73 books like A Gambling Man

Did this book give birth to hardboiled literature? No, but I feel it mothered and fathered it. 

Did this book—when filmed in 1941—give rise to film noir? I would say yes or “oui.”

This book lives on in libraries and bookstores, in minds and memories, on screens big and small, as a cultural masterpiece. But please don’t get me wrong about masterpiece. Hammett’s existential story of antiheroic private detective Sam Spade wriggling out of death as he fends off the cagey but crazed pursuers of a worthless “jeweled” bird breathes more deeply, more compellingly every time I re-read it. Through the book, I face the dark—and find the gloom almost charming. 

This novel captivated me from the very first page. It masterfully blends historical figures and facts to create a gripping thriller. I was immediately drawn into New York City in 1896 and the groundbreaking investigation.

The alienist, which is what psychologists were at the turn of the century, uses a unique, untested, and ridiculed method to track down a serial killer: psychological profiling. The appearance of real historical figures, like Theodore Roosevelt, then police commissioner, and J.P. Morgan, added a rich layer of authenticity and intrigue to the story. For me, the meticulous details of the era made each twist in the investigation come to life.

Disfigured and jobless after a fire, Timothy Wilde takes a job with the newly formed NYPD. He is assigned to the Sixth Ward, right on the border of the Five Points, a ward notorious for the desperately poor who live there and the rampant crime. One night he finds a young girl running through the street in a nightgown soaked with blood. She tells an unbelievable story of bodies buried in a nearby woods. Wilde investigates and soon finds himself a target of the city’s wealthy, several of whom are guilty of the most heinous of crimes but feel entitled to escape any accountability. Written in the slang of the times, it reads with the immediacy and plausibility of a memoir. I loved this book because it treats such serious issues: income inequality and the lack of accountability for the rich and powerful—even when engaged in child prostitution and murder.

This is a fun-filled mystery set in 1920s London. Cozies are not usually my thing, but I recently gave this a go as I am also writing a series in that exact time period and thought I’d see how Kinsey set about it. The historical beautifully captures the exuberance of the time period after World War I. Women have emerged from behind closed doors to interact on equal status as men, jazz music parades the pages with wild abandon, and the slang of the characters is spot on. The twists, turns, and action are blended in with the rich description to make this a delightful read.  

I was introduced to Ian Hamilton’s Ava Lee Novels when I was looking for a successful Canadian writer of “business fiction.” We never call it that, of course, it has to be written as an action-adventure, thriller, mystery, suspense novel, and Hamilton meets those criteria with Ava Lee as a tough-as-nails, lesbian Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant tracking down money stolen from business clients.

Her connections and family investments lead her to Hong Kong and Macau for a settling of accounts with local organized crime and Ava Lee knows that violence is the only negotiating tactic they understand.           

This book is the best model for me of what I wanted to write with my own Dale Hunter crime thriller series: a scientist, entrepreneur, or professional as the hero, not a private detective or law enforcement officer, and it’s set in Montreal with all the unique characteristics of that fascinating, multicultural historic city, including the bilingual dialogue unique to Montrealers that Reichs manages to untangle for readers to follow easily.

In addition, she tells the terrifying story of a forensic anthropologist helping to track down a serial killer who finds herself to be the next targeted victim. Déjà Dead is the novel that launched Tempe Brennan novels and the award-winning Bones TV series.      

Linwood Barclay is a fellow Canadian crime writer who imagines terrifying scenarios and takes stories through startling twists and turns of non-stop tension and suspense better than most.

Stephen King is a big fan of his writing in the style of horrifying domestic thrillers. In The Accident, we meet the humble hard-working neighbour with an eight-year-old daughter who discovers his wife killed in a car accident. The police claim she was the drunk driver who was responsible for it.

Garber has to believe the evidence but starts to explore what really happened and learns that his friends and neighbours are involved with dangerous criminals who are prepared to kill to protect their illegal activities. 

A gifted storyteller and USA Today bestselling author, Rick Mofina is a master of the thriller page-turner that starts with a family-friendly story and quickly accelerates through terrifying discoveries of the killer in the house, or next door, or rising from the character’s haunted past.

In Her Last Goodbye, we have the husband waking from some regrettable misbehavior and finding that his wife has not come home from her book club the previous night. He cannot answer his son’s question, “Where’s Mommy?” nor explain that he is the main suspect in his wife’s disappearance.

The mystery may never be explained either and a happy ending seems even more unlikely as he digs into the untold stories of their dark past.    

I love London. I love old mysteries. I love the Art Deco era. I love magic. As a child, my dad was part of the Magic Circle, and my brother and I learned some of the tricks–and when I say ‘my brother and I learned tricks,’ I mean I twirled endless chiffon scarfs from thin air and tried not to get cut in half, and he tried to cut me in half.

Tom Mead’s tale of conjuring, stage trickery, and locked room mystery somehow transports me back to my childhood, even though his 1930s setting is far further back than my 70s childhood! He gives us that Golden Age impossible puzzle–how is a man killed inside a locked room?–and I admit, my guess was quite wrong in this cleverly woven tale of intrigue and deceit, but the magic of smoke, mirrors, trickery, and Art Deco theatre more than made up… show more.

In this historical mystery set in the 1920s, the hero-narrator is likable and a bit goofy. He reminded me of Bertie Wooster in the Jeeves stories by PG Wodehouse, but Heathcliff is more intelligent. The mystery was complicated and puzzling, with added fun from the 1920s setting. It’s hard to investigate when phone lines are down and roads become impassable in poor weather. I've read the rest of the series, and they’re all pretty strong. Some move the action to Scotland or Egypt for extra 1920s travel excitement. They’re perfect reads when you want a light cozy with historical charm and some chuckles along the way.