J. Watson 2. 01. This ones about a woman who wakes up with total amnesia, then pieces together what happened. Warning Dont read it alone at night The Legal Thriller. Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow 1. And for an exciting new author, dont miss Defending Jacob by William Landay 2. District Attorney struggles to prove that his son is innocent of a murder. The Medical Thriller. Suspense Thriller Movies Thomas & Friends: The Great Race ' title='Suspense Thriller Movies Thomas & Friends: The Great Race ' />Want to take your mind off the health insurance wars A great medical thriller is a lot more fun. Read Coma by Robin Cook 1. Looking for a more recent book Any of Patricia Cornwells Scarpetta novels, centering on the beloved forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta, should scare you happily sick the most recent, The Bone Bed, came out in paper in 2. Content continues below ad. The Sci Fi Thriller. Sure, hes done dinosaurs and television emergency rooms, but Michael Crichtons first novel, The Andromeda Strain 1. What could be scarier than microscopic killer germs run amok Um, how about a gigantic Arctic monster think polar bear on steroidsYou can find that in The Terror 2. Dan Simmons, which blends a fascinating account of 1. Arctic exploration with the supernatural. The Military Thriller. Even if youve seen the movie, you dont want to miss dont miss the book The Great Escape Killing Floor 1. Lee Child. Youll love his Jack Reacher novels too, the latest of which, Never Go Back, was released in September, 2. We also need to tip our hat to Tom Clancy, who passed away in 2. A final novel, Command Authority, written with Mark Greaney is out December 2. Clancys blockbuster Jack Ryan series. The True Crime Thriller. Yes, real life can be stranger than fiction, and true crime thrillers prove this. The most famous book in this nonfiction genre is Truman Capotes In Cold Blood 1. Midwest painstakingly retracing the steps of two young rural killers. Another excellent and more recent true crime book is The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal 2. Christian K. Gerhartsreiter, who faked an identity as Clark Rockefeller. Content continues below ad. The ActionAdventure Thriller. Alive The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read 1. Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashes, resulting in an incredible 1. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer 1. Everest that claimed the lives of eight people. Tragic, insightful, brilliantand haunting. The Uncanny Sound Illusion That Creates Suspense in Christopher Nolans Movies. Ever notice how Christopher Nolans movies Interstellar, Inception, The Prestige feel like an anxiety attackWell, maybe thats overstating things a bit. But the director does have a knack for creating an unnerving degree of tension. Turns out hes using a little bit of musical magic to do it. The magic is actually a science based audio illusion called a Shepard tone. Named after psychologist Roger Shepard, a pioneer in our understanding of spatial relation, the effect sounds like an infinitely ascending or descending scale. The tones are constantly moving upwards or downwards, but they never seem to reach a pinnacle or nadir. This is accomplished by stacking scales on top of each othertypically one treble scale, one midrange, and one basswith an octave in between, then playing them in a continuous loop. A Shepard tone is sometimes referred to as the barber pole of sound. You can even see the similarity, when you hear it and look at the spectrum view of a Shepard tone. Dont listen to this too long, or you might lose your mind Anyways, Christopher Nolan just loves this. With longtime collaborator Hans Zimmer, the acclaimed director has used a Shepard tone in almost every one of his films in the last decade. He even writes his scripts to match the effect. In a recent interview, Nolan explained how he used Shepard tones in his newest film, Dunkirk The screenplay had been written according to musical principals. Theres an audio illusion, if you will, in music called a Shepard tone and with my composer David Julyan on The Prestige we explored that and based a lot of the score around that. And its an illusion where theres a continuing ascension of tone. Its a corkscrew effect. Its always going up and up and up but it never goes outside of its range. And I wrote the script according to that principle. I interwove the three timelines in such a way that theres a continual feeling of intensity. Increasing intensity. So I wanted to build the music on similar mathematical principals. Knowing this, you gain a deeper understanding of films like Interstellar, Inception, and The Prestige. It also explains why these films seem somehow inconclusive. A Shepards tone creates a conflict that cant be resolved, just like Nolans plots. Digg, Business Insider.