T.M. Logan was born in Berkshire to an English father and a German mother. He studied at Queen Mary and Cardiff universities before becoming a national newspaper journalist. Tim writes full time and lives in Nottingham with his wife and two children.

For T.M. Logan, 2026 marks a special anniversary. TM10, a year long celebration for the release of his tenth thriller, The Weekend. Available in hardback and released in paperback on the 16th July, this compulsive thriller received Book of the Month and Audiobook of the Month accolades from us. Our Editorial Expert Liz Robinson described The Weekend as "a hugely entertaining and addictive thriller with a fascinating premise that pulls you in tight and just doesn’t let go".

As part of the TM10 celebrations and the paperback publication of The Weekend this month, we're thrilled to have T.M. Logan as our latest Guest Editor. Explore his selections, the perfect picks to devour in a weekend, alongside his latest hugely entertaining read. 

Lean & Mean Thrillers to Binge in a Weekend

There’s something about summer that reminds me of being a teenager, when I would lose whole days to reading during the long school holidays. I was never much for sport and pretty hopeless at team games, I much preferred wandering off with a good book and losing myself in the pages. I loved stories that captured you so completely that you had to keep turning the pages, books you could finish in a weekend or even a single day.

As a book-loving teenager, I even nurtured the vaguest of dreams that one day there might be a book with my own name on the cover (which is ironic, as Logan is actually a pseudonym). That dream drew me to jobs that involved writing, starting with the student magazine when I was an undergraduate, and then into journalism on newspapers in Nottingham and later in London.

It wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I dusted off the teenage dream of writing a book of my own, and another decade of trying – and failing – to get published before I was finally offered that elusive first book deal. On that journey, I always tried to remember what I’d learned in the newsroom about tight, impactful writing, streamlined prose that draws you through a story and always puts the reader first.

Those are the kind of books that I love to read, and how I try to write. With my own stories, I’m always trying to hook the reader with an irresistible premise and keep them glued to the page. 

At a time of doorstep-sized multi-book series, and two-hour classic films being remade into streaming TV shows spread over eight or ten hours, there is something wonderful about a paperback that is slim enough to fit into your back pocket. A lean, mean, streamlined story that is fully formed, a whole world tucked into a slim volume of just a few hundred pages. Although my own books tend to be a little longer than this, I’ve always loved stories that you can consume in one or two sittings. Even now, I make a new year’s resolution every year to read at least one book in a single day. To give up one day a year to reading and nothing else.

In that spirit, here are my recommendations for five pacy thrillers that are short enough to read over a weekend – including a couple that I first binged as a teenager – each of them clocking in at fewer than 300 pages.

Because when it comes to thrillers, sometimes less really is more.

The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel

Plenty of books fit into the ‘Small town, big secrets’ genre, but for my money this is one of the best. Set in the poorest part of the Missouri Ozarks, the story follows Eve Taggert as she sets out on an all-consuming quest for justice after her daughter is found murdered on the town playground next to the body of her best friend. Eve is a mother with nothing left to lose and her search for the killer leads her into the very darkest depths of the human psyche.

The small, hardscrabble town of Barren Springs is brilliantly portrayed, as is Eve herself – a pleasingly complex protagonist grappling with her own family demons. The story also has some great twists and packs a real emotional punch. Powerful, beautiful and not for the faint-hearted. 

A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell 

This slim novel opens with an absolute bombshell of a first sentence: ‘Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.’ Eunice, the housekeeper, shoots four of her employers in the space of fifteen minutes one Valentine's Day. As the police investigate, Eunice schemes to escape blame – desperate to preserve the terrible secret of her illiteracy.

This is not a whodunnit, but a whydunnit, and all the more fascinating for it. Because we know from the very start who committed the crime and how the murders were carried out, there is a terrible, dark inevitability to the narrative. This trajectory also makes it completely compelling. My copy of the book is just 191 pages and it’s a measure of her skill that she can write with such devastating economy, how much depth and breadth she brings to the characters and the world they inhabit. Not a word wasted – this is a crime fiction classic.

No Exit by Taylor Adams

A brilliantly claustrophobic closed-circle thriller set in a single location – a snowed-in highway rest stop in the wilds of Colorado. Student Darby Thorne is stranded and has resigned herself to spending the night waiting out the blizzard with four complete strangers – until she stumbles across a little girl locked in a cage inside one of their parked cars. There is no mobile reception, no telephone, no way out because of the snow, and she doesn’t know which one of the other travellers is the kidnapper…

This is a no-frills, no-holds-barred rollercoaster of a read, with a small cast and a seemingly impossible situation for Darby to resolve. She knows she should do the right thing – but at what cost? And who is she supposed to trust? It’s a simple premise but the tension is ratcheted up further and further until it genuinely seems like there’s no way out. 

My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Korede is a dedicated, dutiful nurse who is always cleaning up after her beautiful sister, Ayoola. The only problem is that Ayoola has a bad habit of ‘accidentally’ killing her boyfriends, requiring the kind of clean-up that involves bleach, rubber gloves and a strong stomach. And when Korede fears her own unrequited love might be the next under her sister’s knife, she is forced to choose between them. Will family solidarity win out? Or will Korede finally draw the line before her sister claims another victim?

This smart, riveting, darkly comic thriller took the book world by storm when it came out a few years ago and was rightly lauded with some of the biggest writing prizes. It’s a tribute to the precision of her plotting and prose that Braithwaite can weave a very entertaining story in such a tight span of pages. The voice, the setting, the relationships and social commentary, all of it feels so fresh – and it’s all the more impressive for being her debut novel.

Carrie by Stephen King 

OK, I might be bending the genre boundary a little bit with this one but it’s the 50th anniversary of the film adaptation (with Sissy Spacek in the title role) this year, so it feels fitting to include the story of Carrie White, a bullied teenager with the gift of telekinesis. To be invited to prom night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie, the first step towards social acceptance by her high school colleagues. But events take a horrifying turn on that deadly night as she is forced to exercise her terrible gift on the town that mocks and loathes her…

Carrie was King’s first published book but it still stands the test of time – it’s fascinating to see where he started, and how far he’s come. His backlist now spans more than fifty years and seventy books across multiple genres, and his memoir On Writing is required reading for aspiring authors. But apparently King thought the first draft of Carrie wasn’t any good and threw the half-completed manuscript in the bin, only for his wife to rescue it and convince him to finish what he’d started. Thank goodness for her intervention… 

Find out more about T.M Logan and browse all his titles by visiting his author page. 

Take a look at our shorter reads section for short story collections, novellas and shorter novels. Or discover our Shorter Reads collection for those wanting to get back into reading. 

Explore our other Author Talk blogs for previous Guest Editors features and author insights and recommendations.