100 books like And the Dead Shall Rise

By Steve Oney,

Here are 100 books that And the Dead Shall Rise fans have personally recommended if you like And the Dead Shall Rise. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Murder Times Six: The True Story of the Wells Gray Murders

Rod Sadler Author Of Killing Women: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller's Reign of Terror

From my list on killers.

Why am I passionate about this?

The one thing you’ll find in common about the books I recommend and the books I write is the attention to detail. As a retired police officer, I know that it was often the smallest of details that helped solve a crime. In my books, you’ll find an inordinate amount of information that was never known to the public, and I think that’s what truly holds a reader’s interest. Killing Women is the true story of serial killer Don Miller, and you’ll be abhorred at what he did to his victims. Are you ready for his release in 2031?

Rod's book list on killers

Rod Sadler Why did Rod love this book?

Simply put, I recently read Murder Times Six and was drawn to the parallels in my own book.  In Alan R. Warren’s book, he details the slaughter of six family members, the intense investigation, and the subsequent prosecution of the killer. Warren goes a step further by exploring the motivation behind the killer, and the possibility of his eventual release from prison.  

At the end of Murder Times Six, the reader is left with the ultimate question. Should a killer be released from prison? It’s a heartbreaking story, but it’s also a must-read. “He is the monster under the bed that we all fear, and in any good ending, that monster must be kept locked up."

By Alan R. Warren,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Murder Times Six as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It was a crime unlike anything seen in British Columbia. The horror of the "Wells Gray Murders" almost forty years ago transcends decades.

On August 2, 1982, three generations of a family set out on a camping trip - Bob and Jackie Johnson, their two daughters, Janet, 13 and Karen, 11, and Jackie's parents, George and Edith Bentley. A month later, the Johnson family car was found off a mountainside logging road near Wells Gray Park completely burned out. In the back seat were the incinerated remains of four adults, and in the trunk were the two girls.

But this…


Book cover of The Only Living Witness: The true story of serial sex killer Ted Bundy

Rod Sadler Author Of Killing Women: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller's Reign of Terror

From my list on killers.

Why am I passionate about this?

The one thing you’ll find in common about the books I recommend and the books I write is the attention to detail. As a retired police officer, I know that it was often the smallest of details that helped solve a crime. In my books, you’ll find an inordinate amount of information that was never known to the public, and I think that’s what truly holds a reader’s interest. Killing Women is the true story of serial killer Don Miller, and you’ll be abhorred at what he did to his victims. Are you ready for his release in 2031?

Rod's book list on killers

Rod Sadler Why did Rod love this book?

The Only Living Witness is a disturbing account of Ted Bundy’s murderous rampage across the United States in the ‘70s, his capture, and his prosecution. More than that, the authors provide an insight into Bundy’s intellect, motives, and much more by providing the reader with an inside look at how Bundy was interviewed prior to his execution and how they were able to glean details of the murders simply by the way they phrased certain questions to the killer. This is a must-read book for anyone fascinated by serial killers.

By Steven G. Michaud, Hugh Aynesworth,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Only Living Witness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'This is the most complete self-portrait ever painted by a serial killer... as unique a document as Bundy was a killer. There are lessons in this book for everyone' ROY HAZELWOOD, FORMER FBI PROFILER

Charismatic. Articulate. Evil. Killer.

Two journalists with unprecedented direct access speak to Ted Bundy and those closest to him - friends and family.

What follows is a candid and chilling full account of the life and crimes of the most notorious serial killer in history.

What Bundy had to say in over 150 hours of face-to-face interviews is as relevant today as it was at the…


Book cover of The Onion Field

Rod Sadler Author Of Killing Women: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller's Reign of Terror

From my list on killers.

Why am I passionate about this?

The one thing you’ll find in common about the books I recommend and the books I write is the attention to detail. As a retired police officer, I know that it was often the smallest of details that helped solve a crime. In my books, you’ll find an inordinate amount of information that was never known to the public, and I think that’s what truly holds a reader’s interest. Killing Women is the true story of serial killer Don Miller, and you’ll be abhorred at what he did to his victims. Are you ready for his release in 2031?

Rod's book list on killers

Rod Sadler Why did Rod love this book?

As a high school senior planning a career in law enforcement, I was mesmerized by Joseph Wambaugh’s account of the kidnapping of two Los Angeles police officers in 1963, and the murder of one of them.  Wambaugh unsympathetically details the stories of the two men convicted in the case, while at the same time humanizing the officer who survived and suffered from humiliation and guilt again and again throughout seven years of court proceedings against the men who kidnapped him and murdered his partner. The courtroom dialogue is verbatim, and to me, that leads to a feeling that the reader is actually there watching the proceedings. Wambaugh is a superb writer, and I consider this book is another must-read.

By Joseph Wambaugh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Onion Field as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A fascinating account of a double tragedy: one physical, the other psychological.”—Truman Capote

This is the frighteningly true story of two young cops and two young robbers whose separate destinies fatally cross one March night in a bizarre execution in a deserted Los Angeles field.

“A complex story of tragic proportions . . . more ambitious than In Cold Blood and equally compelling!”—The New York Times

“Once the action begins it is difficult to put the book down. . . . Wambaugh’s compelling account of this true story is destined for the bestseller lists.”—Library Journal


Book cover of Leopold & Loeb Killed Bobby Franks

Rod Sadler Author Of Killing Women: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller's Reign of Terror

From my list on killers.

Why am I passionate about this?

The one thing you’ll find in common about the books I recommend and the books I write is the attention to detail. As a retired police officer, I know that it was often the smallest of details that helped solve a crime. In my books, you’ll find an inordinate amount of information that was never known to the public, and I think that’s what truly holds a reader’s interest. Killing Women is the true story of serial killer Don Miller, and you’ll be abhorred at what he did to his victims. Are you ready for his release in 2031?

Rod's book list on killers

Rod Sadler Why did Rod love this book?

In 1924, fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks was kidnapped and murdered by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two highly intelligent college students who felt they were above the law. Attention to detail is what kept my interest in Leopold and Loeb. It starts with the two men planning the kidnapping, the murder, and their eventual arrest. The techniques used to garner confessions are highlighted, and reading about the legendary Clarence Darrow, who defended the killers, was fascinating. This is another great true-crime read that delves into Leopold’s complete lack of emotion regarding the killing.  Caplan has done an outstanding job detailing this tragic case.

By Bruce M. Caplan, Elizabeth Mackey, Ken Rossignol

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Leopold & Loeb Killed Bobby Franks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the most sensational crimes of the twentieth century took place when two wealthy young men decided to commit the perfect crime. Travel back in time to learn of how they planned their dastardly deed. From the carefully laid out plans for ransom and the brutal murder of a young boy, these two young men chose path which weaved through the Cook County courtroom with America's most famous attorney who slipped them off the hangman's gallows into prison for life. With all the details of today's modern documentaries the very words of the killers themselves will spellbind the reader…


Book cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Ken Sheldon Author Of Deep Water: Murder, Scandal, and Intrigue in a New England Town

From my list on true-crime that reads like Agatha Christie mystery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started out as a technical writer for computer magazines and my specialty was explaining complex subjects in language the average person could understand. I got tired of that and began writing for general interest magazines, then wrote a couple of thrillers, then plays. For years, I’d been hearing the story of a gentleman farmer who was murdered in 1918, toward the end of WWI, not far from where I live. The murder was never solved and was rumored to involve German espionage. I decided to tackle the story, which involved a mountain of research into historical documents and uncovered a case that was as compelling as any fictional mystery.

Ken's book list on true-crime that reads like Agatha Christie mystery

Ken Sheldon Why did Ken love this book?

On an early trip to Savannah, I stayed a block from the mansion where the murder at the heart of John Berendt’s bestselling book took place and where the movie was filmed. I wrote much of my own book in another apartment not far away. In my writing, I was inspired by the way Berendt included himself in his story and I decided to incorporate some of my own struggles to uncover the truth about the brutal murder of William K. Dean.

By John Berendt,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Genteel society ladies who compare notes on their husbands' suicides. A hilariously foul-mouthed black drag queen. A voodoo priestess who works her roots in the graveyard at midnight. A morose inventor who owns a bottle of poison powerful enough to kill everyone in town. A prominent antiques dealer who hangs a Nazi flag from his window to disrupt the shooting of a movie. And a redneck gigolo whose conquests describe him as a 'walking streak of sex'.

These are some of the real residents of Savannah, Georgia, a city whose eccentric mores are unerringly observed - and whose dirty linen…


Book cover of Deception

B. G. Howard Author Of Thicker Than Blood

From my list on where characters see the end before the end.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a past award-winning weekly newspaper columnist turned business owner, I eventually embraced the love of writing following an auto accident that necessitated more than eight years of rehabilitative therapy. Scripting my first novel proved more of a therapeutic undertaking and it was released in 2020 to moderate success. That experience then compelled me to learn more about the craft of being a novelist. Two years later, the original work was modified and Revised Edition Family Ties: Thicker Than Blood was launched in June of 2022. 

B. G.'s book list on where characters see the end before the end

B. G. Howard Why did B. G. love this book?

There is little in life, be it circumstances or people, which appear to be as they’re presented and Montgomery does a masterful job of exampling this fact in “Deception,” a captivating thriller. Finley Borders, the daughter of a prostitute; murdered by the drugged-out pimp assigned to the role of “father” when their daughter was just a child, embodies an ambition that pushes her from the Faraday Center for Children just as she reaches the age of emancipation. At a young age, she has seen much more of life than is warranted but understands there is so much more to be lived. Frequency at the card table during the late nights and early morning hours when she’d escape, unknown, from the center groomed Fin for a lifestyle amidst the underworld’s elite.

While sitting at a high stakes “by invitation only” poker table in Cannes, Findley receives an urgent phone call that…

By Selena Montgomery,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Deception as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times bestselling author and political leader Stacey Abrams, writing under her pen name Selena Montgomery, delivers a gripping story of a woman forced to play the hand life dealt and the FBI agent who calls her bluff.

Playing the odds has always been Fin Borders' forte. As a professional poker player, she knows when to get out to keep from losing everything. But an innocent woman has been accused of murder, and to help, Fin will have to go back to the small southern town of her birth. It's a place she's been running from her entire life,…


Book cover of All Her Little Secrets

Bonnie Kistler Author Of The Cage

From my list on office thrillers keeping you on the edge of your chair.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a full-time novelist now, but for twenty-plus years, I was a practicing attorney. I was a business litigator, representing companies that were suing or being sued by other companies. I toiled away in high-rise office buildings, danced around office politics, and got up close and personal views of how people of every stripe navigate their work and lives in the office. I witnessed sexual harassment, bloodless coups, financial scandals, and professional disgrace—but I also enjoyed the support and encouragement and lifelong friendships that can come from collaborative work experiences. I like to think of the office environment as a petri dish to examine the full range of human behavior.

Bonnie's book list on office thrillers keeping you on the edge of your chair

Bonnie Kistler Why did Bonnie love this book?

All Her Little Secrets brings the office thriller into the 21st century. Gone is the stereotypical white male protagonist. Ellice Littlejohn is a woman and an Ivy-educated Black lawyer with a harrowing back story full of poverty, abuse, and addiction. This novel doesn’t shy away from tackling institutionalized corporate racism, but make no mistake: it’s a thriller through and through. It’s wildly entertaining to follow Ellice in a climactic chase scene through office cubicles that are almost as adrenaline-spiked as Vertical Run.

By Wanda M Morris,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked All Her Little Secrets as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“All Her Little Secrets is a brilliantly nuanced but powerhouse exploration of race, the legal system, and the crushing pressure of keeping secrets. Morris brings a vibrant and welcome new voice to the thriller space.” —Karin Slaughter, New York Times and international bestselling author  

In this fast-paced thriller, Wanda M. Morris crafts a twisty mystery about a black lawyer who gets caught in a dangerous conspiracy after the sudden death of her boss . . . A debut perfect for fans of Attica Locke, Alyssa Cole, Harlan Coben, and Celeste Ng, with shades of How to Get Away with Murder…


Book cover of Alias Grace

Gill Paul Author Of A Beautiful Rival: A Novel Of Helena Rubinstein And Elizabeth Arden

From my list on historical novels based on real people.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve written fourteen historical novels now and most of them include real historical characters. I particularly like writing about women I feel have been misjudged or ignored by historians, and trying to reassess them in the modern age. Fiction allows me to imagine what they were thinking and feeling as they lived through dramatic, life-changing experiences, giving more insight than facts alone could do. Sitting at my desk in the morning and pretending to be someone else is a strange way to earn a living but it’s terrific fun! 

Gill's book list on historical novels based on real people

Gill Paul Why did Gill love this book?

Most of this novel is narrated by Grace Marks, a servant girl who is supposed to have committed a murder but says she doesn’t remember doing it.

She is being interviewed by a psychiatrist who is trying to jog her memory. But is she telling him the truth? I love this use of a possibly unreliable narrator, based on a true story that remains unresolved to this day. It’s a disturbing and compelling read.

By Margaret Atwood,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Alias Grace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By the author of The Handmaid's Tale

Now a major NETFLIX series

Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor.' Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery.

'Brilliant... Atwood's prose is searching. So intimate it seems to be written on the skin' Hilary Mantel

'The outstanding novelist of our age' Sunday Times

'A sensuous, perplexing book, at…


Book cover of And the Sea Will Tell

Nicole Maggi Author Of The Forgetting

From my list on true crime to keep you up at night.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always hated horror movies and anything scary—but I love true crime. I’m particular in how I consume it; I prefer to listen to it rather than read it and never at night. But give me a Dateline marathon and I’m a happy woman. While much of my own writing is far from true crime (Twin Willows Trilogy is YA urban fantasy, and What They Don’t Know is contemporary YA), my thriller The Forgetting explores dark subject matters—so dark, in fact, that my agent said to me, “But you seem so nice.” I am, for the most part…but I’m also not afraid to shine a flashlight into the darkness that lives in all of us.

Nicole's book list on true crime to keep you up at night

Nicole Maggi Why did Nicole love this book?

In 1974, two couples sailed into the Palmyra Atoll in search of a tropical paradise—but only one couple sailed back. When Eleanor “Muff” Graham’s body washes up on shore 6 years later, Buck Walker and his former girlfriend Stephanie Stearns are charged with her murder, but the outcome of their trials surprises everyone. Written by Stearns’ famed defense attorney Vincent Bugliosi, this story has everything: a tropical island teeming with tension, two couples whose ideologies were bound to come to a head, and a wild court case that will have you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

By Vincent Bugliosi, Bruce Henderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked And the Sea Will Tell as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ALONE WITH HER NEW HUSBAND on a tiny Pacific atoll, a young woman, combing the beach, finds an odd aluminum container washed up out of the lagoon, and beside it on the sand something glitters: a gold tooth in a scorched human skull. The investigation that follows uncovers an extraordinarily complex and puzzling true-crime story. Only Vincent Bugliosi, who recounted his successful prosecution of mass murderer Charles Manson in the bestseller Helter Skelter, was able to draw together the hundreds of conflicting details of the mystery and reconstruct what really happened when four people found hell in a tropical paradise.…


Book cover of Mystery at the Blue Sea Cottage: A True Story of Murder in San Diego's Jazz Age

Tessa Floreano Author Of Slain Over Spumoni

From my list on Jazz Age mysteries by the sea.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am fascinated by all that was happening in the world before WWII. Amidst a silent, looming economic collapse, many social norms were turned on their head, women broke out of their molds, and art, literature, technology, and music all flourished. And a heady mix of cultures blended not altogether seamlessly to influence the Roaring Twenties like no other decade before it. The juxtaposition of this exciting yet challenging tumult lures me into reading books and writing immigrant-forward stories about this period—and as an author with deep roots in the boot—I particularly enjoy doing so through an Italian lens.

Tessa's book list on Jazz Age mysteries by the sea

Tessa Floreano Why did Tessa love this book?

Veering away from fiction for a moment, this is a true crime tale set in the Jazz Age in San Diego. Flappers and playboys and actors in Hollywood during Prohibition, oh my! The biggest question this narrative nonfiction book doesn’t answer, though attempts to, is who killed the dancer, Fritzie Mann? A sensational story that was splashed on newspapers across the nation in the 1920s that I happened to stumble on last year. A tragic unsolved homicide by the sea that had me gripped from the get-go—and that’s saying something for someone not usually drawn to true crime—this book reads like a novel and should be a movie.

By James A. Stewart,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mystery at the Blue Sea Cottage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This “fast-paced, thoughtful true-crime” examines the cultural shifts of Jazz Age America through a beautiful dancer’s mysterious and scandalous death (Kirkus, starred review).

In January 1923, twenty-year-old Fritzie Mann left home for a remote cottage by the sea to meet a man whose identity she had revealed to no one. The next morning, the dancer’s barely clad body washed up on Torrey Pines beach, her party dress and possessions strewn about the sand. The scene baffled investigators, and abotched autopsy created more questions than it answered. However, the investigation revealed a scandalous secret.

When a Hollywood A-lister was arrested for…


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