Gone Girl

The original amoral, identity-performing protagonist — Ripley creates himself the way Amy creates her narrative, and Highsmith refuses to punish him for it

Flynn's debut — smaller in scope but equally dark, with a female protagonist whose damage is written on her body rather than projected onto others

Another unreliable female narrator, another marriage destroyed by a monstrous child — but Shriver's narrator may be the monster, and the ambiguity is the point

Literary thriller as genre hybrid — Tartt proved that beautiful prose and murder plot could coexist, paving the way for Flynn's literary-commercial synthesis

The masterwork of the seductive unreliable narrator — Humbert's prose is so beautiful you almost forget the horror, just as Amy's intelligence almost justifies her monstrosity

Domestic noir's most successful descendant — marriage as battleground, performance as survival, but Moriarty allows her women solidarity that Flynn denies hers