Here are 100 books that City on Fire fans have personally recommended if you like
City on Fire.
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I love a book that pulls you into the story, one where maybe you see yourself in the characters. As a boy, I loved to read and would lose myself in books. I find I am drawn to many different types and genres, but especially military or crime dramas. My favorites include historical references and in my own writing I often place characters in an actual historical event, but with a fictional outcome. The most important thing to me is creating a character who is interesting enough to make the reader want more. My personal military experiences were used to begin my first novel while the characters came to life.
I can’t heap enough praise upon this nail-biting thriller. Every page turn has you asking, oh my god, what now? The suspense builds as you keep asking yourself how would you handle the continually increasing pressure? The slap-in-the-face surprise at the end is outrageously brilliant. This book will remain in your head every time you board a plane in the future.
"Feels like a blockbuster movie."—Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone
"Mackintosh is a pro...the final scene in the book almost made me sick as I read it. I mean that as a compliment of the highest order."—The New York Times
You can save hundreds of lives. Or the one that matters most...
From New York Times bestselling author Clare Mackintosh comes a claustrophobic thriller set over 20 hours on-board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney.
Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems with…
I love a book that pulls you into the story, one where maybe you see yourself in the characters. As a boy, I loved to read and would lose myself in books. I find I am drawn to many different types and genres, but especially military or crime dramas. My favorites include historical references and in my own writing I often place characters in an actual historical event, but with a fictional outcome. The most important thing to me is creating a character who is interesting enough to make the reader want more. My personal military experiences were used to begin my first novel while the characters came to life.
I am a sucker for war-time love stories, and the tragedy of this one is it is true. An exceptional piece of writing about courage and love, set in the middle of the most heinous, horrific events of modern history. A simple, crumpled note passed between strangers through a barbed wire fence begins weaving a true tale, a love story rivaling that of Romeo and Juliet.
'An unforgettable love story set in perilous times' Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
The greatest love blossoms in the darkest hour.
In the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe, two people meet fleetingly in a chance encounter. One is an underground resistance fighter; the other a prisoner of war. A crumpled note passes between these two strangers and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.
The Note Through the Wire is the stunning true story of Josefine Lobnik, a resistance heroine, and Bruce Murray, an imprisoned soldier, as they discover love in the midst of…
I love a book that pulls you into the story, one where maybe you see yourself in the characters. As a boy, I loved to read and would lose myself in books. I find I am drawn to many different types and genres, but especially military or crime dramas. My favorites include historical references and in my own writing I often place characters in an actual historical event, but with a fictional outcome. The most important thing to me is creating a character who is interesting enough to make the reader want more. My personal military experiences were used to begin my first novel while the characters came to life.
Have you ever traveled somewhere, and something doesn’t feel right? There is a world of travelers, nomads, and homeless who live lives none of us can explain or understand. Their world includes strange disappearances or accidents, and authorities who ignore or hide the truth. If you start digging for answers, it might make some people uncomfortable. This is a riveting yarn of a sister who refuses to just let it go and move on with her life. Her fierce determination for answers leads her into her own fight for survival. A can’t put it down thrill ride.
From the author of the “full-throttle thriller” (A. J. Finn) No Exit—a riveting new psychological page-turner featuring a fierce and unforgettable heroine.
Three months ago, Lena Nguyen’s estranged twin sister, Cambry, drove to a remote bridge seventy miles outside of Missoula, Montana, and jumped two hundred feet to her death. At least, that is the official police version.
But Lena isn’t buying it.
Now she’s come to that very bridge, driving her dead twin’s car and armed with a cassette recorder, determined to find out what really happened by interviewing the highway patrolman who allegedly discovered her sister’s body.
I love a book that pulls you into the story, one where maybe you see yourself in the characters. As a boy, I loved to read and would lose myself in books. I find I am drawn to many different types and genres, but especially military or crime dramas. My favorites include historical references and in my own writing I often place characters in an actual historical event, but with a fictional outcome. The most important thing to me is creating a character who is interesting enough to make the reader want more. My personal military experiences were used to begin my first novel while the characters came to life.
Diane Harbaugh is a female, strong, badass similar to Jason Bourne. You’re going to love her. Making them cry is an action-packed romp through disillusioned agents, informants, and cartels. Diane navigates on the edges through multiple scapes, all while trying to keep her reputation intact. She must deal with unscrupulous bosses while trusting a rogue CIA agent and a cartel informant. Every time she gets out of trouble, more trouble finds her. This book is worth your time.
For fans of The Border and Jason Bourne, Make Them Cry is an explosive action thriller about a DEA agent sucked into a dangerous turf war on the US-Mexico border.
It’s hard to make Diane Harbaugh flinch. A former prosecutor notorious for her aggressive tactics, she’s now a DEA agent who interrogates witnesses so effectively, she has them confessing in tears. But when she hears from Gustavo, a high-ranking cartel member with an invaluable secret about the international black market, she’s thrown for a loop. She heads to Mexico to meet him, and her entire understanding of justice and duty…
Like many readers, I am drawn to stories of vengeance. Stories of someone seeking revenge have a built-in tension and narrative drive. But as the saying goes, when you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. Yes, these tales seldom go smoothly. The consequences of this and the violence that ensues are what I wanted to explore in my latest novel, but several books on my shelf make fascinating stories out of this desire for revenge.
The first of a trilogy about backwoods Florida criminals and the man who wants to leave his life behind, this book shows Post’s talent for real emotion and pathos in the middle of the chaos of a full-on thriller.
Judah Cannon is a man with morals and a will to do the right thing, but he also comes with skills and experience to bring the fight to those who have wronged him. And, of course, any great protagonist needs a great antagonist, and Post writes them as well as anyone. Sister Tulah is a villain for ages.
Judah Cannon is the middle son of the notorious Cannon clan led by Sherwood, its unflinching and uncompromising patriarch. When Judah returns to his rural hometown of Silas, Florida after a stint in prison, he is determined to move forward and live it clean with his childhood best friend and newly discovered love, Ramey Barrow. Everything soon spirals out of control, though, when a phone call from Sherwood ensnares Judah and Ramey in a complicated web of thievery, brutality and betrayal.
Pressured by the unrelenting bonds of blood ties, Judah takes part in robbing the Scorpions, a group of small-time,…
I am Casey Kelleher, a crime writer and author of 17 novels. I have always been a complete and utter bookworm, but my true passion is crime and psych thrillers. Most of my stories concentrate on the victim–or, as I prefer to call them, the survivor. That’s who I champion in my stories, highlighting the strength of that person who has overcome whatever harsh reality that’s been forced upon them. But I also like to get inside the perpetrator’s head. I want to know the ‘whys’ of what they do. Psychology is very complex, but I do believe that there can be good and bad/darkness and light in all of us.
I loved this book because it caught me completely off guard with just how dark and twisted it turned out to be. The twist was shocking and unexpected, and the characters' motives and the depths of depravity they went to to get what they wanted were just mind-blowing.
Liz Nugent is a master at these types of psych thrillers, and I am such a huge fan.
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of Strange Sally Diamond and Unraveling Oliver—a brilliantly plotted, utterly immersive novel lauded by A.J. Finn—#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window—as “extraordinary…crackles and snaps like a bonfire on a winter’s night.”
My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it.
On the surface, Lydia Fitzsimons's life seems idyllic. Her husband, Andrew, is a prosperous, respected judge; they live in the spacious, comfortable, well-appointed house where she was raised. And she is utterly, obsessively devoted to her son, Laurence—her adored only child, her…
I have always been a storyteller and I’m fascinated by the use of language and how a story can be told well. I’ve used storytelling as an entrepreneur, executive, and management consultant, and my two business books for enlightened entrepreneurship use real-life stories to make the messages and lessons learned more memorable. Fictional versions of those stories were wandering through my imagination to make them more fun to read (and to write) for about fifteen years before they emerged in the Dale Hunter crime thriller series to show that entrepreneurs are not all evil, selfish monsters; sometimes they’re the hero!
A retro pulp-fiction novel from one of the world’s best-selling authors, David Baldacci.
A Gambling Man is the second intriguing story in Baldacci’s Archer Series about a former WWII veteran working as a private detective. Archer is joined en route to Los Angeles by a beautiful young lady with ambitions in Hollywood who leads them into dangerous territory with murderous gangsters and politicians trying to improve the odds in their favour.
Baldacci’s Archer Series is modeled on the early detective stories of authors like Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane. He creates a tough guy detective in the style of the early masters while making Archer more appealing to modern readers – less macho and more respectful of the independent women joining his fight to stop the death and destruction.
Aloysius Archer, the straight-talking World War II veteran fresh out of prison, returns in this riveting #1 New York Times bestselling thriller from David Baldacci.
The 1950s are on the horizon, and Archer is in dire need of a fresh start after a nearly fatal detour in Poca City. So Archer hops on a bus and begins the long journey out west to California, where rumor has it there is money to be made if you’re hard-working, lucky, criminal—or all three.
Along the way, Archer stops in Reno, where a stroke of fortune delivers him a wad of cash and…
I’m a cozy mystery writer and reader who loves to suss out family dynamics in the books I’m devouring. My love of genealogy and turning family stories into fiction played a large role while writing my first book, Hammers and Homicide. Wherever my husband and I travel, we search for ancestors in ancient cemeteries and try to find out more about their stories. You’ll find a few of them between the pages of my books. I hope you’ll enjoy these books, all featuring some level of family ties, as much as I did!
This book gives me everything I want in a cozy mystery—Christmas, a snowy Montana village, killer chocolates, a mystery bookstore, and a protagonist with an identical twin sister! What more could you want?
I love the dynamics between twin sisters Hanna and Alex as they juggle duties in Murder and Mayhem, the book and chocolate shop they own together. Romeril delivers humor and the quirkiness of small-town life like a pro. I loved all the twists and turns that kept me guessing to the sweet end!
My name is Christian Klaver, and I’ve had, in turn, many different jobs as a bookseller, martial arts instructor, and bartender before settling into a career in internet security. Books have always been a passion of mine, with science fiction, fantasy, and mystery as my main focus. I’ve been a lifelong fan of Sherlock Holmes and am a proud member of two different Sherlock Holmes Societies.
This is possibly a more Lovecraftian selection than a Holmesian one, as the monsters and the unfathomable world of Lovecraft and Cthulhu really dominate thematically. The sinister darkness of Lovecraft really comes through here.
It’s a little heartbreaking to see Holmes in over his head, struggling with non-Euclidian magic, but very well done and a gripping story.
The third novel in six-time New York Times best-selling author Lois H. Gresh's Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu series.
THE OBLITERATING SHADOW
The deadly dimensions over London have been sealed, and the monsters have departed. But word has come to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of a more terrifying creature still - the great Cthulhu has been sighted off the waters of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Only Holmes can defeat him.
And in the muddy village of Innsmouth, surrounded by villagers who are more sea-monster than human, Holmes meets again his nemesis, Moriarty, and yet greater foes: Amelia Scarcliffe and Maria Fitzgerald, harbingers…
My first book love was Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. The game between author and reader that centers a whodunit has always delighted me. The breadcrumb trail of clues, the misdirection, the inevitable I should have seen it! are my jam. Now an author of whodunits—I have one series published and a second on the way, along with several short stories – I read mysteries with greater scrutiny—in admiration and with a selfish desire to learn from other authors’ envious talents. Each of the books on my list excited me for their excellent storytelling. In the end, I found them just plain entertaining. I hope you do too!
I love a story that fills a space on the shelf that no one else has thought to create. Props to Lina Chern for giving this reader Katie True.
From the moment I met Katie, working at a decidedly unglamorous suburban mall shop while wondering why her life is...well, her life (and looking to Tarot cards among other places for answers), I knew this wasn’t another off-the-shelf mystery protagonist.
This book not only serves up a clever plot with offbeat supporting players in a unique yet oh-so-familiar setting; it reveals an everyday struggling young woman as a cool and quirky individual who is just trying to make her life into something meaningful.
I should mention, along the way, she solves a murder, proving her street smarts aren’t to be underestimated.
A cynical tarot card reader seeks to uncover the truth about her friend’s mysterious death in this delightfully clever whodunit, “a delicious blend of suspense and madcap humor” (Library Journal, starred review).
For Katie True, a keen gut and quick wit are just tools of the trade. After a failed attempt at adulting in Chicago, she’s back in the suburbs living a bit too close to her overbearing parents, jumping from one dead-end job to the next, and flipping through her tarot deck for guidance. Then along comes Marley.
Mysterious, worldly, and comfortable in her own skin, Marley takes a…
