83 books like The List of Seven

Thanks to Hollywood adaptations and sometimes a greedy publisher, a great series can diminish as time passes. But that doesn’t change how cool the original was.

I love the setup of a man waking on a sailing vessel with no memory, only to discover his identity as super espionage agent. The mystery of the scenario and the intrigue as Bourne unravels his own personhood was so well done in this first book (and the first film was an excellent adaptation), and it is worth revisiting.

I'm a big fan of David Baldacci, especially his incredible first book, Absolute Power. The book begins with the main character Luther Whitney, portrayed by Clint Eastwood in the movie version, burglarizing a mansion outside of Washington, D.C. Suddenly, as the burglary is interrupted, events spiral out of control, and a murder takes place right in front of Luther. The book is a thriller that keeps you fully engaged as a reader. Unfortunately, countless missteps are made by those attempting to protect the murderer as they strive to keep their involvement with the murder secret. Luther is considered a suspect, but he continues to evade police and the murderer's protectors. Baldacci masterfully guides readers through a story of redemption and justice. Absolute Power is thoroughly entertaining. 

This was the first book I read twice. It was groundbreaking back in the ’80s. A mixture of cultures, assassins, adventure, thrills, love, sex, and passion. A huge bestseller at the time. His detail of Japanese philosophy, fighting styles, honor, and code in a modern-day world is beyond captivating.

While he went on to a huge success with dozens of bestsellers, nothing topped this. It was a lifetime of daydreaming and research that he poured out onto the page.

I read it in two days on the beach under the sun and stars. Five days later, I read it again. I couldn’t get the story out of my head.

The best for last!

You may not recognize the name William Goldman but I guarantee loved at least one of his stories. An amazing storyteller, novelist, and screenwriter: Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, Misery (he adapted Steve King), Chaplin, The Ghost, and The Darkness, and… The Princess Bride. He’s a man who moves between genres with ease and expertise.

His book Magic tops them all. A depressed magician/ventriloquist heads to a lake house vacation. Murder, mystery, and thrills ensue all told in a shocking style that is truly original. I can’t say more without spoiling it. It’s a short novel, a fast read and it will leave an impression on you for weeks to come. After your mind is blown by Magic, look him up, you’ll be impressed!

Master storyteller Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a few things to say about Atlantis. In The Maracot Deep, young zoologist Cyrus Headley travels to the edge of a deep ocean trench with a team of explorers. Suddenly, a giant sea monster attacks them and hurls them down into the trench. The explorers are rescued by the survivors of the destroyed Atlantis, who have dwelled on the seafloor for the past 8,000 years. Will Headley and his companions ever return to the surface again, or will they remain trapped for the rest of their lives like the Atlanteans? Readers expecting this novel to be like his earlier Sherlock Holms stories are in for a surprise, as it explores the spiritual and occult ideas he pondered later in his life.

This was one giant book I got as a gift and thought I’d never read, but when I started I couldn’t stop. These are old stories, and arguably the oldest I have ever read that ring true today. Holmes is like Thrawn, a mastermind, but he doesn’t rule Empires or command armies. Holmes works in isolation with only his trusted assistant Watson. He follows mysteries wherever they present themselves and is bored by anything else.

It’s the keen intellect that draws me to this book. The kind of stuff most people wouldn’t waste their time on because it goes over their heads. This is not the new Hollywood version of Holmes, this is much more potent. Older movies of Holmes do much better, but none match the caliber that is in these original stories. 

I can’t fully explain, but there is a magic to them that rejects the ‘mundane’ world… show more.

While Sherlock Holmes famously debunked anything that had even a vague whiff of the supernatural (looking at you, Hound of the Baskervilles), the same can’t be said for his creator. Entwistle offers a brilliantly imaginative take on what might have happened if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde teamed up to solve mysteries in a world where the supernatural was very, very real. Atmospheric touches ranging from fog-shrouded, gaslit streets to mysterious moors are the perfect complement to witty dialogue, and Entwistle manages to weave in a fair bit of historical detail despite the rip-roaring pace of the story. 

I love the supernatural element to this much-loved murder mystery.

This mystery pushes against the constraints of Knox’s Ten Commandments for detective fiction by involving the supernatural, but the Commandments are never wholly transgressed. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle drew on the folklore of Devon where the book is set.

He drew on the legend of the cursed squire of Buckfastleigh and a hellhound, a variant of the local Yeth hound, a spectral black dog. The folklore infuses the mystery with a ghostly and altogether wonderful hinterland. Dartmoor becomes a liminal space where the living and the dead are mingled. Conan Doyle used this otherworldly backstory to return his classic detective Sherlock Holmes to the living.

Conan Doyle’s many readers had recently mourned the death of Holmes in The Final Problem. Conan Doyle chooses to set this novel in 1899, preceding events in The Final Problem. The Hound of the Baskervilles… show more.

A Sherlock Holmes–themed bookshop located at 222 Baker Street in West London, Massachusetts, with an adjoining tea shop. That’s really all I need to say, isn’t it? But in this particular book in the series, our heroine, Gemma Doyle, heads across the pond to attend a Sherlock Holmes conference, and there were so many cups of tea being brewed that I couldn’t help grinning at how it seems to be the cure for every British ailment. 

Conan Doyle’s masterpiece takes readers on an expedition to a remote plateau in the Amazon, where prehistoric creatures roam undisturbed.

This novel serves as a pioneering work in the genre of exploration fiction, captivating audiences with its vivid portrayal of unknown realms and the dangers they conceal. Through gripping adventure and scientific curiosity, the book explores the clash between human ambition and the natural world.

It stands as a major work, inspiring subsequent generations of explorers and storytellers to venture into the unknown.