48 books like Crow's Row

I love a book that you can dive into, and it takes you into a whole other world. A mysterious world that takes the good and the bad and turns it upside down, inside out, and twists everything until nothing is at seems or you believe it should be. I love new and exciting characters that haven’t been touched on yet or even just a twist of ideas that gets your mind racing with new possibilities. You can’t wait for the next page to see where this new world will take you.  

It’s not your typical romance. It’s dark, twisted, gritty, and full of – Damn! I love the bad boys with an ounce of good deep inside. I love women who can come from nothing and are not easily swayed and dominated. The drama pulls you in so deep you feel as if you are there, you can smell it, feel it, and see it all happening right in front of you. Even better you’re the character. 

This book has its bad boy that seems good but ends up causing his love interest to be conflicted in her love for him and her hate. It’s something I love to play with how much can you hate you truly hate someone you are meant to be with? Is it fate or something more sinister inside of yourself? Love is never easy but it’s far more fun when it’s dark and dangerous. 

How great is the feeling of being attracted to a man you know would kill for you? Maybe it’s a horrible thing to feel, it sets off all those questions about your own soul. Or maybe it’s just that you have always lived in this cold world that is liable to destroy you at any moment and instead of giving in, you find a place that feels safe and protected in that world. Only the place is within that bad boy's arms. 

I’ve covered rock, classical, a capella, and new wave in my list, so I thought I’d round it out with sugar-sweet pop. Kill the Boy Band is a darkly hilarious journey into fangirl obsession filled with quirky characters and sitcom situations that are as fun to read as they are improbable. The boy band in question is The Ruperts, a quartet of British heart-throbs with an eerie resemblance to One Direction. When four superfans score a room in the hotel where The Ruperts are staying, they hatch a plan that goes awry fast, leaving the band with one fewer Ruperts and the girls with a…very incriminating situation.

I loved this book for so many reasons, but my favorite was the deep dive into superfan culture. A lot of the book is spent questioning the nature of this culture, but in a way that's genuinely soul-searching and not condescending—the narrator… show more.

Love to know why this murderous mob masterpiece has yet to make it to film.

This must-have for any True Crime bookshelf is from the dynamic duo of Gene Mustain (author of John Gotti bio) and Jerry Capeci (“Gangland” journalist extraordinaire). It chronicles the blood-soaked rise and demise of the deadly Roy Demeo crew, a gaggle of Gambino grunts a couple of rungs under Captain Nino Gaggi.

It’s an underworld tour of the black-and-blue-collar South Brooklyn rackets, circa 70s and 80s, often through the bloodshot eyes of Dominick Montiglio, Gaggi’s nephew, and bolstered by an avalanche of investigative research. From the innards of a Mafia street crew, to the entrails of an auto-theft ring, to the autopsy of Demeo’s whack-tastic dismemberment routine (a.k,a. “The Gemini Method”), there’s so much to digest, if you can stomach the body count.

Locations of interest: The Gemini Lounge on Flatlands Avenue; Bath Beach (Multiple… show more.

Richard Price, in my opinion, is one of today’s best writers in any genre. The Whites, a book about five detectives finally getting the criminal that always eluded them, was just the most recent book of his I’ve read. His classics—Clockers, Freedomland, The Night of, Sea of Love—were all adapted for the big screen. His prose is cliché free, no one captures New York City and its denizens the way Price does, and the dialogue in his books is pitch perfect and realistic.

Helen Jewett was a sex worker living in New York in the 1830s. She worked in a brothel under a matron, which should have been a safe enough situation—she wasn’t out on the street, at least, and others knew when she had clients. Early one morning, however, others in the house wake up to realize there’s a fire in Helen’s room, and that she’s dead. Was it a murder committed by her last client, a man quickly identified as Richard Robinson, or was it a suicide? If she hadn’t died so brutally, we wouldn’t know Helen Jewett’s name, so she’s become another victim only known for her murder. Cohen reminds us that she’s more than just her death.

Evie O’Neill has been sent to live with her Uncle Will when she can’t obey the conventional rules of her hometown. The good news is that he lives in glitzy New York City during the 1920s, but Will runs a very different scene, operating the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. After a girl’s body is discovered with clues indicating that the murder was motivated by the occult, Evie, her uncle, and a few new friends find themselves involved in the investigation. A Young Adult book, what I particularly love about this novel, is the way Evie evolves from a thoughtless party-girl to a young detective who embraces the psychic gift she has long kept at bay. In the process, she becomes wiser about the larger, complicated world around her.  

Set in 1958, Manhattan, at the fictional Pinnacle Hotel, this is a closed-setting, classic cozy mystery that I really adored. The story’s lead—Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy (first off, what a name, right?)—is such a brilliantly written character. I love how ditzy and superficial she seems at the beginning, but as the plot unravels, and her sleuthing skills are put to the test, we get to see her complexities and flaws and learn to love her. What I love even more is that this book is the first in a (hopefully) long-running series. Encore, Evelyn!