100 books like Jackdaws

There have been too many novels featuring the story of King Arthur to count; this is my favorite. I found it (and the following two books in the series) really captured the idea of who Arthur was, why he was needed, and why he did what he did at the time for me.

It was the first Cornwell novel I read, and he has become my favourite novellist. I think he writes battle scenes better than anyone–he puts you in the middle of the action and makes you feel the visceral nature of combat (especially in his Arthurian and medieval books). If anyone is looking for a place to start with Arthurian fiction but doesn’t know where to begin, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book and series. 

C. J. Sansom, a historian, died just recently, but he’s left a legacy of historical crime novels based around the time of Henry VIII. The main character is a charismatic, hunchbacked lawyer called Matthew Shardlake.

If, like me, you like books with strong characters, then, together with Sansom’s skill at weaving in the sights, sounds, smells, political shenanigans, and countless characters of Tudor England, Tombland is a fantastic read. It’s a long book (800 pages), so take your time on it, but I think this is historical crime fiction at its best. 

Game of Thrones, right? This author has created so many characters that fit this category, and they all handle their situations in a different manner. I love the three major ones, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, and Daenerys Targaryen, who could not be more different from each other. Sansa and Arya have grown up in privilege, but one scheme to be a pampered lady, and the other would be happy sleeping in the kennel with her dire wolf.

Daenerys has been hidden much of her childhood to protect her, and suddenly, she is thrown into the game with her arranged marriage to a wild horse lord, where she grows up very fast in order to survive. Sadly, as women in Westeros, they do not control their own fates, and following how their lives evolve and intertwine is fascinating.

This book by Robert Heinlein is an action-packed space adventure featuring creepy insect foes in an interstellar battle with Earth. It follows Trooper Johnny Rico in an epic war story set on distant worlds.

The book features a number of combat engagements with gigantic insect-like “Arachnids” and other bug-like creatures. Meanwhile, several love affairs arise and crumble in the face of Rico’s commitment to the warrior life. While the book has been criticized as preachy and moralizing, these are foibles that I tolerated well, knowing that another action sequence would not be long in coming.

I like books from guys who’ve traveled and been around a while before sitting down to write them. I suppose I’m one, but Graham Greene remains a hero of mine even though he died over twenty years ago. In this book, Greene masterfully creates the atmosphere of dark, damp, smoky post-war side streets in post-war Vienna.   

That the criminal element involves a crime syndicate selling diluted penicillin also appeals to me, as I’ve written three novels about fraud and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.  

Green’s book led to a series of films, and this book's signature tune still resonates with me. 

Spy novels, especially the British ones, are densely plotted, densely written, densely serious stories full of politics and betrayals…without a smile to be had by the characters or the reader. The only funny ones are satires. But this book is different.

I could enjoy all the pleasures of a spy novel, with all the betrayals and plot twists, and find myself laughing even as I was caught up in the suspense and surprises. If anything, the laughs made the twists more twisty and the tragedies more tragic.

This book revitalized an entire genre for me…by knowing where to find the humor in what was always portrayed as a humorless job in a humorless world. 

I first read this book not because of interest—in fact, I hadn’t read anything else by its author, Robert Ludlum. Instead, I read this novel because I had been told that my writing was like that of Ludlum’s.

And that is startlingly true. It was as if reading something I had forgotten having written but which was richer with a depth of ever-increasing emotional nuances than works of a comparable kind. It’s a compelling read.

Through a combination of unusual story elements and narrative style, this novel engages a reader in the main character’s journey to discover his forgotten identity. Although this isn’t an all-that-unusual aspect of story-telling, the espionage element makes it a singular literary experience. Over the course of the novel, I progressively felt as if I were spending time with a really awesome friend. And this is owed to, I think, the “slow burn” of empathy compelled… show more.

My fifth book is not a novel but a true story about modern politics and warfare. 

This book is about Doctor David Kelly, a biologist like me. Kelly led the search for biological weapons in Iraq before the Iraq war. Unfortunately, he didn’t find enough evidence to suit the government of the day, but they still went ahead by issuing a now famous ‘dodgy’ and ‘sexed-up’ dossier that was the excuse to invade Iraq. Shortly afterward, on a July afternoon in a quiet part of Oxfordshire, England, Kelly went for a walk and never returned. He was found dead, slumped against a tree. 

Kelly’s death and the unanswered questions it left behind still bother me, but if you want to understand a quiet, sensitive man and the machinations of a government desperate to find a reason to declare war, then this book is a good start.

This book provided an insight into WWII in Italy. It is captivating and informative.

It tells the story of Pino, a brave 17-year-old who not only spied on the Germans who occupied his homeland but also crossed the Alps many times to save Jewish people. Full of mystery and intrigue, it was hard to put down until the end.

When I heard of the 2021 mass murder at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the fear of anti-Semitism became deeply personal.

I grew up just a few blocks from the synagogue. (I was raised Catholic.) In Kuznetsov’s “documentary novel” about Nazi-occupied Ukraine, the author recounts how, as an 8-year old, he witnessed the German army’s 1941 invasion of Kiev.

They set about massacring over 30,000 Jews within the first week of occupation. This happened in a large ravine only a stone’s throw from the boy’s home. This third edition of the book comprises the heavily censored published Soviet text, the uncensored text, and Kuznetsov’s added commentaries.

It is a palimpsest that lets us see past, present, and no doubt future ways that regimes use history to control what people know about their own past.