecoming...

Mine


Robert R. McCammon - 1990
    The child's mother, though, isn't about to take it lying down and, along with a tracker, begins a cross-country chase to get her child back.

Next


Michael Crichton - 2006
    Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions, and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.The future is closer than you think. Get used to it.

Angel Time


Anne Rice - 2009
    At its center: Toby O’Dare—a contract killer of underground fame on assignment to kill once again. A soulless soul, a dead man walking, he lives under a series of aliases—just now: Lucky the Fox—and takes his orders from “The Right Man.”Into O’Dare’s nightmarish world of lone and lethal missions comes a mysterious stranger, a seraph, who offers him a chance to save rather than destroy lives. O’Dare, who long ago dreamt of being a priest but instead came to embody danger and violence, seizes his chance. Now he is carried back through the ages to thirteenth-century England, to dark realms where accusations of ritual murder have been made against Jews, where children suddenly die or disappear . . . In this primitive setting, O’Dare begins his perilous quest for salvation, a journey of danger and flight, loyalty and betrayal, selflessness and love.

The Whisperer in Darkness: Collected Stories Volume 1


H.P. Lovecraft - 1931
    Since that time, they have but slumbered. But when a massive sea tremor brings the ancient stone city of R'lyeh to the surface once more, the Old Ones awaken at last.The Whisperer in Darkness brings together the original Cthulhu Mythos stories of the legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Included in this volume are several early tales, along with the classics 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'The Dunwich Horror' and 'At the Mountains of Madness'. Arm yourself with a copy of Abdul Alhazred's fabled Necronomicon and prepare to face terrors beyond the wildest imaginings of all, save H.P. Lovecraft.