Here are 100 books that I Have Some Questions for You fans have personally recommended if you like
I Have Some Questions for You.
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I have just written my twelfth novel and quite possibly my last. I’ve returned to where my heart is. My first five crime novels came about through the generous help of some undercover California wildlife agents. Now, in a sense, I’m back where I started, except that my latest book is also a love story. We make plenty of mistakes in life, some much worse than others. My characters deal with them in their own way. I can understand that, and I like that. And hey, there’s always the possibility of redemption.
I remember summers growing up when we were out of the house seeking freedom from parents as we streamed toward our teenage years, so I can identify with this story’s start. We’d follow deer trails through brush and trees to spots up in the hills we’d claimed as our own. This book begins with a prologue made vivid with three children and Tana French’s gorgeous prose.
The children go up and over a rock wall and into “A summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silk skin blue…your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat…” “…long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways…” and the haunted last sentence, “These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer.”
The bestselling debut, with over a million copies sold, that launched Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Searcher and "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).
"Required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting." -The New York Times
Now airing as a Starz series.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only…
I’ve loved learning about history since childhood, as attested by my bookshelves full of American Girl series, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and The Royal Diaries (Cleopatra was my favorite). After writing my first book about reenactors pretending to be French explorers, I worked as a history writer for Smithsonian Magazine. I especially love the philosophical and political questions of how we still interact with the past and how history is presented. I hope you’ll enjoy thinking about that and learning some history from these books!
This is the only fiction on a list otherwise full of nonfiction, but it more than deserves a place on this list. There are so many things to love about this book—its audacious opening line, the lush writing, the twisted relationships—but what I think history lovers might appreciate most is how deeply entwined the characters get with the history of Antiquities.
After all, the main group of characters in this dark academia only come together because they’re all studying Greek and Latin. In fact, the plot hinges on their obsession with Antiquity—but I won’t get too much more into that. I just recommend picking the book up and going along for the ride.
'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'
Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.…
I’m the author of the novel The Good Ones, published by Harper Books earlier this year. I grew up in a beautiful and somewhat isolated part of the country, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and it’s still my favorite place to set my fiction. When I began writing crime fiction, I knew I wanted to balance telling compelling stories with creating a sense of place and interesting characters to inhabit it, and I’ve learned so much from these writers about how to do that.
I think I’ve read all of Laura Lippman’s novels, both the Tess Monaghan series and the standalones, but this is hands-down my favorite.
On the surface, it’s high-concept subject matter: the story of a girl who was abducted by a serial killer and then let go, told in dual timelines. I was compelled by the thrilling and fast-paced plot, but again, the scenes I remember best are of the main character’s childhood in the 1980s, as she attempts to maneuver an adult world she can’t yet understand.
The novel is set in a part of southern Maryland that resembles my home state of Virginia, and I love the way Lippman evokes a bucolic landscape turned suddenly sinister.
“Laura Lippman is among the select group of novelists who have invigorated the crime fiction arena with smart, innovative, and exciting work.” —George Pelecanos
“Lippman’s taut, mesmerizing, and exceptionally smart drama of predator and prey is at once unusually sensitive and utterly compelling. —Booklist
Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know, Life Sentences, and the acclaimed Tess Monaghan p.i. series, delivers a stunning stand-alone novel that explores the lasting effects on lives touched by crime. With I’d Know You Anywhere, Lippman—master of mystery and psychological suspense, winner of every major literary prize given for crime…
I’m the author of the novel The Good Ones, published by Harper Books earlier this year. I grew up in a beautiful and somewhat isolated part of the country, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and it’s still my favorite place to set my fiction. When I began writing crime fiction, I knew I wanted to balance telling compelling stories with creating a sense of place and interesting characters to inhabit it, and I’ve learned so much from these writers about how to do that.
If I’d written this list a year ago, I probably couldn’t have found a way to include Megan Abbott, even though she’s one of my favorite writers.
Though setting is important to her work, it’s rarely given the place-based specificity we find in her newest novel, Beware the Woman, set in the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’ve vacationed in the UP and it truly is a wild place, the perfect background for this story of a pregnant woman spending an increasingly creepy week with the husband and father-in-law she’s not sure she can trust.
The woods that crowd around the family’s remote home seem threatening at first, but then come to offer the promise of escape from a domestic environment with its own set of perils. As in all these novels, setting is more than a scenic backdrop. It’s the world the reader lives in, and a crucial element…
By the "master of thinly veiled secrets often kept by women who rage underneath their delicate exteriors" (Kirkus Reviews), Beware the Woman is Megan Abbott at the height of her game.
Honey, I just want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s what Jacy’s mom always told her. And Jacy felt like she finally did. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband, Jed, embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Dr. Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula. The moment they arrive at the cottage snug within the lush…
I love exploring old homes. Whether I’m on a historic house tour, an estate sale, or a real estate open house, I love seeing the glimpses of the people who once occupied the home. When my mom passed away, I hired an estate sale organizer to help me clear out her house and became fascinated with the estate sale business. What a great way to peek into other people’s houses and lives and perhaps discover their darkest secrets! That’s how I started writing my Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series.
In an old mansion that has become a school for wayward girls, a series of troublesome deaths occur. The school is reminiscent of the horrible Lowood School in Jane Eyre, one of my all-time favorite books. The story unfolds across multiple timelines—I enjoyed the 1950s story the most. The crimes are solved in the present day by a determined heroine, and the supernatural element is well integrated into the plot.
'Clever and wonderfully chilling. It held me hostage' - Fiona Barton, Sunday Times-bestselling author of The Widow and The Child
'A brilliant page-turner' Jenny Quintana, author of The Missing Girl
1950 - At the crumbling Idlewild Hall school for unwanted girls, four room-mates begin to bond over dark secrets and whispered fears - until one of them mysteriously disappears . . .
2014 - Journalist Fiona Sheridan can't get over the murder of her sister twenty years ago, near the ruins of Idlewild. And when another body is found during renovations of the school,…
I've read mystery books since I was a kid in a small Iowa town and my
mother was on the library board and in charge of reviewing books for
purchase. She would bring home mysteries and I grew up reading about
James Bond, The Saint, Miss Marple, and many, many other 'classic'
detectives. I wrote my first mystery 'novel' when I was ten and it took
me forty more years to finally decide to get serious about it. I found I
wanted to write about an older demographic—my heroes and heroines are
usually in their 40s or 50s. I try to make my characters believable and
down-to-earth—except they get involved in the occasional murder!
I enjoy reading historical fiction, especially when I'm in the middle of writing my next mystery story. I like to read outside my genre so historical mysteries satisfy that desire for me to learn about the past while still studying how other mystery authors craft their stories.
This book features a heroine who is an artist and who was also initially ostracized by society because of her first husband. Her current husband is an 'investigative agent' in the 19th century and she's frequently drawn into his cases.
I like her because she's not afraid to speak her mind but she also knows when to keep quiet – a talent she had to acquire when dealing with some of the high-and-mighty people she meets.
Lady Kiera Darby and her husband Sebastian Gage are looking forward to celebrating with new friends at an exciting yearly soiree, but they soon learn that murder never takes a holiday in the latest riveting installment in this national bestselling series.
January 1832. After enjoying a delightful few weeks with her family, expectant mother Kiera and Sebastian Gage have been invited to the Duchess of Bowmontʼs Twelfth Night party in Traquair, Scotland. Though she normally avoids such fashionable, rambunctious events, Kiera is ready to join in the festive merrymaking. But upon their arrival at the opulent estate, it becomes obvious…
Telescopes, microscopes, computer modeling–these exist because some things are easier to study when you change their shape. That’s how we learned about planets, germs, and the economy. Enlarging, shrinking, and filling in details lets us examine and understand. I think literature can do the same thing with ideas. Asking ‘what if?’ lets us probe things we can’t with our gadgets. Concepts. Hypotheticals. A story that pulls a big idea like taffy? That is a treat. I’ve got five in this dish.
What if Jews settled in Alaska instead of Israel? There is a question I’d never asked, but I loved chewing on it. Alternative histories are great at exploring questions of cause and effect, the rippling power of people and places, and the very existence of fate.
They are not to everyone’s taste, so how about a murder mystery instead? Let’s call it that, and you won’t be put off by worries about excessive background and explanation. When exposition comes in the form of detective work, it is so much more palatable. And personal. Chabon feeds the reader ideas the way one might sneak a dog medicine–wrapped in something that goes down easy.
The brilliantly original new novel from Michael Chabon, author of THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY and WONDER BOYS.
What if, as Franklin Roosevelt once proposed, Alaska - and not Israel - had become the homeland for the Jews after the Second World War? In Michael Chabon's Yiddish-speaking 'Alyeska', Orthodox gangs in side-curls and knee breeches roam the streets of Sitka, where Detective Meyer Landsman discovers the corpse of a heroin-addled chess prodigy in the flophouse Meyer calls home. Marionette strings stretch back to the hands of charismatic Rebbe Gold, leader of a sect that seems to have drawn its…
I’ve been fascinated with historical fiction, especially the World War II era, ever since I listened to my mother playing her Big Band Records. I’ve also loved mysteries since I picked up my first Nancy Drew book. Once I discovered historical mysteries, I haven’t been able to separate the two. I’ve recently expanded my interest to include the first world war. There are so many great stories that I’m afraid I’ll never get to read them all. It was really hard to narrow down my list to five books and I hope you’ll love the ones I’ve chosen for you.
This book is the first in the Verity Kent series set just after World War I in England.
Verity is a war widow and had worked for the Secret Service during the war. After declining an invitation to attend a party on a secluded island, she changes her mind when she receives a letter intimating that her husband had been a traitor. The partygoers are mostly former soldiers who had served under her husband.
This book has it all—a secluded island, many secrets, a storm, and a huge surprise. And I mean huge. Verity doesn’t know who she can trust but somehow manages to figure it all out. I’m way behind on reading this series but I mean to catch up soon!
A WWI widow investigates murder—and her late husband’s secrets—in “this engrossing series launch” by the Daphne Award-winning author (Publishers Weekly).
England, 1919. Verity Kent’s grief over the loss of her husband pierces anew when she receives a cryptic letter suggesting her beloved Sidney may have committed treason before his untimely death. Determined to dull her pain with revelry, Verity’s first impulse is to dismiss the claim. But the mystery sender knows too much—including the fact that during the war, Verity worked for the Secret Service, something not even Sidney knew.
Lured to Umbersea Island to attend the engagement party of…
I moved around non-stop as a kid, attending a dozen schools by age
eleven. As a result, once I stayed put long enough to make real
friends, I stuck to them like glitter glue. As a reader and writer, I
can’t get enough stories about female friendships, whether rock-solid or
fraying. My latest novel involves
childhood friends whose loyalty is stretched like a pair of latex gloves
yanked off at a crime scene. The book grew out of a meme I saw on
Facebook, captioned: “Real friends help you hide the bodies”. My first
thought was: who would I help? Straight off, I thought of my oldest
friends.
I’m a huge sucker for stories involving teen girls and secrets—and no one handles this trope better than Tana French in this wildly atmospheric boarding school mystery.
A year after a boy’s found murdered at a secluded Irish school, a note appears on a bulletin board reading: “I know who killed him.” It’s soon clear that a lot of the girls know something. What though?
I love the dark academia vibe, the claustrophobia, and the girls, so close-knit and determined. This is a gorgeously written tale of friendship, loyalty, lies, and betrayal, just buzzing with witchy teen energy.
"An absolutely mesmerizing read. . . . Tana French is simply this: a truly great writer." -Gillian Flynn
Read the New York Times bestseller by Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Searcher and "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).
A year ago a boy was found murdered at a girls' boarding school, and the case was never solved. Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to join Dublin's Murder Squad when sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey arrives in his office with a photo of the boy with the caption:…
The greatest mystery I face in life is, how is it that when I've just packed the dishwasher, I have to pack it yet again? But I love stories. There’s nothing more healing than a well-told story with characters and jokes and twists and turns. Each of these books contains some form of fictionalized domestic world where murders happen, but marriages and babies and falling in love do, too.We live in a time when the world is hard to navigate. All of these writers bring a mystery, the best of company, and the idea that even in the darkest of times, everything can turn out quite spiffingly.
When I was a kid, my Mum loved Upstairs Downstairs—a TV show about a household in Victorian England and the lives of the gentry upstairs and the servants downstairs. Nobody was allowed to even whisper when it was on.
Well, the Mrs Jeffries Mysteries would have blown her mind. Because the servants in Detective Witherspoon’s household not only do regular servanting but also solve murders on the fly.
There are loads of great characters: Mrs Goodge, the surly cook, Smythe, the fierce-looking coachman with a heart of gold, and of course Mrs Jeffries herself, who’s like a sherry-guzzling Sherlock Holmes who can tidy.
Mrs. Jeffries and Inspector Witherspoon should be checking off their Christmas present lists but instead they’re listing murder suspects in this latest entry of the beloved Victorian Mystery series.
TIS THE SEASON FOR MURDER
Harriet Andover was a smart businesswoman who did not suffer fools gladly, yet somehow her house was full of them. With a husband who has no head for money and two grown stepchildren who would rather do anything than an honest day’s work, Harriet had every intention of righting the ship and putting her family back on the path to respectability. But she soon discovers that…
