97 books like Death's Detective

Psychological fiction at its best; this book enthralled me and kept me guessing till the last minute. It led me down a twisty and winding path until I realized everything I thought I knew was not what it had seemed.

The pre-war England setting really hit on my love of historical pieces soaked in atmosphere and tension. It definitely influenced me as a writer. I loved this book because it delivered the creepiness of a haunting so well that it kept me up at night. What I liked best, however, is that it validated my sense that the past is never truly behind us.

The story of two mystical creatures stuck in 1899 New York who have to make their own way in the world.  Despite their different natures, they become unlikely friends and have to work together to survive. 

While I enjoyed the perspective of both supernatural beings in this book, I found the golem especially engaging. Through her eyes, the reader gets an amazingly detailed view of turn-of-the-century New York as well as the intricacies of human behavior. 

The jinni faces different challenges—he’s lost a chunk of his memory—but he also has to adapt to life among people. Wrapped in a rich tapestry of historical details, the story walks us through their processes of acclimating to human society and facing the dangers of their pasts.

Another fun bit of psychedelic folk horror, combined with a really cool history of the experimental films of Canada.

The narrator is compelling, and the whole time you feel the pull of her obsession to the film she’s looking into, even if it unsettles her and terrifies her at the same time. Love that pull of danger, wanting to look, to see, but knowing that doing so will probably kill you…

It's like horror novel catnip.

I've re-read this book several times, trying to figure out if there was something I missed that would answer the questions raised in the final chapters. An English ceramics expert who values his orderly life meets a woman while on a business trip. He falls in love and marries her. Suddenly his life is delightfully disorderly, except for small, disturbing details. Strange things appear in or near the pleasant country home he's known all his life—a black dog, a child's toy, a voice on the telephone. All this builds up to a terrible revelation. I loved this book for its vivid evocation of atmosphere and emotion, from the idyllic to the erotic to terrifying.

While Sherlock Holmes famously debunked anything that had even a vague whiff of the supernatural (looking at you, Hound of the Baskervilles), the same can’t be said for his creator. Entwistle offers a brilliantly imaginative take on what might have happened if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde teamed up to solve mysteries in a world where the supernatural was very, very real. Atmospheric touches ranging from fog-shrouded, gaslit streets to mysterious moors are the perfect complement to witty dialogue, and Entwistle manages to weave in a fair bit of historical detail despite the rip-roaring pace of the story. 

This book has all my favorite detective fiction elements: a beautiful cover, an independent heroine, Abigail Rook, crime-solving alongside an elusive detective, R.F. Jackaby, and a solid plot that kept me guessing until the end. Set in late nineteenth-century New England, Rook teams up with Jackaby in a parallel to a Watson-Holmes relationship except this detective novel features the supernatural. Rook learns quickly that Jackaby stands out among detectives as he can see supernatural creatures. I love so much about this book, particularly the chemistry between Rook and Jackaby as co-investigators. This is a must-read not only for detective fiction fans, but for Dr. Who and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans as well.  

When you’re jumping at shadows, Sherlock Holmes makes the perfect companion.

Real life, in the Holmes stories, has so many deliciously strange and romantic possibilities that there is no need to go chasing after the supernatural; even the oddest occurrence has a logical explanation. Maybe that spooky noise you just heard was just the house settling, after all. (Or maybe it was a swamp adder crawling into bed with you.) Either way, you can find comfort in echoing Holmes’s words: “The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.”

Who doesn’t like ghost stories? especially when there’s an occult detective eager to solve the case. That is what Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder, presented to me.

What I loved about the short stories is that Thomas Carnacki investigates the mysteries of the supernatural, seeking to solve them with his skillset. Sometimes, the cases are just pranks by humans, others by small spirits, and even some with malevolent forces.

This collection of supernatural dark fantasy sparked my imagination. Even to the point of inspiring me to create my own occult detective character.

Lumley is steeped in both the occult detective and the Lovecraftian tradition, and it shows most clearly in this set of pulpy occult detective stories featuring his cerebral-yet-tough Titus Crow, and involving wild flights of fancy in time and space that also arguably show some influence from Doctor Who. We get a lovely creepy origin story here, and several vignettes, but the highlight is the longer tale of the mysteries of the wyrm, and festering, crawling things in an ancient manor house and its library. It fairly oozes supernatural evil and is one of my favorite things.

Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury at his very finest, this absorbing collection of supernatural tales has it all: fascinating characters, palpable atmosphere, and delicious, chewy plots. McHugh brings the uncanny into the every day, most often through the experiences of women, and often using a distinctly Irish lens. From the Irish countryside, in all its windswept, boggy, or tangled forms, to modern office life, this is a glorious kaleidoscope of experiences that feel real even as the surface of human experience is punctured to expose the void beneath.  Each story in this collection has a lot to offer, and - another thing this writer has in common with Bradbury - you’ll find yourself returning time and again for rereading