66 books like Before the Poison

I love historical fiction, especially when authors throw in a touch of crime. So, that’s what first drew me to this book.

What kept me reading and what made me rank this novel so highly is the gradual unlayering of the main character as the story progresses. Sure, Kya is a victim and a survivor, but she is so much more, and she is capable of more than I could have anticipated. As in some of my other favorite novels, it’s that loyalty to human nature, the understanding that circumstances can make good choices wrong and poor choices right, that pulled me in.

If I had known the ending when I started the book, I might not have believed it possible, but Delia Owens made it work.

I literally could not put this book down!

Not to brag, but I can usually spot whodunit early on in most murder mysteries. This novel, however, kept me in the dark as, one by one, each of the characters fell off Foley’s guest list and onto my suspect list.

The writing is suspenseful, the plot is fast-paced, and the story is cleverly told from numerous characters’ points of view. I truly did not see this ending coming! As a diehard murder mystery fan, Lucy Foley is my new Agatha Christie. I highly recommend this novel.

I’ll devour any novel by Grisham, and I love that he took a departure from his standard legal thrillers to pen a story about the theft of rare books and the man suspected of selling them on the black market.

The hook is Mercer Mann, the young novelist who’s not only suffering from writer’s block but she’s also just been canned from her job. How can Mercer possibly turn down the mysterious woman who offers her a hefty fee to work undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable’s illegal operation? 

Grisham’s flawless storytelling had me looking at the world through Mercer Mann’s eyes and pondering what choice I would have made if I were in her shoes.

Harrison Burns is haunted by the twenty-year-old unsolved murder of teenager Winifred Utley. His firsthand knowledge of what happened the night of Winifred’s death would, if revealed, ruin Constant Bradley, his boarding school friend whose prominent family would do anything to keep their dark secrets hidden. What Burns does with his well-guarded information is the catalyst for a story inspired by a real-life politically powerful family and their close ties to a true 1975 murder.

I judge the richness of a novel by asking two questions: Will I remember this story for years to come, and will I read other books written by this author? A Season in Purgatory gets a thumbs-up on both counts. Thirty years after my first read, this novel still sits on my bookshelf.  

This is the seventh book in the Dales Detectives series and, in spite of some of the serious issues covered, is by far the most humorous and action-packed.

What I love about this book is the tremendous sense of community that leaps from the pages and really makes you think about small-town/village life. The quirky characters are all well-drawn and vivid descriptions of wayward sheep, fellside walks and twisty lanes bring the Yorkshire Dales to life.

The characters all come together in a wild west style climax which is some of the best writing I’ve ever read. How I’d love to have a beer with them all in The Fleece.

When Peter Robinson passed away in 2022, he had written 28 novels in the Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks series.

Robinson needs no introduction here, but I have included him on this list because he sets these novels in a fictional town in the Yorkshire Dales, close to where I grew up, and also because he was very encouraging to me personally when I wrote my first Joe Romano novel.

Whereas the books are very much mainstream crime novels, they also have a literary quality to them. He manages to achieve a fine balance between genre fiction and a more literary style. You often forget that you’re reading crime at all.

The series was also made into TV series (DCI Banks) starring Stephen Tompkinson, which ran for five series, and really captures the essence of the books.

As entertaining as the PBS series about Yorkshire veterinarian James Herriott (pseudonym for author James Alfred Wight) is, the book is even better.

A blend of memoir, travelogue, and journal, Herriott’s tales of life among the farmers of England’s Yorkshire Dales are heartwarming, hilarious, and riveting. From his familial relationships with the Farnon brothers, with whom he lives, to the sometimes endearing, sometimes mercurial encounters with his patients—both the 2-legged and 4-legged variety—reading the adventures of this country vet is both informative and engaging.

You’ll go places you never imagined, want to watch the series—original and remake—all over again, and will, if you’re like me, make a solemn pledge to visit the Dales before you die! 

Another incredible rewriting of Wuthering Heights and one that’s as dark and Gothic as Emily’s momentous original. In Ill Will, Michael Stewart picks up Emily’s narrative at the point when Heathcliff, having heard Cathy declare that it would degrade her to marry him, departs the Heights. Stewart unravels the tale of where Heathcliff went during the three years that he was missing from Cathy’s world and imagines what happened to him to make him return in such a vengeful guise. Ill Will is also a rewriting that takes up the issue of race, for here, Heathcliff is a young black man and his departure from the Heights prompts him to trace Mr. Earnshaw’s walk to Liverpool in the hope of finding out who he is. 

Talk about feisty women who advance against tremendous odds! Despite the stultifyingly constrained life of “almost-poor” women in early Victorian England, out in the moor country, the three Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) slip around the rules, their father, and manage their wayward but beloved brother—all while being determined to become writers—and solve the occasional murder that happens in their neighborhood. Great period details and fascinating information about these three remarkable sisters, along with a great mystery read. This is the first book in the series.

I very much doubt that Reginald Hill intended Pictures of Perfection to appear on a Best M/M list! It’s a quintessentially English tale with a backdrop of class-based snobbery and the threat to rural life from development. It’s also the sole book in Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe mystery series wherein Hill’s gay detective sergeant, Edgar Wield, takes centre stage. Wield finds more than a missing policeman when he’s sent to the village of Enscombe! Nothing to worry even the most sex-repulsed asexual here although, with hindsight, these stories can seem problematic in other ways: Dalziel is so non-woke. However, it was being a fan of Wield and Hill’s books that got me writing my own gay mysteries, so I’m ever grateful.