Which 2020 Thrillers Started New Crime Series Or Franchises?

2026-07-22 22:37:22
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6 Answers

BrynJoy
BrynJoy
Frequent Answerer Accountant
Short and sweet: 'The Thursday Murder Club.' No contest. It created a whole new sub-genre of the 'geriatric cozy thriller' and has a line of sequels. It's a publishing phenomenon that absolutely started as a franchise-in-waiting. The characters are built for longevity, and the tone is uniquely warm yet sharp. It's the clearest answer to your question.
2026-07-23 16:10:42
2
DanDunn
DanDunn
Book Guide Receptionist
The true crime-adjacent thriller, where a podcaster or documentarian investigates, was everywhere. 'The Nothing Man' by Catherine Ryan Howard is a 2020 masterpiece in this vein. While a standalone, its structure is so brilliant it could easily template a series following different true crime writers or survivors. It showed how the meta-narrative (a book about a book about a crime) could be a franchise engine.
2026-07-23 23:43:37
4
JossAsh
JossAsh
Book Guide Nurse
My contribution is mood-based. 2020 thrillers that started series often had a strong, transportive atmosphere you'd want to revisit. 'The Burning Girls' with its rural Gothic gloom, 'The Sanatorium' with its oppressive alpine isolation. The franchise promise isn't just 'solve another crime,' it's 'return to this feeling.' That atmospheric continuity is what sells the series to me more than the plot mechanics.
2026-07-24 12:22:56
3
Talia
Talia
Spoiler Watcher Sales
The whole 'Gone Girl' copycat wave was fading by 2020, making room for new templates. 'The Silent Patient' copycats emerged, focusing on unreliable patients or therapists. That's a franchise of trope, not character. So when you ask about series starters, consider the tropes that became bankable after 2020 hits. The 'dark academia' thriller got a boost from 'The Maidens' in 2021, but the groundwork was laid in the preceding year's appetite for twisty psychodramas.
2026-07-25 22:24:16
7
FionaHall
FionaHall
Longtime Reader Mechanic
Honestly, the term 'franchise' makes me think of movies. Did any of these 2020 books get optioned immediately? That's the real franchise starter—the book as a proof-of-concept for a film or TV series. I know 'The Sanatorium' was optioned for TV. Sometimes the 'series' isn't more books, but a jump to screen, which then drives sales of the original and any sequels.
2026-07-26 11:17:13
6
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The comparison to TV is inevitable. Many of these read like a great pilot episode for a TV series: a strong hook, a defined protagonist, a supporting cast with potential, and a world that can generate new stories. 'The Club' is a limited series waiting to happen. 'Killers of a Certain Age' is a fantastic movie or ongoing show premise. Reading them, you can almost cast them in your head, which is part of the fun.

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