Here are 30 books that Holding fans have personally recommended if you like
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I grew up binge-reading murder mysteries and promised myself that some day, I would write one too. A Long Shadow is the first book in my Chief Inspector Shadow series set in York. Luckily, living in a city so full of history, dark corners, and hidden snickelways, I am never short of inspiration. When I’m not coming up with new ways to bump people off, I enjoy red wine, dark chocolate, and blue cheese—not necessarily together!
This is another murder mystery set in a quintessential English village and where we meet detective Adam Dalgleish for the first time. The day after the church fete, Sally Jupp is found dead in her bedroom, the door locked from the inside. I loved the way tension gradually builds through the story and how expertly each character is drawn. Nobody is who they seem, including the victim.
The first in the series of scintillating mysteries to feature cunning Scotland Yard detective, Adam Dalgliesh from P.D. James, the bestselling author hailed by People magazine as “the greatest living mystery writer.”
Sally Jupp was a sly and sensuous young woman who used her body and her brains to make her way up the social ladder. Now she lies across her bed with dark bruises from a strangler’s fingers forever marring her lily-white throat. Someone has decided that the wages of sin should be death...and it is up to Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to find who that someone is.
Writer, reader, editor, reviewer, publisher… those are all parts of me. With a lifetime of experience in the “words” industry, I have a pretty good handle on what makes a book not just good, but hot. I say this with the understanding that each reader brings their own histories to the reading experience, and what one person may like, another may not. Nonetheless, I offer you my professional and personal favorites in the mystery/thriller/suspense categories. It is my sincere hope that you find these books as addictive as I’d found them. Superb and clever writing, engaging characters, unpredictable plots—yes, please! Though I occasionally step outside my comfort zone, I'm consistently drawn back to these categories.
Two words for this absolutely primo mystery: John Corey. Corey is the main character in this series by the same name, andPlum Island is the first book in that series by the amazing Nelson DeMille. This is one of those books where I will always remember the actual reading experience. Why? I often read into the wee hours of the night and the entire household was fast asleep. I hit a particular scene (I won’t spoil it), and I simply burst out laughing hysterically. I couldn’t stop, thereby waking everyone up. Turned out, there was a lot of good humor still to come, and the plot was absolutely high intrigue! I always recommend this book to anyone who likes their mysteries with a dash of humor.
'...a page turning, high octane novel that's firing on all cylinders,' - EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS
'...a good old-fashioned murder mystery which keeps you enthralled till the very last page.' - YORKSHIP EVENING PRESS
NYPD homicide detective John Corey has moved to Long Island, restlessly recuperating from wounds received in the line of duty when he's hired to consult on the murder of Tom and Judy Gordon, biologists who worked on Plum Island, the site of animal disease research for the Department of Agriculture.
Were the Gordons murdered because they'd stolen some valuable new vaccine, or even a dreaded virus? They'd…
I grew up in New York City, practically within walking distance of the Broadway theatre district. My first show was the original production of 1776. Everything grabbed my attention: Ian McKellan in Amadeus, Patrick Stewart in Macbeth, Richard Dreyfuss in Julius Caesar, and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. In high school, I was an eager, if not especially talented, member of the theatre club. I became curious about the whole theatre scene, and what could be a better place for a mystery, where actors, directors, and scene designers are already creating an alternate world.
Marsh was one of the great mystery novelists, but her great love was theatre, and in this book, they come together. Few mysteries delve so deeply into the details of the theatre world. In this case, the play is Macbeth, and the murders behind the scenes eerily echo the violent play itself. The scene and setting are so gripping that it's impossible to stop reading and the ending is both surprising and satisfying.
The bad news: This is the last in Ngaio Marsh's marvelous Inspector Alleyn" series. The good: It's one of her very best. The secret to Light Thickens' success may lie in its combination of some of Marsh's greatest passions, including her native New Zealand -in the person of, unusually, a Maori character - and the theater. Indeed, the plot centers on a production of...well, let's skirt disaster by calling it the Scottish play," a play that Dame Ngaio produced and directed several times. Among theater folk, the Scottish play is considered unlucky, so much so that tradition requires anyone who…
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…
Half a century ago (hard to believe!), as a young newspaper reporter, I began every day at a police station, reading the log and talking to the watch commander. Occasionally, I was able to contact the detectives as well. For me, the way crimes and criminal investigations unfolded, and the personalities of the officers involved, were multi-dimensional and touched with surprising, and often unexpected, moments of humor. In my reading as well as my writing, I seek a balance between authenticity and a sense of the absurd, without which the experience of solving murders—real or fictional—could become emotionally crushing.
Although this isn’t the first entry in the Peculiar Crimes Unit series, it’s the first that I read, and it hooked me. What a great idea for an offbeat police series, cleverly handled and featuring two eccentric London detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May. In this mystery, two cases initially appear unrelated, and it takes quite a bit of sleuthing before the links emerge. Bryant and May must unravel encrypted codes and symbols, discover secret rooms and dig through baffling clues as danger mounts. While this series has a darker tone than some of my preferences, it’s engaging and rewarding.
Winner of CrimeFest 2013's 'eDunnit Award' for 'the best crime fiction ebook published in 2012 in both hardcopy and in electronic format'.
Two small children are playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later the woman is indeed found dead inside St Bride's Church - a building that no-one else has entered.
Unfortunately Bryant & May are refused the case. Instead, there are hired by their greatest enemy to find out why his wife has suddenly started behaving strangely. She's…
I’m a thrill seeker when it comes to reading, and I want to be so immersed in a story that I have to read it in one sitting and then can be completely taken by surprise by a plot twist. It was extremely hard to pick only five titles, so to narrow it down, I 1) made an attempt to pick from a few different sub-genres and, 2) stipulated that Agatha Christie could populate the entire list. All of these titles blend wonderful writing with great twists, and I hope you enjoy them. I did my best to avoid spoilers in the descriptions, although by being on this list, it’s a little bit of a spoiler…
This book is the first in Hiaasen’s Andrew Yancy series, and like all of his books, most of it takes place mucking around in Florida wetlands. I lived in Winter Haven for a few years as a teenager, and enjoyed reminiscing about that time while following Yancy around the state.
Hiaasen’s known for being a little wacky and a lot funny, more than his plot twists, but this book brings the surprise. This one’s funnier than the rest of the books on this list, making it the ultimate beach read, ideally accompanied by a cool glass of swampwater.
When a severed arm is discovered by a couple on honeymoon in the Florida Keys, former police detective - now reluctant restaurant inspector - Andrew Yancy senses that something doesn't add up. Determined to get his badge back, he undertakes an unofficial investigation of his own.
Andrew's search for the truth takes him to the Bahamas, where a local man, with the help of a very bad monkey (who allegedly worked on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies) is doing everything in his power to prevent a developer from building a new tourist resort on the island, with deadly consequences…
As a longtime Angeleno, I’ve read a lot about the dark underbelly of our dysfunctional metropolis, both in the news and in fiction. I try to incorporate the City of Angels as a strong presence in my writing, and when I read other writers who have put Los Angeles at the center, it gives me a sense of things the way they really are, a glimpse at a deeper reality. I see the detectives in LA noir and crime fiction as inextricably intertwined with the city, their weaknesses, and their emotional quandaries emerging from this place.
I don’t think Connelly’s intention was to write horror, but his visceral description of the corpses and the minutia of murder in this novel made my stomach churn. An unpleasant experience, yes, but it’s vivid and effective writing. Harry Bosch is a detective with weakness for a specific type of woman, and of course he gets mixed up with Julia, a hot tomato who’s new to the force, and of course she messes up his investigation into the bones. You might want to kick Bosch in the caboose for not thinking more lucidly, but eventually he manages to outsmart his villains.
The outstanding eighth Harry Bosch thriller from the award-winning No. 1 bestselling author of The Lincoln Lawyer. City of Bones is featured in Amazon Prime's BOSCH TV series.
When the bones of a boy are found scattered in the Hollywood Hills, Harry Bosch is drawn into a case that brings up dark memories from his past.
Unearthing hidden stories, he finds the child's identity and reconstructs his fractured life, determined that he won't be forgotten. At the same time, a new love affair with a female cop begins to blossom - until a stunningly blown mission leaves him in more…
San Diego Private Investigator, Brig Ellis, is hired by a wealthy industrialist to help him acquire the final horse in a set of twelve palomino miniatures that once belonged to the last Emperor of China. What begins as a seemingly reasonable assignment quickly morphs into something much more malevolent.
I’ve loved mysteries since I was a kid and became hooked on the Fear Street books by RL Stine. In college, I took a class on suspense and mystery and was introduced to the greats: Chandler, Hammett, Collins, Christie, Doyle… I could go on and on. As I consumed more, I became enamored with mysteries that were more than just stories about victims but also used crime as a vehicle to comment on the region’s social and economic issues. My favorite mysteries are more than the sum of its body parts. They also scrutinize the worlds where these heinous crimes were allowed to occur.
I loved visiting the Shetland isles with world-weary police inspector Jimmy Perez. The islands, the unique culture, weather, and the remoteness were such compelling components of the story. I loved how Ms. Cleeves used Scotland as one of her characters. She created this lush and detailed world that’s eerie and uncomfortable, the perfect setting for a murder mystery.
I’m also a sucker for a grumpy detective, and Jimmy Perez is such an understandably jaded character, but he still has a kind, warm heart under his crusty exterior that comes out when he’s interacting with his more novice colleagues and members of the community.
Introducing Inspector Jimmy Perez. Raven Black is the first book in Ann Cleeves' bestselling Shetland series - now a major BBC One drama, starring Douglas Henshal.
A remote community with a killer in their midst . . .
On New Year's Day, Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance . . .
I’m a taxidermy-loving vegan who had a pet cemetery as a kid. So, I guess you could say I’m a bit of a Wednesday Adams. My airplane reading? Forensic pathology textbooks. When my first thrillers were published, a lot of people were surprised. “You seem so nice!” they said. “You’re so funny and happy!” Here’s a secret: thriller writers are some of the most jolly people I know. We get it all out on the page. We get to murder people for a living. So, if you cut me off in traffic or don’t RSVP to my Evite, it's no big deal. I won’t get upset. I’ll just kill you later...in a book.
Camilla is the so-called Queen of Nordic Noir. I got way into her books during the pandemic, which is to say I read every single one of them right after the other while I had a fever. The great thing about the Scandinavians is that they describe truly horrible happenings matter-of-factly.
I love Camilla’s books because she also adds another tension – my favorite kind of tension – the “when will the protagonists kiss?”. I will endure the most gruesome crime scenes because I’m invested in a relationship, and her series pays this off over and over.
“A top-notch thriller, one of the best of the genre” (Minneapolis Star Tribune) from international crime-writing sensation Camilla Läckberg tells the story of brutal murders in a small Swedish fishing village, and the shattering, decades-old secrets that precipitated them.
In this electrifying tale of suspense from an international crime-writing sensation, a grisly death exposes the dark heart of a Scandinavian seaside village. Erica Falck returns to her tiny, remote hometown of Fjällbacka, Sweden, after her parents’ deaths only to encounter another tragedy: the suicide of her childhood best friend, Alex. It’s Erica herself who finds Alex’s body—suspended in a bathtub…
I believe many writers suspect they are Strangers in a Strange Land. How ironic that I, a confirmed atheist, should use a biblical quote to describe the mindset of authors. Some discover where they belong through their writing. My book recommendations have a strong sense of place, whether it be the Old West, wartime Berlin, or modern-day Scotland. I was born into a 300-year-old N. Ireland Protestant Plantation family, yet many people saw us as interlopers: we weren’t quite Irish, and we weren’t quite British, yet we held dual passports. It was not until I left Ireland that I realized my Irish Heritage exerted a stronger pull than my British.
With my background, I had to include a book set in N. Ireland during the Troubles. McKinty’s books are a clever blend of fiction and nonfiction. His description and understanding of the absurdities of the Troubles mirror my own beliefs.
His RUC detective is a Catholic in a largely Protestant police force, and McKinty weaves an easily understandable tableau of what it took to live through the Troubles. It is something very difficult to explain to outsiders, though I believe the entire populace still suffers from PTSD.
It was not an easy read as it brought back many painful memories, such as being caught up in the horror of Bloody Friday.
A Catholic cop tracks an IRA master bomber amidst the sectarian violence of the conflict in Northern Ireland in this pulse-pounding thriller from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Adrian McKinty
"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot-on dialogue, and fascinating characters." --Chicago Sun-Times
It's the early 1980s in Belfast. Sean Duffy, a conflicted Catholic cop in the Protestant RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), is recruited by MI5 to hunt down Dermot McCann, an IRA master bomber who has made a daring escape from the notorious Maze prison. In the course of his investigations Sean…
Riley Masterson has moved to Greenbrier, SC, anxious to escape the chaos that has overwhelmed her life.
Questioned in a murder in Alabama, she has spent eighteen months under suspicion by a sheriff’s office, unable to make an arrest. But things in gentrifying Greenbrier are not as they seem. As…
At twelve, my favorite thing to read were the tattered, dog-eared Ellery Queen, or Alfred Hitchcock Mystery magazines my aunt let me borrow. From there I read every Agatha Christie novel available, and so began a lifetime of reading British authors. I love suspense these days, and of course, every British detective series I can find to stream. To research my books I’ve traveled to Britain, and have visited with my cousins, my family never lost touch with, in Scotland and in Yorkshire. You’ve heard “write what you know”. I love to write what I love. That’s why I wrote Deadly Thyme set in Cornwall, England.
In this book, the author uses a new character Elvira (her character reappears in subsequent books) who leads the reader forward in the first person, a breakaway from the usual (close) third person in the other books in the series. Her voice is so clear, you can’t help but fall in love with her strange quirks. She is a medical student and trained in body combat. Elvira’s sister has been missing for 59 days and she can’t get the police interested enough to take her seriously. Her sister was an adult after all and left with a packed bag. Anderson and Costello eventually do get involved as more and more young women disappear.
The action in this novel is fast and furious. It left me breathless at times. I had to put the book down and walk away a few times near the end it was that intense.
Elvie McCulloch's sister Sophie has been missing for 57 days. She went out for a run - and never came home. Several young woman in the area have disappeared in similar circumstances, and Elvie's family fears the worst.
As Elvie is driving to her new job late at night, the naked, emaciated body of a young woman crashes from high above onto an oncoming car. Elvie recognises her as Lorna Lennox, who has been missing for weeks. But why was she up there? Where had she been all this time? And why was she running for her life?
