100 books like Bayou Book Thief

One of the first modern cozy mysteries I have ever read, Stephanie Plum is zany, ridiculous, and laugh-out-loud funny. Basically, she’s a bounty hunter, and she gets her man and solves mysteries despite herself. Her Grandma Mazur is quite possibly one of the best sidekick characters ever invented. Funerals may or may not involve dead bodies, but Granny Mazur will be there anyway, even if it means stealing a corpse. Especially if it means stealing a corpse! Stephanie has a habit of losing cars and getting stuck driving a very old boat of a car (Big Buick), which deprives her of looking as cool as she’d like. Well, she isn’t exactly a put-together gal, so that’s okay. 

The initial books in the series are almost a coming of age—a chance at a career, a chance or two at romance, and family shenanigans that almost kill her with good intentions. This… show more.

This book had me laughing out loud in the first chapter and several times thereafter. The female lead is a CIA assassin in hiding in Sinful, Louisiana, where she meets two older woman, Gertie and Ida Bell, who the town has dubbed the “Geritol Mafia” and who were in Viet Nam together.

The author creates characters—and relationships between those characters—that stayed in my mind long after reading the book. Again, I eagerly wait for each new release in the series so I can be part of Fortune, Gertie, and Ida Bell’s adventures. 

Smarmy personals ads. Daring declarations of love. Freelance writer Jaine Austen has penned them all. But no one needs her help more than geeky, gawky Howard Murdoch. His request is simple enough: a letter proclaiming his undying love for Stacy Lawrence, a gorgeous aerobics instructor. The fact that he's never actually met the woman gives Jaine pause—yet she soon overcomes her misgivings, and the unlikely Romeo lands a date! But his triumph is short-lived. On Valentine's Day, Howard finds Stacy bludgeoned to death with a Thigh Master—and is quickly named the prime suspect.

Jaine is shocked. Sure, Howard's awkward and eccentric. But a murderer? That's hard to believe. Especially after a little sleuthing reveals a plethora of people who harbored less-than-loving feelings towards the svelte Stacy. Now Jaine had better wrangle her clues quickly, before a crafty killer catches on—and puts a whole new spin on her ghost-writing career....

You’re… show more.

English professor Lila Maclean is thrilled about her new job at prestigious Stonedale University, until she finds one of her colleagues dead.

She soon learns that everyone, from the chancellor to the detective working the case, believes Lila—or someone she is protecting—may be responsible for the horrific event, so she assigns herself the task of identifying the killer.
More attacks on professors follow, the only connection a curious symbol at each of the crime scenes. Putting her scholarly skills to the test, Lila gathers evidence, but her search is complicated by an unexpected nemesis, a suspicious investigator, and an ominous secret society.
Rather than earning an “A” for effort, she receives a threat featuring the mysterious emblem and must act quickly to avoid failing her assignment…and becoming the next victim.

I love the subtle humor in Cynthia’s series. She has a clever turn of phrase that keeps you giggling along… show more.

When I was a kid, my Mum loved Upstairs Downstairs—a TV show about a household in Victorian England and the lives of the gentry upstairs and the servants downstairs. Nobody was allowed to even whisper when it was on. 

Well, the Mrs Jeffries Mysteries would have blown her mind. Because the servants in Detective Witherspoon’s household not only do regular servanting but also solve murders on the fly. 

There are loads of great characters: Mrs Goodge, the surly cook, Smythe, the fierce-looking coachman with a heart of gold, and of course Mrs Jeffries herself, who’s like a sherry-guzzling Sherlock Holmes who can tidy.

We first meet Cassie Maddox in Tana French’s debut book, In the Woods, but in her second showing, she really shows her mettle. Recovering from the betrayal she undergoes in the investigation of a brutal child’s murder in the first book, Cassie is recruited for an undercover assignment to solve another murder – but this time, it’s the death of a young woman who she eerily resembles. Cassie must pretend to be the dead woman and gain the trust and confidence of the group of charismatic oddballs who were the closest friends of the victim. I loved Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and The Likeness is something of an homage to that modern classic – with a heroine who’s brave, scrappy, and determined to see the case through to the bitter end.

I was glued to every page of this book!

It’s a claustrophobic thriller with a startling visual image at its heart: an ultra-modern glass cabin in the middle of a deep, dark wood. At night, the light against the glass means you can’t see out – but anyone outside can see right in. I loved the way Ruth Ware turned the rickety old building cliché on its head, turning light from a source of comfort into a threat. 

Stephen King introduced the innocent, unfiltered but extremely observant Holly Gibney in the phenomenal Mr. Mercedes.

King himself says, “...she more or less stole the book, and she stole my heart.” I completely agree, so much so she was a massive influence on Tilly Bradshaw, the super-sheltered, super-intelligent nerdy sidekick from my own Washington Poe series. She’s the first of three sidekicks in this list who will go on to get a book of their own.

Holly is out September 2023 and it’s the book I’m most looking forward to this year.  

I can’t resist a book that can make me laugh and has a great storyline. This murder mystery has books in bucketfuls. I love the way that humor is woven into the story.

I think that the thing that really makes this story such a great read is the different characters that fill the pages. I fell in love with the main character, Jane, and her love interest, the padre, and I, of course, completely loved her dog, Sexy Beast.

Edgar Award-winner Bluebird, Bluebird, is the first in the Jay Porter Series. Black Texas Ranger, Jay Porter, tried to escape East Texas and become a lawyer, but his home and people clawed him back. Jay is on the verge of losing his prestigious job, his reputation in tatters, when he heads to a tiny rural town to investigate the death of a visiting Black lawyer from Chicago and the seemingly separate death of a local white woman. Locke deftly reveals how the persistent stain of racism continues to poison many facets of life, while the law enforcement hierarchies and jurisdictional infighting threaten to undo Jay’s best efforts.