87 books like Fellow Passenger

I'm a big fan of David Baldacci, especially his incredible first book, Absolute Power. The book begins with the main character Luther Whitney, portrayed by Clint Eastwood in the movie version, burglarizing a mansion outside of Washington, D.C. Suddenly, as the burglary is interrupted, events spiral out of control, and a murder takes place right in front of Luther. The book is a thriller that keeps you fully engaged as a reader. Unfortunately, countless missteps are made by those attempting to protect the murderer as they strive to keep their involvement with the murder secret. Luther is considered a suspect, but he continues to evade police and the murderer's protectors. Baldacci masterfully guides readers through a story of redemption and justice. Absolute Power is thoroughly entertaining. 

I love the sense of intimacy in this book.

The characters are flawed and detailed against the backdrop of London and Great Britain. It is a classic of the genre and really takes you back to the pre-internet and pre-fall of the USSR. It really captures what it was like to live in those times.

The main character, an armaments engineer, becomes a target of the (then) Nazi government in Germany to prevent his expertise from being used to cement an Anglo-Turkish alliance in 1939. Their aim is to assassinate him. The story details the situation of an ordinary citizen caught up in international intrigue and how he manages to cope with it.

My liking and recommendation of this book is similar to that of my first choice, an innocent and ordinary individual who finds himself on the run to avoid capture and possible death by enemy agents, the means he utilises to make himself inconspicuous and evade them, and his fury at the end which enables him to turn the tables despite being out of his depth. 

Of the many books available on the Battle of Jutland, this one is a very professional look at what went wrong.

It acknowledges the key issue that no one in either fleet had any experience of handling fleets of this size and type, or fighting a battle at the ranges their guns were capable of reaching. Admirals Harper and Bacon remain thoroughly professional in their analysis of the failings on the British side, identifying such things as poor communication of orders by signal, poor signal security—Beatty’s flagship signalled by lamp a request for the night’s challenge and reply and received them from Princess Royal. So did at least one of the German ships which later used the challenge to confuse a British cruiser…

A key finding was that many of the British admirals had no ‘staff’ trained to process information, draft orders in a sensible manner, and transmit them. Key… show more.

This is a fast-paced mystery with a fun twist on the themes of discovered powers and secret magical communities.

While at work in a funeral home, Cassie Black discovers she is somehow bringing the dead to life.

In this world, the undead are charming and magic is replenished by cake, which is just loads of fun to imagine (and makes me want to go bake something in hopes it might unlock my own secret powers).

I really enjoyed the way this story juxtaposes light and dark themes, staying pretty amusing throughout while exploring some painful topics like childhood trauma without traumatizing the reader.

Professor Tyler is the nation’s leading expert on the suspension of habeas corpus, and this is the must-read book on that issue. Habeas Corpus in Wartime is longer and denser than my other picks, but that’s partly because suspending habeas corpus (in other words, saying that people may be jailed indefinitely without charges) is such a momentous decision that was taken only in a grave crisis such as the Civil War and World War Two. Where this book really shines is in its discussion of less famous examples of suspension, such as how the British responded to “traitors” during the Revolutionary War and how Congress used suspension to fight the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction. When the next emergency comes and there are calls to invoke this power again, you’ll be glad you read this book.

Lace-making and swordsmanship, and a deadly personal feud; swashbuckling hist-fic with a well-researched core about cultural conflict in 17th century Spain. The story opens in London, in 1609, then moves to Seville, where a young woman tries to reclaim her inheritance from a man devoted solely to fencing and himself. I married into a traditional Spanish family; I know Seville. Deborah Swift captures the summer heat and dust, and the pervading sensation that violence is just one stone's throw away in a page-turning novel that made me think more deeply about Moorish Andalucía, what happened in the past here – and is still happening. Quality fiction.

Lady Jane Grey is an enticing character. Famous as a nine-day-queen, her story is a poignant segment of the brutal succession battle that tore the English crown apart for too many years. I’ve tended to see her as a tiny, tragic protestant foreshadowing of the far more ruthless Elizabeth to come and not thought much more about her, but this novel really brought her awful story to life. Told from the perspective of a fictional girl employed as Jane’s companion in her days in the Tower of London, it gives us a fresh and very real insight into her fate. A light but poignant read, this will draw you into another world and carry you through to the inevitably sad sending.

I will start by admitting that I had ambivalent feelings about this book for some time simply because it takes a different view on certain historical events and people than I do. Still, I cannot not recommend it, because it stunned me over and over with its vivid characters and the slowly unravelling mystery that is at the heart of the story. Above all, I was delighted to find that this novel centres around two young women who have been overshadowed by more prolific historical figures, bringing lesser-told stories to the forefront.

I love this book because it gives us the stories of two intelligent young women caught up in the turmoil of the civil war, told in their own words. Both belonged to royalist families, and they endured the hardships and dangers that came from being on the losing side.

Halkett’s vivid memoir focuses on her early life as a spirited young woman who engaged in forbidden and risky romantic liaisons. She even joined one lover in a hazardous plot that enabled the king’s younger son (the future James II) to escape from the Tower of London. It reads like the storyline of a historical novel!