70 books like Her Buried Bones

For almost thirty years, I worked as a cop in the back alleys, poorly lit laneways, and forgotten neighbourhoods in Toronto, the city where I grew up. Murder, mayhem, and sexual violations intended to demean, shame, and haunt the victims were all in a day’s work. Whether as a beat cop or a plainclothes detective, I dealt with good people who did bad things and bad people who followed their instincts. And now that I’m retired, I can take some of those experiences and turn them into crime fiction novels.

There’s a saying in England: It’s grim up north! Largely used pejoratively (by the south), it’s true to say it is generally colder and wetter, the landscape more unforgiving, the people – friendlier in my opinion – are more outspoken and candid. The cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, with their declining industries and rising unemployment, provide fertile ground for crime writers. So when I started my own series following the investigations of DS Adam Tyler and his cold case team it didn’t take long to settle on my adopted home of Sheffield as the setting. Be warned: we’re a long way from the sleepy villages of Agatha Christie here.

For almost thirty years, I worked as a cop in the back alleys, poorly lit laneways, and forgotten neighbourhoods in Toronto, the city where I grew up. Murder, mayhem, and sexual violations intended to demean, shame, and haunt the victims were all in a day’s work. Whether as a beat cop or a plainclothes detective, I dealt with good people who did bad things and bad people who followed their instincts. And now that I’m retired, I can take some of those experiences and turn them into crime fiction novels.

I’m a veteran journalist and a long-time lover of mysteries and crime fiction. My new novel, The End of The Road ties together my experience over many years covering true crime and my love of the Classics—my college major—and in particular Homer’s Odyssey. In later years, reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, in which she recasts the return of Odysseus from the Trojan War as the story of his long-suffering wife Penelope, inspired me to tell my own tale of an arduous journey from Penelope’s perspective. Being a crime reporter and mystery aficionado helped me spin Penny’s story from a procedural and plotting standpoint; reading Homer helped me explore the literary side of her adventure.

Hi, my name is Laurie Buchanan, and I'm addicted to dogs. I was nicknamed "Dr. Doolittle" at seven, and the moniker has stuck. Why? Because I have a way with all animals, but dogs in particular. I've been owned by dogs (not the other way around) since elementary school—from Irish wolfhounds to Scottish Terriers and everything in between—Poodles, Collies, Dalmatians, and mixed breeds. Not only do I enjoy reading books that feature K9 characters, but I also write them—The Sean McPherson crime thriller series. I do my best plotting during my daily six-mile walk with my four-legged companion, Henry, a not-so-standard Standard Poodle.

I’ve been writing my DCI Warren Jones series for more than ten years now. In addition to trying my best to craft a compelling story, with relatable characters, I love the challenge of balancing this with authentic police procedure. All the books and authors recommended here are excellent exponents of this craft. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them, and believe that they have helped me improve as a writer. I deliberately chose the first in each series, in the hope that you will continue reading to see how the characters evolve.

I’ve been a writer of nonfiction and fiction and full-time editor since my college years, and a publisher (Smart Rhino Publications). I’ve read horror and suspense fiction all my life, but it’s only been in the past decade or so that my reading has turned more and more toward police procedurals, noir, and crime fiction. It was only natural that I’d turn to writing a police procedural series, starting with Harvester of Sorrow. I hope you’ll read all the wonderful books I’ve recommended!

I’ve been writing my DCI Warren Jones series for more than ten years now. In addition to trying my best to craft a compelling story, with relatable characters, I love the challenge of balancing this with authentic police procedure. All the books and authors recommended here are excellent exponents of this craft. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them, and believe that they have helped me improve as a writer. I deliberately chose the first in each series, in the hope that you will continue reading to see how the characters evolve.

I write the NYPD Detective Chiara Corelli Mystery series featuring Corelli and her partner Detective P.J. Parker. Most mysteries have a single main character so I’m passionate about finding other authors who write mysteries with two professional investigators as main characters. It’s fascinating to see how authors writing the same type of characters handle them and what they do about character growth over the course of the series. To me, watching two characters react to each other, seeing their relationship change over the course of a book or a series is much more interesting than reading about a single detective.

I have written seven novels to date that have at their heart the idea that there is a wider, unseen game afoot that is being played out in realms about which normal humans are unaware. Six of them form the Allie St Clair ‘Black’ series, and the seventh is a stand-alone novel called The Unforgiver. Why do I write about these things? Very probably my teenage reading of Stephen King’s early work, HP Lovecraft’s collection, and my personal connection to Satan. Just kidding. I’ve never read any Lovecraft. To be serious, how can you not gaze into the infinite cosmos above and not wonder if there’s a lot more going on than we comprehend?