100 books like Killer Bodies

By Heleen Kist,

Here are 100 books that Killer Bodies fans have personally recommended if you like Killer Bodies. 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 A Dark Matter

Catriona Child Author Of Trackman

From my list on showing the hidden parts of Edinburgh.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Scottish writer who has lived in Edinburgh for over twenty years and feel a deep affinity for the city. Edinburgh is known for its festival and its castle, which are the parts of the city that the tourists flock to, but there is so much more to it than that. I like books that show the city in a different light: the ones in which Edinburgh itself becomes a character and not just a backdrop; the books that invoke the darker side of Edinburgh, the bits that stay hidden, the bits that only the locals know about. 

Catriona's book list on showing the hidden parts of Edinburgh

Catriona Child Why did Catriona love this book?

This is the first book in the Skelfs series by Doug Johnstone. A Dark Matter introduces us to Dorothy, Jenny, and Hannah, three generations of women who run a funeral home and a private investigator business in Edinburgh. Each chapter is from the perspective of one of the three central characters and gives the reader a different take on what is happening. The crime elements of the story keep you guessing and make you want to read on, however these are interspersed with moments of introspection from the characters who meditate on issues such as science versus faith and the different ways people deal with grief. It is both uplifting and grim all at the same time as well as being darkly humorous, and it takes you to the parts of Edinburgh that the tourists don’t go to.

By Doug Johnstone,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Dark Matter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Three generations of women from the Skelfs family take over the family funeral home and PI businesses in the first book of a taut, gripping page-turning and darkly funny new series.

***Shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Best Scottish Crime Book of the Year***
***Shortlisted for the Amazon Publishing Capital Crime Awards***

'An engrossing and beautifully written tale that bears all the Doug Johnstone hallmarks in its warmth and darkly comic undertones' Herald Scotland

'Gripping and blackly humorous' Observer

'I was addicted from the first page; gripping, gritty and darkly funny as hell' Erin Kelly

'A Dark Matter showcases a…


Book cover of Skagboys

Guy Portman Author Of Necropolis

From my list on darkly humorous fiction stocking fillers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a dark fiction author. As far back as anyone can remember I have been an introverted creature, with a rapacious appetite for knowledge, a dark sense of humour, and an insatiable appetite for books. Having written eight darkly humorous works of fiction and read dozens of titles that fall into this genre, I believe that I am the ideal person to provide you with recommendations for darkly humorous fiction stocking fillers this Christmas. Think of me as the Santa of darkly humorous fiction. My titles include the Necropolis Series. Their protagonist is Dyson Devereux – a cultured council worker and compulsive murderer with sardonic tendencies.

Guy's book list on darkly humorous fiction stocking fillers

Guy Portman Why did Guy love this book?

Skagboys is the prequel to Trainspotting. Its colourful cast of characters hails from the Edinburgh port suburb of Leith. The book is set in the 1980s against a backdrop of HIV, Thatcherism, and the rise of dance music. The extensive employment of Scottish vernacular makes traversing this tome (548 pages) challenging but rewarding.

I was mesmerised by the lurid descriptions, dark humour, diverse prose, and the memorable, amoral characters. Skagboys will appeal to all fans of darkly humorous fiction and transgressive fiction.

By Irvine Welsh,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Mark Renton has it all: he's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s. Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone. When his family starts to fracture, Mark's life swings out of control and he succumbs to the defeatism which has taken hold in Edinburgh's grimmer areas. The way out is heroin.

It's no better for his friends. Spud Murphy is paid off from his job, Tommy Lawrence feels himself being sucked…


Book cover of Hard Man

Eric Beetner Author Of The Last Few Miles of Road: A Carter McCoy Novel

From my list on down the dark road of revenge.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like many readers, I am drawn to stories of vengeance. Stories of someone seeking revenge have a built-in tension and narrative drive. But as the saying goes, when you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. Yes, these tales seldom go smoothly. The consequences of this and the violence that ensues are what I wanted to explore in my latest novel, but several books on my shelf make fascinating stories out of this desire for revenge.

Eric's book list on down the dark road of revenge

Eric Beetner Why did Eric love this book?

None of Guthrie’s characters are anyone you want to get on the wrong side of. Pearce, an ex-con and Edinburgh hard man, may be his most dangerous creation. Guthrie’s black humor is fully displayed in this novel of a man out for blood and bound to get it in ever more inventive ways.

The Scottish writer Guthrie is in danger of falling into obscurity, but several of his other evangelists and I are intent on not letting that happen. This book is a good place to start with his work; if you like it, you will have a world of dark pleasures waiting in his other books.

By Allan Guthrie,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Has Pearce finally found his match? A time-served Edinburgh hard man, Pearce is still recovering from the recent loss of his mother in a stabbing incident in a post office robbery. He's invited by the dysfunctional Baxter family to protect their pregnant 16-year-old daughter from Wallace, her 26-year-old husband, a man with a penchant for killing family pets. Having found out that the baby's not his, Wallace has sworn vengeance. Pearce declines the job: he's no babysitter. But when Wallace kills Pearce's dog, he goes too far. Now it's personal. It's time to find out who the real hard man…


Book cover of One Good Turn

Eleanor Cooney Author Of Death in Slow Motion: A Memoir of a Daughter, Her Mother, and the Beast Called Alzheimer's

From my list on if great writing is your reason to live.

Why am I passionate about this?

I took an early plunge into literature because of my very smart, highly literate parents, and it shaped my young brain. When my brilliant mother came down with Alzheimer’s, I had been a professional published writer for years, with a penchant for the non-pollyanna side of life. Here was the perfect subject matter. My aim was to take on her disintegration and downfall and turn it into art, to produce something as pitiless and unladylike as the disease itself. If people learn something about Alzheimer’s by reading it, that’s fine. But my larger purpose was to do her (and my) ordeal justice via the powers she bestowed on me.

Eleanor's book list on if great writing is your reason to live

Eleanor Cooney Why did Eleanor love this book?

Atkinson is a Scottish author who blends the murder mystery genre with superb writing. The result is startling, and not quite like anything we’ve seen before. As a murder mystery, this novel has it all. Set in Edinburgh, it’s rich with suspense, wild plot twists, a cast of truly memorable and unruly characters who are all, mostly unbeknownst to them, in an elaborate dance with one another. Atkinson tantalizes us with wicked secrets until the very last page. Darkly comic humor permeates throughout, and as we aficionados of dark humor know, it is the flip side of deep empathy for poor struggling, suffering humanity. Her rendering of a man dying from a blow to the head, told from the point of view of the victim in the last seconds of his life, could not have been written better by James Joyce himself.

By Kate Atkinson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked One Good Turn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Atkinson's bright voice rings on every page, and her sly and wry observations move the plot as swiftly as suspense turns the pages of a thriller."-San Francisco ChronicleTwo years after the events of Case Histories left him a retired millionaire, Jackson Brodie has followed Julia, his occasional girlfriend and former client, to Edinburgh for its famous summer arts festival. But when he witnesses a man being brutally attacked in a traffic jam - the apparent victim of an extreme case of road rage - a chain of events is set in motion that will pull the wife of an unscrupulous…


Book cover of Trainspotting

Colm O'Shea Author Of Claiming de Wayke

From my list on books with a gritty psychedelic worldview.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, and writing professor at New York University. I also have a fascination with altered states of consciousness, especially with mysticism, psychosis, and psychedelic art. (My book James Joyce’s Mandala examines all three.) My first novel, Claiming De Wayke, delves into those elements too, but with a particular focus on vivid first-person narration, so most of my recommendations involve books that are not only trippy in terms of plot and characterization but are also psychedelically inflected in their use of language itself. I hope you check some of them out.  

Colm's book list on books with a gritty psychedelic worldview

Colm O'Shea Why did Colm love this book?

I grew up in rural Ireland, so not exactly the gritty urban Scotland of Welsh’s novel, but the first thing that struck me about the book was its savage, semi-feral, intensely real Scottish dialect. I’d never seen anything quite like it in print.

The prose feels almost illegal, a ne’er-do-well that has simply decided to break into the publishing house and force its way onto the page without anyone’s permission. I didn’t consciously plan to steal this technique for my own novel, but how could I not endorse it?

Welsh has written more explicitly psychedelic works, but this book remains for me his masterwork, underscoring how, in many ways, his protagonist Renton’s life is at its weirdest when he tries to get sober.  

By Irvine Welsh,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Trainspotting as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'An unremitting powerhouse of a novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent. Trainspotting is a loosely knotted string of jagged, dislocated tales that lay bare the hearts of darkness of the junkies, wide-boys and psychos who ride in the down escalator of opportunity in the nation's capital. Loud with laughter in the dark, this novel is the real McCoy. If you haven't heard of Irvine Welsh before-don't worry, you will' The Herald


Book cover of Breathers: A Zombie's Lament

T.L. Bodine Author Of River of Souls

From my list on with zombie main characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a life-long horror lover and author of dark fiction. I've been reviewing films and video games for Ravenous Monster ezine for nearly a decade, and my Wattpad horror novel The Hound is currently being adapted for film. My favorite thing is the intersection of the horrifying and fantastic with the mundane, and that's what appeals to me so much about zombies: in all of their multitudinous representations, they've always held up a mirror to humanity. No monster can so easily reflect the many facets of humanity as a zombie. Because, after all, the dead were once just like us – and if we're not careful, we might end up just like them in the end.

T.L.'s book list on with zombie main characters

T.L. Bodine Why did T.L. love this book?

Imagine coming back from the dead only to realize the world doesn't want you: You move in with parents who are disgusted by you, random strangers on the street throw food or pull mean jokes on you and your friends, and being caught out past your curfew sends you to the dog pound. That's the life that Andy Warner reanimates into after a fatal accident. It's not all bad, though. At least he's got some friends at the Undead Anonymous support group, including the dead-sexy Rita, and Ray, a guy whose “venison” seems to come with some miraculous healing abilities. This is a darkly comedic book filled with a colorful cast, and you can't help but delight in the tragic spiral of the characters as they become increasingly inhuman. After all, can you blame them? 

By S.G. Browne,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

For fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Christopher Moore, a hilarious debut novel about life (and love) after death.

Meet Andy Warner, a recently deceased everyman and newly minted zombie. Resented by his parents, abandoned by his friends, and reviled by a society that no longer considers him human, Andy is having a bit of trouble adjusting to his new existence.

But all that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds kindred souls in Rita, an impossibly sexy recent suicide with a taste for the formaldehyde in cosmetic products, and Jerry, a twenty-one-year-old car-crash victim with an…


Book cover of Pulp

John Bowie Author Of Weston-super-Nightmare: A Hellbent Riff Raff Thriller

From my list on gritty noir full of poetic lines and dark humour.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the author of the Black Viking and Hellbent Riffraff Thrillers and several volumes of dirty realism poetry. I am also the Founder and editor-in-chief of Bristol Noir, an indie publisher and ezine specialising in curiously dark fiction and crime noir. Since 2017 Bristol Noir has been publishing up-and-coming and best-selling authors from around the world. I’m a writer originally from Northumberland in Northern England. In the late 90s, I studied in Greater Manchester when the IRA bomb went off and during the infamous years of the Hacienda club. I now live in Bristol. I’ve devoted my writing to exploring my heritage and the environments I’ve been in.

John's book list on gritty noir full of poetic lines and dark humour

John Bowie Why did John love this book?

This is the dirty realist poet, Charles Bukowski's, last novel and is filled with intriguing code and name-dropping of people he knew and was influenced by. As well as being as poetic as hell. Pulp also gives a glimpse of what it might have been like if Bukowski had lived on and ventured fully into crime fiction or pulp noir.

I love the book’s surface-level simplicity to draw you into its world. However, it then subversively lets bigger themes creep in: including surrealism and spiritualism, as the author faces his own death. All this with Bukowski’s deftly poetic touches.

This showed me how semi-autobiographical elements can fuse and influence fiction and vice versa. And, that it doesn't have to be hard to absorb or distract from the story. By acknowledging layers in writing which are there for those who want to peel back and discover them. And when they don’t,…

By Charles Bukowski,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Charles Bukowski's brilliant, fantastical pastiche of a detective story. Packed with wit, invention and Bukowski's trademark lowlife adventures, it is the final novel of one of the most enjoyable and influential cult writers of the last century.

Nicky Belane, private detective and career alcoholic, is a troubled man. He is plagued not just by broads, booze, lack of cash and a raging ego, but also by the surreal jobs he's been hired to do. Not only has been hired to track down French classical author Celine - who's meant to be dead - but he's also supposed to find the…


Book cover of Wilt

Lee Darkin-Miller Author Of It's All About Teddy

From my list on comedy for smirks: edgy and irreverent reads.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m primarily a music composer for film and TV, but I’ve also ventured into filmmaking, with one of my films being featured at an international film festival, so my journey in storytelling spans many years, and comedy has always been at its heart. Growing up, my father worked as a pit musician, which gave me exposure to the comedy acts of the time. Humor was a constant in our home, so when I started writing fiction, it felt only natural my writing would find a home in comedy.

Lee's book list on comedy for smirks: edgy and irreverent reads

Lee Darkin-Miller Why did Lee love this book?

This is an absolute classic of the comic novel genre, so popular that it found its way onto the big screen. This dark comedy plays out more like a farce as we follow the misadventures of Henry Wilt, an underappreciated and frustrated teacher. His life spirals out of control due to a series of absurd and ridiculous misunderstandings. The novel’s momentum is driven by these absurdities and gross misinterpretations, all skillfully woven together by the flawed actions of a cast of colorful characters, each caricatured to deliver maximum comedic impact.

Tom Sharpe imbues his characters—whether it's the incompetency of the police, Wilt’s oppressive wife, or Wilt himself—with wit and cynicism. His writing is a blend of slapstick, satire, and dark comedy, frequently veering into the absurd and ridiculous. Despite the over-the-top plot, the novel maintains a consistent pace and a dry, ironic tone. As a comic novelist myself, who values…

By Tom Sharpe,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Wilt as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

La más famosa novela de Tom Sharpe, en la que el autor no deja títere con cabeza. El protagonista, Henry Wilt, encadenado a un empleo demencial como profesor en un politécnico, acaba de ver postergado su ascenso una vez más. Mientras, las cosas no marchan mejor en casa, donde su maciza esposa, Eva, se entrega a imprevisibles arrebatos de entusiasmo por la meditación trascendental, el yoga o la última novedad recién olfateada. Wilt, que se siente impotente con respecto a su empleo, no vacila en entregarse a fantasías cada vez más asesinas y concretas acerca de su mujer, con la…


Book cover of The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead

Trebor Healey Author Of A Horse Named Sorrow

From my list on erotic themes that are imaginative and insightful.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been writing stories and poems with erotic themes since I first entered the spoken word scene in 1980s San Francisco. As a young queer boy, raised in the highly eroticized Catholic Church, I was actually comfortable talking about and writing about sex and eros as I’d been stigmatized by it, and it got me fascinated with what the big deal was and why writers were afraid to approach it or why they did so in a corny/predictable/idealized and/or often dishonest and clumsy way. Soon I was teaching erotic writing and have been integrating it into my writing in honest, fresh, and enlivening ways—and helping others do soever since.

Trebor's book list on erotic themes that are imaginative and insightful

Trebor Healey Why did Trebor love this book?

The Wild Boys is at once dystopian and utopian, featuring a band of boys who’ve gone rogue and have perfected strange and poetically beautiful sex rites which allow them to ritually and meditatively conjure or reproduce more wild boy offspring. At once science fiction and fantastical in its imaginative scope, it is also, like all Burroughs’s work, a profound exploration of social control, the excesses and assumptions inherent in state and religious terror, and the sexual and erotic oppression and misunderstanding that is the real enemy of freedom. Fearless and experimental, Burroughs inspires me to be bold, blunt, and not afraid to disturb or offend in exploring the poetic and erotic relationships between all manner of ideas.

By William S. Burroughs,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In this funny, nightmarish masterpiece of imaginative excess, grotesque characters engage in acts of violent one-upmanship, boundless riches mangle a corner of Africa into a Bacchanalian utopia, and technology, flesh and violence fuse with and undo each other. A fragmentary, freewheeling novel, it sees wild boys engage in vigorous, ritualistic sex and drug taking, as well as pranksterish guerrilla warfare and open combat with a confused and outmatched army. The Wild Boys shows why Burroughs is a writer unlike any other, able to make captivating the explicit and horrific.


Book cover of I Was Dora Suarez

John Bowie Author Of Weston-super-Nightmare: A Hellbent Riff Raff Thriller

From my list on gritty noir full of poetic lines and dark humour.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the author of the Black Viking and Hellbent Riffraff Thrillers and several volumes of dirty realism poetry. I am also the Founder and editor-in-chief of Bristol Noir, an indie publisher and ezine specialising in curiously dark fiction and crime noir. Since 2017 Bristol Noir has been publishing up-and-coming and best-selling authors from around the world. I’m a writer originally from Northumberland in Northern England. In the late 90s, I studied in Greater Manchester when the IRA bomb went off and during the infamous years of the Hacienda club. I now live in Bristol. I’ve devoted my writing to exploring my heritage and the environments I’ve been in.

John's book list on gritty noir full of poetic lines and dark humour

John Bowie Why did John love this book?

Derek Raymond’s 4th book in his Factory Series is sublimely dark and poetic. It’s brit-grit with an industrial, dirty backdrop and hard feel. Some lines are funny in their harshness with a cliched bad PI turned up to max.

This is a British hard-boiled, hard-drinking, and damaged detective with all the atmosphere of a French noir clashing with Ted Lewis’ Get Carter.

I Was Dora Suarez is a prime example of brit-noir with a flawed protagonist chasing clues and signs in an equally damaged world. Despite the bleakness of the characters and situations it’s impossible not to be gripped and have your face thrust against the glass to see.

By Derek Raymond,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I Was Dora Suarez as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An axe-wielding psychopath carves young Dora Suarez into pieces and smashes the head of Suarez's friend, an elderly woman. On the same night, in the West End, a firearm blows the top off the head of Felix Roatta, part-owner of the seedy Parallel Club. The unnamed narrator, a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police's Unexplained Deaths division, develops a fixation on the young woman whose murder he investigates. And he discovers that Suarez's death is even more bizarre than suspected: the murderer ate bits of flesh from Suarez's corpse and ejaculated against her thigh. Autopsy results compound the puzzle: Suarez was…


Book cover of A Dark Matter
Book cover of Skagboys
Book cover of Hard Man

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

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

1,214

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in dark comedy, Edinburgh Scotland, and Belgium?

Dark Comedy 299 books
Belgium 46 books