100 books like Naked Came the Detective

This is a twisted romantic suspense that delivers a gripping read.

Romance and suspense merge when a decade-old secret turns deadly. The opening chapter thrust me into the murder of Reagan Asher’s grandmother. Not getting what they wanted, the culprits set their sights on Reagan. Passed events become the premise of this novel, and Reagan must come to terms with her grandmother’s death and her father’s betrayal to stay alive and uncover the truth.

The unpredictable nature of this story was a winner for me.

This is an entertaining and addictive suspense.

This is a craftily written tale of murder against the breathtaking backdrop of the Thai Island of Samui (the Land of Smiles). The blend of local traditions and colorful characters lured me in until I could smell the spices and hear the beeping of car horns.

I love characters that are quirky and unpredictable, and private detective David Braddock is just that. He’s a man battling with his past and bad habits, keeping the Chief of Police satisfied and solving the murders before he gets sidelined by his superiors.

While this may not be classed as a suspense novel, it is just that for me. It is a brutal, honest, and heartbreaking story that lived on long after I finished reading it. Touching on dementia and Down Syndrome, the author weaves a magic web of true understanding and heartfelt emotions. 

Irene's strength, sense of responsibility, family, and love for her husband, Sam, make this a beautiful read. For Irene, it isn’t only about coming to terms with the loss of her sister, Rose, but finding out what happened the night that Rose died… and the truth is very different from what Irene thinks she saw.

This is a true story of a Russian spy that I found poetically sad yet uplifting.

This is a tale with no happy ending. And yet, ex-KGB naval intelligence officer Sergei leaves behind a compelling legacy of strength and bravery. His fight to ‘do the right thing’ and leave behind a regime that would eventually kill him is very real.

This is a plunge into a world of spies, murder, mistrust, and suffering. It filled me with awe and sadness, and it is not one I will forget easily.

Back in the 1970s, a noted American psychologist, Dr. Sam Janus, whom I had the privilege of meeting at a conference, produced an unusually brave book about the private sexual lives of politicians based upon extensive interviews with sex workers in Washington, D.C., written in collaboration with the experienced psychiatrist Dr. Barbara Bess and the journalist Carol Saltus.

At one level, the private lives of political leaders should remain completely private, but at another level, it might be worth knowing that some of the people who damage the country through poor decision-making also have a long-standing history of damaging their own bodies by paying to be tortured by those women, known back then as “call girls.” I greatly admire this book, as it has provided me with tremendous understanding of the ways in which the private sexual tendencies of many human beings, especially those who endeavour to govern nations, will… show more.

Better than any travel book, I’d recommend a Cara Black novel before going to Paris. I love her focus on a single district, or Arrondissement, in each of her Aimée Leduc detective novels. I especially like how she brings to life the history of each neighborhood. This is the first of the 20-book series and my favorite neighborhood in Paris. Aimée navigates politics and historic atrocities to solve the killing of an elderly Jewish woman, all the while trying to stay alive herself. You can almost smell the freshly baked baguettes.

One of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Set in Paris in the 1920s, this mystery has everything I want in an escapist read: a suave detective, his sharpshooting, bad-ass girlfriend, a twisty, unpredictable plot, and fabulous, quirky characters.

Many are based on icons of the era: Josephine Baker, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and all the usual Midnight in Paris celebrities. I first read this in my teens, and I still reread it for the madcap humor and view of Paris in the 1920s written by someone who was there.

This is the book that revolutionized the way social scientists think about sex work.

We know that sex work is gendered (more women work as sex workers than men) and at the same time women have made significant gains in the formal labor market. This book sought to answer the question of why sex work continued to be so prominent even though “outside options” were growing for women. 

Sex work integrated itself into the industrial system. Modern sex work has adapted to changing business practices and technology. Why? Because there is still a strong demand for the provision of intimate services and human sexual connection.  

The protagonist of this beautifully written, heart-rending book is the wonderfully-named Tequila Leila, a sex worker from Istanbul who, as the book begins, is dying in a rubbish bin on the outskirts of the city.

As her brain begins to shut down, Leila goes back in time to trace her story, while her friends, who she remembers in those ‘in-between’ moments between life and death, desperately look for her. 

Leila, for me, is ebullient, larger than life, and intensely lovable. Despite being brutalised and living much of her life in danger, her humanity shines through. Leila has heart and soul and her friends, a strange group of ‘undesirables,’ adore her. A life-affirming read. 

I suspect one of the reasons I enjoy reading (and writing) about amateur detectives is that I’m instinctively drawn to stories of the dispossessed – those without a voice, forced to take matters into their own hands because the proper authorities won’t listen. Kirstin Innes’ debut novel, about a woman investigating the disappearance of her sex worker sister, is not for the fainthearted: a deep dive into a parallel world that foregrounds the voices of the women who inhabit it and challenges widely-held conceptions about them – namely that they’re all poor, pathetic victims in need of rescuing. Innes’ thorough research shines throughout, and the result is a compelling, informative, and thought-provoking novel that avoids the common tropes associated with the “dead hooker” subgenre of crime fiction.