100 books like Castle Skull

When Daniel Roke takes on an unusual job he does it for monetary and personal reasons and has no idea he is risking his life. Dick Francis takes you from Australia to the world of English horseracing with a clever plot that is unexpected and has a really wicked twist. He also can deliver some villains that inspire visceral dislike like no other author and doesn’t let you down in this intense novel. Well done and kept me doing the infamous reading into the night.

Let’s talk about memorable beginnings and I am talking about the kind that will keep you awake at night. Sanford is gritty and he really pushes the edge with his villains. On that note, he really pushes the edge with his protagonists as well, because Lucas Davenport is one of my favorite cops. Take one very smart (but seriously disturbed villain) and one very smart (but intense cop) and pit them against each other.

As Lucas weaves through the unfathomable workings of the brain of someone who is truly unhinged, he encounters an unholy marriage of two killers who operate on a separate plane yet have a common goal and the result is chilling to say the least.

The Prey novels are never for the faint of heart, but always fast-paced and well-written, suspense being the end game each time.

Remember when schools handed out a catalog of books for you to order? I do. I chose this book when I was about eleven years old, and while even then I was already reading Caroline B. Cooney and Richie Tankersley Cusick, this book took my childhood love of ghost stories and nudged it into my adolescence and adulthood. 

Twin houses, the Civil War and broken families are the backdrop to the principal theme of young and forbidden love across the ages. Jealousy, revenge and a love which is not quite right live within the walls of these houses. Here, the places are not born evil; they are made evil by common human emotions allowed to fester and never laid to rest. 

I have read it at least five times and love it still. Barbara Michaels is one of my favorite Gothic writers, and this book holds a vast place in… show more.

The first in the series of Dave Robicheaux novels, this is handled quite well. The main character is very human, flawed by his own admission by a battle with an addiction to alcohol, but nonetheless is a tough and competent cop who definitely sees—and knows well—the seedier side. Set in the deep south, Burke takes you there with description that is so evocative that you can feel it with every sense, and the danger as the story unravels into a tale of corruption and bloody violence. I really wanted the main character to win this battle and it was one almost literally to the death. If you like great writing and to sit on the edge of your seat (near the bayou, so be careful), this is a must-read.

The main character in Death From A Top Hat is the enigmatic magician, The Great Merlini, and he is certainly a beguiling and intriguing character!

The perfect amateur sleuth, with everything I love about this particular “stock character.” He’s funny, he’s smart, and he has – quite literally – plenty of tricks up his sleeve. This book, along with the rest of the Merlini series, offers many brilliant insights into the world of professional illusion.

But most important of all, this book offers an irresistible mystery that certainly kept me guessing!

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.

For my last pick, I’ve chosen a novel published near the end of the Golden Age (roughly the 1920s through the 1950s). Author and solicitor Michael Gilbert set his novel in the chambers of Horniman, Birley, and Craine. After the death of the firm’s senior partner, a hermetically sealed deed box is opened, revealing the corpse of Marcus Smallbone, a co-trustee with the late Mr. Horniman of the valuable Ichbod Trust. With the help of newly qualified solicitor Henry Bohun, Chief Inspector Hazelrigg sorts through a maze of lies and misdirection to uncover the surprising perpetrator and motive. Martin Edwards, in the foreword to the Poisoned Pen Press edition, said, “The book blends in masterly fashion, an authentic setting, pleasingly differentiated characters, smoothly readable prose, and a clever puzzle.” 

An eccentric philanthropist calls a group of friends and acquaintances together for Christmas in his ancient mansion. It isn’t long before someone dressed as Father Christmas turns up dead beneath the Christmas tree. Among the crowd of mismatched suspects is Mordecai Tremaine, one-time tobacconist, fan of romantic fiction, and occasional crime-solver. Tremaine is an unusual sleuth with a touch of Sherlock Holmes’s eccentricity but an optimistic spirit that guides him through the case. There’s a truly clever twist in the finale and, of course, plenty of snow! This is another book that feels very much neglected and deserves rediscovery.

The chief attraction of Fred Vargas’s novels is her cast of characters, led by Chief Inspector Adamsberg, a most unconventional leader of any criminal investigation outfit. Small and disheveled, good with animals and children, dreamy and often seemingly idle, Adamsberg is not only extremely bright but has confidently surrounded himself with remarkable colleagues. Hard-drinking Adrien Danglard, a single father of five with a huge store of ready information, and Violette Retancourt, a woman of prodigious strength and courage, are among his entertaining subordinates, along with Snowball, the division’s cat that proves equally remarkable in one memorable outing. 

This witty and suspenseful tour-de-force is set in a Paris most tourists never see: the Nineteenth Arrondissement, a sprawling, multicultural district where working-class grit coexists uneasily with encroaching gentrification.

The author, who doubles as a well-known documentary filmmaker, is also a friend of mine from the French noir world.

Arab Jazz, first published in 2012, sardonically explores the religious fanaticism of Jews, Muslims and evangelical Christians while weaving a thrilling intrigue that earned it France's top prize for crime fiction.