70 books like Isle of Dogs

By Patricia Cornwell,

Here are 70 books that Isle of Dogs fans have personally recommended if you like Isle of Dogs. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of The Alienist

Irving Belateche Author Of The Origin of Dracula

From my list on refresh legends, myths, and historical events.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved novels that reinvent and refresh history and legends. They take these building blocks of culture and make them personal and emotional. These novels breathe new life into ancient tales and historical events, so they resonate with relevance. They reveal hidden depths and connections within familiar stories, transforming them into vibrant tales. This genre makes legend and history feel personal by taking me on one character’s unique journey, transforming the exploration of the past into a deeply engaging experience.

Irving's book list on refresh legends, myths, and historical events

Irving Belateche Why did Irving love this book?

This novel captivated me from the very first page. It masterfully blends historical figures and facts to create a gripping thriller. I was immediately drawn into New York City in 1896 and the groundbreaking investigation.

The alienist, which is what psychologists were at the turn of the century, uses a unique, untested, and ridiculed method to track down a serial killer: psychological profiling. The appearance of real historical figures, like Theodore Roosevelt, then police commissioner, and J.P. Morgan, added a rich layer of authenticity and intrigue to the story. For me, the meticulous details of the era made each twist in the investigation come to life.

By Caleb Carr,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Alienist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The internationally bestselling historical thriller, now a major Netflix series starring Luke Evans, Dakota Fanning and Daniel Bruhl.

Some things never change.

New York City, 1896. Hypocrisy in high places is rife, police corruption commonplace, and a brutal killer is terrorising young male prostitutes.

Unfortunately for Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, the psychological profiling of murderers is a practice still in its infancy, struggling to make headway against the prejudices of those who prefer the mentally ill - and the 'alienists' who treat them - to be out of sight as well as out of mind.

But as the body count…


Book cover of The Target

Mary Maurice Author Of Burtrum Lee

From my list on exciting your imagination.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always enjoyed the intrigue of the mystery and the constant back and forth of the twists and turns offer in a well-written novel. The tremor of my nerves at the base of my neck as I try to figure out the culprit and their intentions, has always enticed my imagination. To, me, those sensations are mind stimulating, and are only born through reading.

Mary's book list on exciting your imagination

Mary Maurice Why did Mary love this book?

Jessica Reel and Will Robie are CIA assassins who have found themselves as The Target after a mission has been botched and one of their own was killed. Now, being watched under the microscope they are assigned to an almost impossible mission where their only option is kill or be killed. The partners know that they have marks on their backs but have no choice but to obey the orders that have been dealt to them. Will they be able to stave off the unknown mercenary from murdering the first family, as Reel and Robie find themselves once again in the throes of the spy wars.  

By David Baldacci,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Target as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The world's greatest assassins are on a high-risk mission for the President--but a powerful mastermind wants them dead in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller.

The President knows it's a perilous, high-risk assignment. If he gives the order, he has the opportunity to take down a global menace, once and for all. If the mission fails, he would face certain impeachment, and the threats against the nation would multiply. So the president turns to the one team that can pull off the impossible: Will Robie and his partner, Jessica Reel.

Together, Robie and Reel's talents as assassins are unmatched.…


Book cover of The Tin Roof Blowdown

Mary Maurice Author Of Burtrum Lee

From my list on exciting your imagination.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always enjoyed the intrigue of the mystery and the constant back and forth of the twists and turns offer in a well-written novel. The tremor of my nerves at the base of my neck as I try to figure out the culprit and their intentions, has always enticed my imagination. To, me, those sensations are mind stimulating, and are only born through reading.

Mary's book list on exciting your imagination

Mary Maurice Why did Mary love this book?

The Tin Roof Blowdown shows us New Orleans, and the surrounding areas the days after Katrina raged havoc. Taking into account the lives that have been traumatized as crime and murders increased nine-fold. Detective David Robicheaux of Iberia Parish finds himself in the midst of a murder in an old-time neighborhood, as he tries to figure out if the murder of a local black boy during a robbery was racially motivated or not. The details and stories of this horrific tragedy show the bleakness of the aftermath and that not only did many reach their deaths, but how many who survived died also. No order exists as Robicheaux tries to unravel his latest mystery.


By James Lee Burke,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Tin Roof Blowdown as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'His most gripping thriller to date.' Mirror

Hurricane Katrina has transformed New Orleans into a violent wasteland. Criminals capitalise on the devastation as survivors wait for help that never comes.

David Robicheaux - his city in ruins -- is tasked with investigating the murder of a pair of looters: is it a simple case of 'stand-your-ground', or something altogether darker? The dead men's accomplice holds the key but he has disappeared to escape the people hunting him.

As Robicheaux uncovers a brutal catalogue of greed, torture and murder, his own family is threatened, and the ravaged city provides the perfect…


Book cover of The Gray Ghost

Mary Maurice Author Of Burtrum Lee

From my list on exciting your imagination.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always enjoyed the intrigue of the mystery and the constant back and forth of the twists and turns offer in a well-written novel. The tremor of my nerves at the base of my neck as I try to figure out the culprit and their intentions, has always enticed my imagination. To, me, those sensations are mind stimulating, and are only born through reading.

Mary's book list on exciting your imagination

Mary Maurice Why did Mary love this book?

Remi and Sam Fargo world-renowned crime detectives are asked to search for the truth about The Gray Ghost, a specialized prototype designed by Rolls Royce. The vehicle, stolen from Manchester, England in 1906, and then found by Detective Isaac Bell, has gone missing again one hundred years later. Sam and Remi are in for a treat with this case as they unfold the mysteries from decades ago to find the obscure Gray Ghost.  

By Clive Cussler, Robin Burcell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Gray Ghost as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The search for a legendary automobile almost puts an end to both the careers and the lives of husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo, in the thrilling new adventure from the #1 New York Times-bestselling master of adventure

In 1906, a groundbreaking Rolls-Royce prototype known as the Grey Ghost vanishes from the streets of Manchester, England, and it is only the lucky intervention of an American detective named Isaac Bell that prevents it from being lost forever. Not even he can save the good name of Jonathon Payton, however, the man wrongly blamed for the theft, and more than a…


Book cover of Front Page Fatality

T.K. Eldridge Author Of Dead & Buried

From my list on mysteries to get your blood pumping.

Why am I passionate about this?

After spending nearly two decades working in technology and Intelligence—working with law enforcement from all different agenciesI developed an appreciation and understanding of the worst that humans can do to each other. My specialty was domestic counterterrorism and foreign policyand I did everything from developing software for chem/bio work to White House briefings. I have studied profiling and analysis in academic and real world settings – I have two Masters degrees Strategic Intelligence & Criminal Justice from American Military University, both with a minor in Terrorism Studies. While the academic background is great, the real-life experiences are what taught me the most – and find their way into my stories.

T.K.'s book list on mysteries to get your blood pumping

T.K. Eldridge Why did T.K. love this book?

This book has intrigue, drama, romance, good cops, corrupt cops/politicians, and so much more. Believable fight scenes, intricate relationships, mystery, and mayhem are all high points in LynDee Walker’s first book in the Nichelle Clark series. 

Nichelle is a reporter in Richmond, Virginia who covers the crime beat and has great shoes – and some amazing adventures. My enjoyment came from the believable scenarios even when in the middle of some wild times.

There’s good story resolution and a satisfactory outcome that leaves you interested enough in the characters to want to read the next book.

By LynDee Walker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Front Page Fatality as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**Amazon Charts Bestseller**

A SUSPICIOUS ACCIDENT. A DETERMINED REPORTER. AND A RUTHLESS CRIMINAL WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO TIE UP LOOSE ENDS.

"...five stars out of five." —Hot Mystery Reviews

_____________________________

When two rookie cops are killed in a fiery crash near Richmond, Virginia, crime reporter Nichelle Clarke is sent in to investigate.

But as Nichelle digs deeper into the case, she discovers this was no ordinary accident.

People and evidence soon begin to disappear. Someone is one step ahead of her. A master criminal with a deadly secret, covering their tracks with ruthless efficiency.

The killer will stop…


Book cover of Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade

Joshua D. Rothman Author Of The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America

From my list on the domestic slave trade.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have taught history at the University of Alabama since the year 2000, and I have been working and writing as a historian of American slavery for more than twenty-five years. It is not an easy subject to spend time with, but it is also not a subject we can afford to turn away from because it makes us uncomfortable. Slavery may not be the only thing you need to understand about American history, but you cannot effectively understand American history without it. 

Joshua's book list on the domestic slave trade

Joshua D. Rothman Why did Joshua love this book?

As the domestic slave trade became more expansive alongside the growth of the cotton economy, it attracted the increased ire of antislavery activists in the United States and England alike. Using sketches and paintings of the slave trade made by British artist Eyre Crowe in the 1850s as an entry point, Maurie McInnis explores the landscape of the slave trade in major American cities such as Richmond and New Orleans. In the process, she also opens a fresh window onto the world of transatlantic abolitionism.

By Maurie D. McInnis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Slaves Waiting for Sale as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1853, Eyre Crowe, a young British artist, visited a slave auction in Richmond, Virginia. Harrowed by what he witnessed, he captured the scene in sketches that he would later develop into a series of illustrations and paintings, including the culminating painting, "Slaves Waiting for Sale", Richmond, Virginia. This innovative book uses Crowe's paintings to explore the texture of the slave trade in Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans; the evolving iconography of abolitionist art; and the role of visual culture in the transatlantic world of abolitionism. Tracing Crowe's trajectory from Richmond across the American South and back to London -…


Book cover of Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries

Seth Mallios Author Of Cemeteries of San Diego

From my list on the reality of cemeteries across America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have inventoried hundreds of cemeteries and thousands of historic gravestones, my mentor (Jim Deetz) wrote the seminal study that brought the study of gravestones into archaeology, and I truly believe the words of former English Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, who said, “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”

Seth's book list on the reality of cemeteries across America

Seth Mallios Why did Seth love this book?

Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond’s Historic Cemeteries is two books in one. It is a traditional survey of a particular region’s graveyards that is rich in history and lore. But it also exposes historical racial inequities in the care of a city’s dead and sets the stage for current activism that is seeking to reclaim important sites of memorialization for the area’s disenfranchised population and its current descendants.

By Ryan K. Smith,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Death and Rebirth in a Southern City as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This exploration of Richmond's burial landscape over the past 300 years reveals in illuminating detail how racism and the color line have consistently shaped death, burial, and remembrance in this storied Southern capital.

Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation. Its burial grounds show the sweep of Southern history on an epic scale, from the earliest English encounters with the Powhatan at the falls of the James River through slavery, the Civil War, and the long reckoning that followed. And while the region's deathways and burial practices…


Book cover of Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802

Matthew J. Clavin Author Of Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution

From my list on slave resistance and revolts.

Why am I passionate about this?

I long ago decided that I could contribute to the struggle for the freedom and equality of all people by becoming a historian. My fascination with the history of race has led me on a quest to illuminate the extraordinary efforts of enslaved people and their allies to challenge White supremacy and destroy the institution of slavery. My newest book, Symbols of Freedom: Slavery and Resistance Before the Civil War, examines the role that revolutionary nationalism played in inspiring slave and antislavery resistance.

Matthew's book list on slave resistance and revolts

Matthew J. Clavin Why did Matthew love this book?

The determination of an enslaved blacksmith named Gabriel to lead countless Black people in and around Richmond, Virginia, in rebellion has long captured the attention of historians of slave resistance and revolts; however, in Egerton’s hands, the event becomes something unique and different. Read in the context of the French and Haitian Revolutions, as well as the US Presidential Election of 1800 (the so-called Revolution of 1800), Gabriel’s rebellion stems from the issues of politics and class as much, or even more than, race and slavery, in post-revolutionary Virginia.

By Douglas R. Egerton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gabriel's Rebellion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gabriel's Rebellion tells the dramatic story of what was perhaps the most extensive slave conspiracy in the history of the American South. Douglas Egerton illuminates the complex motivations that underlay two related Virginia slave revolts: the first, in 1800, led by the slave known as Gabriel; and the second, called the 'Easter Plot,' instigated in 1802 by one of his followers. Although Gabriel has frequently been portrayed as a messianic, Samson-like figure, Egerton shows that he was a literate and highly skilled blacksmith whose primary goal was to destroy the economic hegemony of the 'merchants,' the only whites he ever…


Book cover of A Hustler's Wife

Joylynn M. Jossel Author Of The Root of All Evil

From my list on an urban spin on love, romance, and erotica.

Why am I passionate about this?

Not only am I an avid reader of the urban love/romance/erotica genre, but I'm an award-winning, bestselling author in the genre, having written under multiple pen names. I've worked with enough traditional editors and freelance editors to know a well-crafted, entertaining, engaging read of this nature when I not only write one—ha!—but read one. As an author, I rarely offer book reviews—you'll only find one review from me on Amazon—but that's because I'm brutally honest and hard to win over, and I respect my relationship with my fellow literary artists too much to risk it on a not-so-favorable review. So, you know when I say it’s good, it’s good.

Joylynn's book list on an urban spin on love, romance, and erotica

Joylynn M. Jossel Why did Joylynn love this book?

The main character, Yarni, is living proof that all that glitters isn't gold, including love. But that sometimes all it takes is a little spit and shine to make it appear platinum. New York Times Bestselling Author, Nikki Turner, debuts into the literary industry with this title, one of her bestselling urban love stories to date.

By Nikki Turner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Hustler's Wife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Yarni, a sweet and innocent girl from a well-to-do family, by chance meets Richmond's notorious drug kingpin, Des. The spark between them immediately blossoms into an astronomical love, which separates Yarni from her family and friends. But when Des is sentenced to life in prison, Yarni will learn that being a hustler's wife isn't all that easy with her sole provider behind bars.

A decade after its original release Nikki Turner’s debut novel, A Hustler’s Wife, is back and in digital form for the very first time. Nikki Turner takes readers along for the ride as Yarni struggles to survive.…


Book cover of Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia

Mary Beth Norton Author Of Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800

From my list on women in early America.

Why am I passionate about this?

Nearly 200 years passed between the first English settlements and the American Revolution. Yet Americans today have a static view of women’s lives during that long period. I have now published four books on the subject of early American women, and I have barely scratched the surface. My works—Liberty’s Daughters was the first I wrote, though the last chronologically—are the results of many years of investigating the earliest settlers in New England and the Chesapeake, accused witches, and politically active women on both sides of the Atlantic. And I intend to keep researching and to write more on this fascinating topic!

Mary's book list on women in early America

Mary Beth Norton Why did Mary love this book?

A path-breaking study of Black and White women in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Virginia, this book shows what can be learned about the origins of slavery in the Chesapeake region from a focus on women--free, enslaved, and indentured alike. Life on early Chesapeake tobacco plantations was very different from the image of “classic,” semi-mythic nineteenth-century cotton plantations familiar to Americans today. Living conditions were crude, especially in the early settlements, and the demands of tobacco cultivation differed greatly from cotton production. Brown shows how all the women in early Virginia were critical to the colony’s  development.

By Kathleen M. Brown,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kathleen Brown examines the origins of racism and slavery in British North America from the perspective of gender. Both a basic social relationship and a model for other social hierarchies, gender helped determine the construction of racial categories and the institution of slavery in Virginia. But the rise of racial slavery also transformed gender relations, including ideals of masculinity. In response to the presence of Indians, the shortage of labor, and the insecurity of social rank, Virginia's colonial government tried to reinforce its authority by regulating the labor and sexuality of English servants and by making legal distinctions between English…


Book cover of The Alienist
Book cover of The Target
Book cover of The Tin Roof Blowdown

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,205

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Virginia, police, and police officers?

Virginia 118 books
Police 258 books
Police Officers 59 books