Almost a decade ago, Ruth Ware followed up her very successful debut —In a Dark, Dark Wood—with an even more successful psychological thriller, The Woman in Cabin 10. Set on a small luxury cruise, travel writer Lo Blackwood, swears that she witnessed the body of a woman go overboard. Problem? No one believes her.

This year not only sees the adaptation release, but The Woman in Cabin 10 just got a sequel, The Woman in Suite 11, where Lo returns a decade after the first book’s timeline to be thrust into a new mystery (this time centering a luxury Swiss hotel) with some old “friends” from the first book.

Netflix has adapted Ware’s book into a psychological thriller film starring Keira Knightley as Lo. Get your popcorn ready on October 10th and situate yourself on the edge of your seat.

Watch the trailer here.

Bonus book rec: For another remote mystery set on a ship (a cruise to Antarctica), pick up Midnight by Amy McCulloch. For a historical mystery leaning towards the cozier side, pick up A Decline in Prophets by Sulari Gentill, which starts on the R.M.S. Aquitania, a luxury liner, filled with an eclectic mix of characters.

Alexia Gordon wrote a delightful, and funny, cozy mystery series set in Ireland that pairs up an American music teacher with the ghost living in her house.

Hallmark began adapting the series into film in 2023 with Haunted Harmony Mysteries: Murder in G Major and returns to the Hallmark channel on Sunday, October 12th at 8/7c with Buried at C. Tamera Mowry-Housley is back as boarding school music teacher Gethsemane along with her ghostly sidekick Eamon. Their case? The unexplained death of a sea captain!

The manga Spy X Family is a fun series with a found family at its core, as each member needs the appearance of a family for their missions and is holding a huge secret. The truly fun element is that they each think they’re the only one with a secret.

The manga series has been adapted into an anime series and the third season will be on Crunchyroll starting October 4th. Let the spying—and infiltrating of an elite school—continue!

Watch the trailer here.

Mick Herron’s Slow Horses adaptation is such a hit (it’s fantastic) that it was really in Apple TV+’s best interest to take another swing at adapting one of his series. Down Cemetery Road moves from the spy genre to domestic and PI thriller with a housewife who becomes obsessed with what happened to a little girl after her parents died in a house explosion.

I’m going to assume that the adaptation creators are keeping the dark humor formula, as they certainly kept the excellent casting formula: Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson will play the housewife and the PI she hires. You can start watching the first two episodes in the series on October 29th.

Watch the trailer here.

Lizzie Johnson, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote a book about one of the deadliest fires in the US, which wiped out an entire town in Paradise, California, in November 2018.

The Lost Bus is a harrowing film that feels like a thriller based on events in the book. It stars America Ferrera and Matthew McConaughey portraying real-life people Mary Ludwig (a school teacher) and Kevin McKay (a bus driver) who worked together to save a bus full of children and escape the inferno. You can now stream the film on Apple TV+.

Watch the trailer here.

Bonus book rec: If you want fire as a character in a procedural with a past and present mystery, pick up Jane Harper’s The Dry (there’s an adaptation film starring Eric Bana).

The Parker novels by Richard Stark (pen name for Donald E. Westlake) are a 24-book classic crime series set in 1950s New York, where Parker is a “pro thief, expert robber” set on revenge. 

The adapted film starring Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield follows Parker in his quest for revenge, which is what leads him into the major heist (sunken treasure!) trope. There’s distrustful partners, the NY mob, and a mismatched heist crew! Stream it now on Amazon Prime video.

Watch the trailer here.

Bonus book recs: if you’re looking for the “one last heist” trope, I’ve got a great list for you here: Assemble a Crew: 8 “One Last Heist” Mystery and Thriller Books