Here are 54 books that Murder at Drury Lane fans have personally recommended if you like
Murder at Drury Lane.
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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.
Few authors could delver more perfectly into characters than Allingham. Although she created excellent puzzles, the beauty of her books is in the incisive portrayals. Here, she does a magnificent job of stripping away the glamour and finding the pride and jealousy behind the lively theater world. And it's impossible not to be engaged by the shrewd and mysterious sleuth, Albert Campion.
When song-and-dance star Jimmy Sutane falls victim to a string of malicious practical jokes, there's only one man who can get to the bottom of the apparent vendetta against the music hall darling - Albert Campion.
Soon, however, the backstage pranks escalate and an ageing starlet is killed.
Under pressure to uncover the culprit and plagued by his growing feelings for Sutane's wife, Campion finds himself uncomfortably embroiled in an investigation which tests his ingenuity and integrity to the limit.
"Allingham's work is always of the first rank." (New York Times)
"The real queen of crime." (Guardian)
"Allingham captures her…
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.
Graham's village mysteries are dark reflections of the villages found in Agatha Christie, and she is especially good at looking under the rocks and finding what's crawling behind the idyllic villages. Chief Inspector Barnaby is the perfect British sleuth, both tough and intelligent. She does a terrific job of finding the problems that drive us in everyday lives, in this case, the secret passions that hide at an amateur production.
Actors do love their dramas, and the members of the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society are no exception. Passionate love scenes, jealous rages'they're better than a paycheck (not that anyone one in this production of Amadeus is getting one). But even the most theatrically minded must admit that murdering the leading man in full view of the audience is a bit over the top. Luckily, Inspector Tom Barnaby is in that audience, and he's just the man to find the killer. With so many dramas playing out, there's no shortage of suspects, including secret lovers and jealous understudies galore.
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.
MacLeod gives us one of the most delightful and intriguing couples with art investigators Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn. Although the plots are fun, with a kind of loopy charm, the real joy is the delightful characters, mostly from the widespread and eccentric Kelling clan. The Kellings are in fine form backstage of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. Every character here is indelible.
Murder upstages a Kelling family theatrical production—and Boston’s art sleuths are on the case. “The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod’s cup of tea” (Chicago Tribune). Producing a Gilbert & Sullivan opera requires a special kind of madness, and the Kelling family is large enough and peculiar enough to undertake an entire company by themselves. For years now, Sarah Kelling’s Aunt Emma has supervised these annual productions—from The Pirates of Penzance to The Mikado—and this year she has invited her cast of relatives to rehearse The Sorcerer in her stately mansion. The show is nearly ready when a team of burglars…
In 2038 a devastating pandemic sweeps across the world. Two decades later, Britain remains the epicenter for the Fornax variant, annexed by a terrified global community.
David Malik is as careful as any man to avoid contact with the virus. But when his sister tests positive as an asymptomatic carrier,…
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…
I have always been fascinated by stories where everyday people are thrust into dangerous situations through no fault of their own. I’ve often wondered how I would react in such a situation. To me, it’s like going off to war. How would I react? Would I shrink away from danger or stand up like a man and do what I could to save myself and others around me? I’ve always found it interesting to write about everyday people who rise to the occasion and rely on their wits to extricate themselves from danger. I find myself rooting for them, urging them to find some inner strength they didn’t even know they had.
The first thing that drew me in was the format. The entire book, which is 466 pages long, is a response to a letter written on page one by the main character, Vivian. What a neat way to write a book.
In her letter to Vivian, Angela asks, “Vivian, what were you to my father?” It wasn’t the same old “telling” of a story, but Vivian’s detailed response from a historical perspective involving her experiences over the years in love, lust, glamour, and promiscuity and how these affected her life.
Vivian is in her 90s as she responds, and the story is told from her perspective as an old woman looking back on her life. I found myself rooting for her as she described her many struggles in her attempt to answer Angela’s question.
From the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and The Signature of All Things, a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don't have to be a good girl to be a good person.
"A spellbinding novel about love, freedom, and finding your own happiness." - PopSugar
"Intimate and richly sensual, razzle-dazzle with a hint of danger." -USA Today
"Pairs well with a cocktail...or two." -TheSkimm
"Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or…
As a teenager, I didn’t have the lack of inhibition or abundant self-confidence to excel in high school drama. Like Sadie in Bit Players, I finally wowed the directors at my senior year audition, only to learn the lead was promised in advance to someone else. I recovered and stayed involved in theater: cast, crew, and front-of-house jobs for a summer theater program; the box office for Cornell’s MFA program; and supporting my kids’ drama activities. Performing in a show is different from any other experience. If you’ve been in a show, you know this. If you haven’t, read on to enter the magical world of theatre.
This graphic novel skews younger than the others on this list. It’s a heart-warming, slice-of-middle-school-life that revolves around the school’s musical theater production, from auditions and rehearsals, set-building and costumes, to opening night, the 3-show run, and even the cast party. It invokes the highs and lows of a production, including the inevitable malfunctioning props and inter-cast issues. I love this story’s emphasis on how fun it is to work on sets, costumes, lights, and sound, and how important stage crew is to the production.
Theatre Quotient: High. The bulk of the plot revolves around the show.
Raina Telgemeier, the author of the award-winning SMILE, brings us her next full-colour graphic novel . . . DRAMA!
Callie loves theatre. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon Over Mississippi, she's a terrible singer. Instead she's the set designer for the stage crew, and this year she's determined to create a set worthy of Broadway on a middle-school budget. But how can she, when she doesn't know much about carpentry, ticket sales are down, and the crew members are having trouble working together? Not to mention the onstage AND offstage drama that…
What Happened to Frank? is the first book in the Meg Sheppard Mystery Series. Meg is an amateur sleuth who owns racehorses and lives on a horse farm. Her beloved border collie, Kelly, is usually at Meg's side as she investigates murders and solves other mysteries. The books are action-packed…
My twenty novels tend to focus on characters who face great challenges, and I have a particular appreciation for beautiful prose. I don’t read for distraction or entertainment, but to be enlightened, moved, and made more compassionate about different kinds of people in different environments.
I think Robert Stone was one of the greatest American novelists of the recent era, a man with a profound concern for how political situations affect the individual. I love Stone’s ability to delve into complex situations.
This is fiction, unlike the last two recommendations mentioned above, and takes place in Central America during the Seventies. I love books about political situations, and I love novels set in other countries. Stone is a master of both.
He was also a humble, good man, though maybe I’m not completely objective because he provided a generous blurb for my first novel. I had the pleasure of spending a little time with him after my novel was published, and I found him to be brilliant, funny, modest, and just a fun person to be around.
Like Dostoevsky, he was able to delve into deep matters by telling a great story with amazing characters.…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
The brilliance of Shenk’s book is that even someone who didn’t know the basic rules of chess would be enthralled by the backdrops of the game he introduces to the reader. Chess is played around the world by hundreds of millions of people and Shenk delves into the reasons why the game has such perversely addictive appeal.
A fresh, engaging look at how 32 carved pieces on a Chess board forever changed our understanding of war, art, science, and the human brain.
Chess is the most enduring and universal game in history. Here, bestselling author David Shenk chronicles its intriguing saga, from ancient Persia to medieval Europe to the dens of Benjamin Franklin and Norman Schwarzkopf. Along the way, he examines a single legendary game that took place in London in 1851 between two masters of the time, and relays his own attempts to become as skilled as his Polish ancestor Samuel Rosenthal, a nineteenth-century champion. With…
My new thriller centers around a small, mysterious cult and their shocking demise. For years, I’ve read true crime books on the subject, and I wanted to infuse the reality and truth of real-life events into my fictional novel. In a similar vein, these books represent a range of thrillers inspired by true events, ranging from cults to serial killers to teenage criminals. I hope you find these books as gripping and haunting as I do.
I’m fascinated by the in-depth character development and details in this book. The film is a classic, but I think the book is even better. Many people think of Hannibal Lecter as the obvious villain of Silence of the Lambs, forgetting that Clarice and the FBI were seeking his guidance to find “Buffalo Bill,” a fictional serial killer attacking women.
Buffalo Bill is an amalgamation of real serial killers, including Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, and Gary Heidnik. By cherry-picking the methods and traits of real killers, I think Harris created a truly terrifying villain. I find the characters, and especially the villain, to be rooted in reality, making them stick in your mind long after the last page.
As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames "Buffalo Bill," FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.
That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs--an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.
Cleo Cooper, a cross-cultural psychology professor, is living the dream on the Big Island of Hawaii. With ocean-dipping weekends, she enjoys her dog, her job, and her boyfriend Ben - until the day she’s on a research vessel and a dead body is caught in the dragline.
I suppose it began at age 10 as a transplant to Southern California from Minnesota. That awkward transition begged for an escape, and I found it in the supernatural. I watched the original Twilight Zones, tore through The Chronicles of Narnia one summer, discovered Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, and then picked up a pen and wrote. Creating new worlds became a calling. Then life and adulting got in the way, as they do, but over time, I’ve written three novels dealing with the supernatural. They’re the books I would have loved as a kid. They’re a leap into my head—care to try? It’ll be fun, he says.
What? Something inhuman is stalking through the New York Museum of Natural History? Yes, please! This book started a phenomenal run for Preston and Child, and they continue to hatch more gems to this day. You really can’t go wrong with anything these guys write, whether as a pair or individually.
Its gripping narrative made me quickly rip through it and want much more. Fortunately, there’s a treasure trove of subsequent novels from these guys. This is just the kind of story I love—an intellectual mystery mixed with some good old archaeology/anthropology and a pinch of supernatural monster horror. It has strong characters, it’s fast-paced, and often spooky. And isn’t there something about museums that makes the creative mind wander?
I loved that about the novel’s main setting. The movie was not as good, so I recommend just reading the book.
The New York Museum of Natural History is built over a subterranean labyrinth of neglected specimen vaults, unmapped drainage tunnels and long-forgotten catacombs.
And there's something down there.
When the mutilated bodies of two young boys are discovered deep within the museum's bowels, Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta of the NYPD fears a homicidal maniac may be at large. FBI agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast believes they may be facing something much worse.
As the death toll mounts, and with the opening of the museum's new 'Superstition' exhibition just days away, the two men must work together to prevent a massacre.
