85 books like A Litter of Bones

It may be a cliche but my first experience with nordic noir was The Killing (Forbrydelsen). This Danish TV series in which inspector Sarah Lund goes in search of the murderer of a young girl fascinated me enormously. Not only because of the oppressive atmosphere that grabs you by the throat at times, but also because of the fantastic character development. The series was created by Søren Sveistrup, the author of the equally magisterial The Chestnut Man. The book begins when a young woman is found horribly mutilated in a playground on a chilly October morning. Next to her is a doll made of chestnuts and sticks. When a chestnut man is also found at the scene of a subsequent murder, it is clear that a serial killer is at work.

Peter James is one of the world’s finest crime writers. His books are fast-paced and once you start one of his novels, it’s so difficult to put it down.

His main character, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, is totally credible and takes the reader right into the heart of British policing. You get to know the most intricate details of murder investigations.

Left You Dead features Niall and Eden Paternoster going to a supermarket just before it closes – but Eden doesn’t come back out. A few days later Niall is arrested on suspicion of her murder. But you know that with Peter James nothing is as it seems and there’ll be a twist that you just won’t expect.

In this book, the author uses a new character Elvira (her character reappears in subsequent books) who leads the reader forward in the first person, a breakaway from the usual (close) third person in the other books in the series. Her voice is so clear, you can’t help but fall in love with her strange quirks. She is a medical student and trained in body combat. Elvira’s sister has been missing for 59 days and she can’t get the police interested enough to take her seriously. Her sister was an adult after all and left with a packed bag. Anderson and Costello eventually do get involved as more and more young women disappear.

The action in this novel is fast and furious. It left me breathless at times. I had to put the book down and walk away a few times near the end it was that intense.

The Black House is a Scottish-based mystery featuring the remote Hebridean island of Lewis. I loved how May captures the essence of this island in this trilogy and uses actual historical and cultural events to weave the plot. Each of the Scottish Isles has its own unique culture, and I love how May explores this through the interactions between the characters from Lewis and mainland Scotland. 

I also really enjoyed the character arc and the prodigal-son-esque storyline of jaded detective Fin Macleod returning home. As he solves the murders, he has to face his own dark past.  

Hard Nox is set in Scotland and is brilliantly written. It's the start of series two and I fell in love with the world that Jolie had built. I did put this book down a few chapters in to find the first book of the first series. I wanted to read them in order and I'm so glad I did. It was hard at the time to find books showing the Scots dialect and Jolie does it well. So much so, I'm one of her ARC readers and I have started collecting the paperback copies. This is my favourite of all her books.

This is another series: The Blackstone Dragon series. I've loved Dragons since: forever! If you enter my house, you'll see just how much I love them (I have statues all over, including in the bedroom!) so this series, was a given. There are many others written by Alicia and I have a few books of hers waiting to be enjoyed. 

Autumn Macarthur had me at Scotland. I love an opposites attract/deception romance, and the storyline on this one has a fun and unique twist. A low rumble of tension without overplayed drama carries the story to a well-crafted ending. The author knows how to keep sparks flying while keeping the heat level sweet, which is appropriate to the spiritual theme of the book. An engaging story with characters that feel like friends.

One of the greatest ‘what-ifs?’ of the Jacobite movement centres on the English Jacobites and the fundamental question of why they were so politically important within the movement and yet so useless in terms of achieving a Stuart restoration. 

England was the most powerful of the three kingdoms of the British Isles and a major section of the Tory party, the most popular party in England, episodically developed a yearning for such a restoration. Yet it never took off. Monod’s classic book explores English Jacobitism in admirably fine and lucid detail and provides the best answer we are going to get.

The previous four books on my list have been pretty dark. “Heavy,” I guess, is relative. I find a lot of humor in them and, ultimately, that’s why I either have re-read them or plan to. This one isn’t as heavy on the violence as the previous ones. Often cited as a good example of dry British humor, written by a former bus driver, it’s the story of two fence-builders who travel the English and Scottish countryside in a caravan erecting fences. However, it seems like every time they’re on a job, they end up accidentally murdering someone. Rather than getting bogged down by things like remorse or guilt, they are much more interested in covering it up and saving their backs. One of them is obsessed with heavy metal and his hair. It’s a very weird and satisfying book.

This beautifully written novel tells the story of Kelly, as she makes her way home to Galloway from Glasgow.

Homeless and with addiction problems, Kelly experiences some of the problems that Glasgow is sadly well-known for, but what I really love about Paper Cup is that we see these issues from a middle-aged woman’s perspective so there is no glorifying of violence and excess.

Instead we are drawn into the precarious world of a vulnerable and damaged woman, and made to consider just how easy it would be for any one of us to slip through the cracks and tread the same path as Kelly. A truly thought-provoking read.