81 books like Only Killers and Thieves

I love a clever sociopath. I felt myself strangely rooting for the main character, hoping that he would continue to evade the law and get away with his crimes. I liked the way the author built up this person, showing how smart, adaptive to changing circumstances, and manipulative he could be. I liked the backstory of social deprivation breathing life into his mysterious persona.

Ripley’s constant need for a new identity, desperate to escape from his past and humble origins, as well as grappling with his sexual identity, sustained my interest throughout the novel. It made me wonder what percent of the population would do anything to become someone else.

About halfway into Red Dragon, you meet Francis Dolarhyde, and from then on, the book is all his. Forget the FBI who are looking for him, the only person you care about is Dolarhyde, the serial killer who’s been brutally murdering entire families.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s the hero. Hannibal Lecter isn’t Thomas Harris’ best villain. It’s Dolarhyde. He’s everything Lecter isn’t. He’s awkward, shy, hates his body, hates himself and spends all his time stewing on his inadequacies. If I’ve got to pick between the Virgin Dolarhyde and the Chad Lecter, it’s Dolarhyde every time.

Deep down, he just wants to be loved, but the way he goes about it is almost comically misguided. Dolardhyde is on an impossible, bloody mission to fix himself, and no matter how many bodies he drops trying to do it, I’m always rooting for him to make it out the… show more.

I remember summers growing up when we were out of the house seeking freedom from parents as we streamed toward our teenage years, so I can identify with this story’s start. We’d follow deer trails through brush and trees to spots up in the hills we’d claimed as our own. This book begins with a prologue made vivid with three children and Tana French’s gorgeous prose.

The children go up and over a rock wall and into “A summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silk skin blue…your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat…” “…long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways…” and the haunted last sentence, “These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer.”

Surely, you’re not surprised to see the dark master himself on my list. Stephen King is one of the most prolific horror authors (or authors of any genre, for that matter) of all time. I have to be honest; I don’t always like his endings, but I love King’s vividly detailed stories. They draw you in and make the unreal feel very real. Misery is one of my favorites because it’s probably one of King’s best psychological thrillers. I also like that it’s a departure from his normal supernatural themes.

Sure, it doesn’t hurt that the protagonist is a novelist, but even if he wasn’t, I’d love this book. There’s nothing scarier than to be totally at the mercy of someone for your survival. And when that person is an unhinged lunatic who destroys your work and forces you to be her personal storyteller, or you won’t get medicine, food,… show more.

This 2002 novel follows young Harriet Cleve Dufresnes in 1970s Mississippi during the aftermath of the death of her nine-year-old brother, who was killed by hanging in the shadow of unexplained circumstances. I am particularly enamored by the novel’s focus on the customs and dynamics of Harriet’s extended Southern family.

Tartt best describes in her own words why I love this novel: It is “a frightening, scary book about children coming into contact with the world of adults frighteningly.”  

Long Way Down does an incredible job of telling such a contained story, telling everything within the span of a single elevator ride.

Reynolds uses the elevator trip to make the protagonist encounter ghosts of multiple dead people in his community, all connected to his murdered brother, and question if vengeance is the right answer to his grief. This is a well-deserved classic, and a must-read for all novel-in-verse fans!

David Joy, an Edgar Award finalist for his first novel, Where All the Light Tends to Go, is a master of character, mood, and setting. This novel is set in Appalachia and immediately we’re pulled into a dangerous world that has its own set of fierce rules for survival. The novel opens with Darl Moody hunting for a monster buck which if snagged can mean the difference between meat for the winter and an empty freezer. Hunting for men like Moody is not about sport but survival. Unfortunately, he’s followed his prey onto private land, where not only shouldn’t he be but where he certainly be hunting. When he accidentally kills not a buck but a man—it turns out he’s killed a Brewer, a member of a family notorious for vengeance and violence—his life is turned upside down and it’s touch and go as to whether he’ll survive. From… show more.

I loved that this book tells the story of him introducing his new baby sister, Margaret, to the reader. It also focuses on how Daniel can be a big helper in the family in an easy and relatable way.

The book also mentions the importance of special time with just Mom and Dad, which assures the older sibling that he or she is not forgotten and still loved. 

As a bookseller as well as a writer and editor, I believe strongly that good children’s books should also be read by adults.

The setting here is 1683, and the River Thames is frozen. I studied history, and I often stand on London Bridge and try to imagine the flowing water as a field of ice with stalls and side shows on the frozen surface. Embankments and new bridges mean the river no longer freezes, but this story brings historical London to life and allows us to feel what it would have been like.

A magic nocturnal Frost Fair, a lost boy, and a determined twin sister are at the heart of this bewitching story, which is dark yet uplifting–a perfect combination that had me gripped throughout. 

This ranch-centered book puts a human face on the cost of war.

A best in the West (or at least his small Nevada town) bull rider is physically and mentally torn apart by war. He can’t see the future he envisioned for himself anymore. But the story is really about his younger brother, Cam. I love Cam’s humor most of all, but his devotion to his idolized big brother is what makes this more than a story about a skateboarder turned bull rider.   

This book is about family in an opposite way from The Red Pony it confirms the safety net family can provide.