Here are 35 books that Silent Scream fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been fascinated by mysteries of all kinds for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, I enjoyed Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason books, which I found on my grandparents’ shelf, as well as the mysteries left to us by ancient cultures. The truth, for me, has always been something to be sought and treasured: mysteries and conundrums, things to be figured out and solved. But while credibility in all types of fiction is vital, it has to be about the characters for me, not just the plot. The people have to be real, no matter how unlikely the scenarios they are involved in.
One of the best books I've read in ages. Why haven't I heard of this author before?? Gripping. Horrifying. Compelling. A no-holds-barred thriller that hooks you from page 1 and doesn't let go.
There are elements of horror here, but not supernatural: it’s purely in the way the all-too-real stalker targets his victim—and then, also, the newly licensed young female PI with more than enough problems of her own who takes on the case of the woman he’s fixated on. With the police refusing to accept that he even exists, the two women are left to catch him on their own—before he kills one or both of them.
From New York Times bestselling author Jana DeLeon, the first in a new thriller series.
Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye.
Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. Nine years later, she’s a licensed private investigator, with a single goal—to get answers for her clients when there aren’t supposed to be any.
And maybe someday, answers for herself.
Emma Frederick thought her nightmare was over when she killed her abusive husband, but someone is stalking her…
I have been fascinated by mysteries of all kinds for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, I enjoyed Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason books, which I found on my grandparents’ shelf, as well as the mysteries left to us by ancient cultures. The truth, for me, has always been something to be sought and treasured: mysteries and conundrums, things to be figured out and solved. But while credibility in all types of fiction is vital, it has to be about the characters for me, not just the plot. The people have to be real, no matter how unlikely the scenarios they are involved in.
Captivating, well-drawn characters and an intriguing, twisty storyline that keeps you guessing and turning pages. There’s plenty of action and excitement, as well as lighter moments of dark humor. This story has everything I want from a cop thriller. A great opening to a new series. I am definitely a fan!
Judith Anderson’s no-nonsense attitude and confidence served her well in her climb to homicide lieutenant in the Baltimore County PD, but that confidence is shaken when she finds herself one step behind a serial killer—just eight days into her new job as Chief of Police in a small Florida city.
The first victim, a female college student, may be a case of wrong place, wrong time. But the bodies keep coming, with a mishmash of MOs, and the murders may be linked to various cases in nearby Jacksonville.
While Judith assumed the CoP job would be challenging, she’s finding it…
I have been fascinated by mysteries of all kinds for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, I enjoyed Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason books, which I found on my grandparents’ shelf, as well as the mysteries left to us by ancient cultures. The truth, for me, has always been something to be sought and treasured: mysteries and conundrums, things to be figured out and solved. But while credibility in all types of fiction is vital, it has to be about the characters for me, not just the plot. The people have to be real, no matter how unlikely the scenarios they are involved in.
Marnie Riches’ characters never let you go, they’re so real and three-dimensional, and the stories grip from start to finish. For me, I questioned the need to link these books through the titles and artwork with Steig Larsson's books.
If anything, it put me off them, but I tried this one anyway and was instantly hooked. Now, having read both series, I have to say I much prefer these. Instead of rehashing Van der Valk, they should have made these books into a TV series.
A city on fire. A killer on the loose. And she’s next…
When the bomb rips through the university, Georgina McKenzie is shocked—and then determined to find out more. As an aspiring criminologist, she doesn’t believe the media spin about a suicide bomber. Something doesn’t add up.
Detective Paul van den Bergen is under pressure to solve the case, but when a second explosion claims the life of another student, he suspects a serial killer is at work. And he knows the perfect person to help track them down: George.
George knew both of the victims and is desperate to…
I have been fascinated by mysteries of all kinds for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, I enjoyed Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason books, which I found on my grandparents’ shelf, as well as the mysteries left to us by ancient cultures. The truth, for me, has always been something to be sought and treasured: mysteries and conundrums, things to be figured out and solved. But while credibility in all types of fiction is vital, it has to be about the characters for me, not just the plot. The people have to be real, no matter how unlikely the scenarios they are involved in.
Tim Weaver has a way of getting under the skin of not just his characters but his readers, too. For me, it helped that his main character, like me, had lost his wife to cancer. I could instantly relate. But beyond that, the plot was gripping, drawing me in and holding my attention from start to finish.
While reading one of his books and for a long time afterward, your mind has only two ways to be—either reading his book or thinking about his book.
Missing persons investigator David Raker’s heartstopping hunt for a mother’s vanished son—book one of Tim Weaver’s international bestselling mystery series
One year ago, Alex Towne’s body was found. One month ago, his mother saw him on the street. One week ago, David Raker agreed to look for him. Now he wishes he hadn’t.
Mary Towne’s son, Alex, went missing six years ago. Five years later he finally turned up—as a corpse in a car wreck. Missing persons investigator David Raker doesn’t want the work: it’s clearly a sad but hopeless case of mistaken identity brought to him by a woman…
My favorite childhood summertime memory is being allowed to choose a stack of Agatha Christies to take with me to summer camp and on vacation. As I moved on to academia and the “serious” study of literature, I quickly discovered that mysteries are every bit as serious as James Joyce—and are a lot more fun to read. Now that I have turned to writing the stories myself, I enjoy diving into a world of afternoon tea, well-read detectives, and impeccably mixed cocktails, and I love to find readers who want to join me there.
The Three Coffinsis legendary among traditional mystery fans for its “locked room” lecture in Chapter Seventeen, in which the detective, Dr. Gideon Fell announces, “We're in a detective story, and we don't fool the reader by pretending we're not. Let's not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories. Let's candidly glory in the noblest pursuits possible to characters in a book." He then goes on to enumerate and classify the possible solutions to an impossible crime. What I love about this chapter is that Carr unapologetically defends escapist stories that depend upon style, wit, and an intelligent puzzle, rather than grimly realistic depictions of everyday life.
Professor Charles Grimaud was explaining to some friends the natural causes behind an ancient superstition about men leaving their coffins when a stranger entered and challenged Grimaud's skepticism. The stranger asserted that he had risen from his own coffin and that four walls meant nothing to him. He added, 'My brother can do more... he wants your life and will call on you!' The brother came during a snowstorm, walked through the locked front door, shot Grimaud and vanished. The tragedy brought Dr Gideon Fell into the bizarre mystery of a killer who left no footprints.
My love of British crime fiction began when, as a young teen, I discovered Agatha Christie on the shelves of my local library. With Scottish grandparents, I was already well indoctrinated in the “everything British is best” theory, but it was as a student at St. Clare’s College, Oxford, that I fell totally under the spell of the British Isles. No surprise, then, that my Kate Hamilton Mystery series is set in the UK and features an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. I love to read the classic mysteries of the Golden Age as well as authors today who follow that tradition.
Since the publication of Dorothy L. Sayer’sThe Unpleasantness at the Bellona Clubin 1928, London’s gentlemen’s clubs, bastions of upper-class male privilege, have been fertile ground for murder and mayhem. Huang’s debut novel is set in 1924. With the memory of the Great War still fresh in everyone’s minds, the prestigious soldiers-only Britannia Club is rocked by the stabbing of a member within the club vaults. The killer must be a fellow club member, but when Eric Peterkin, descendant of one of the club’s founders, witnesses the Scotland Yard detective tampering with evidence, he is forced to launch an investigation of his own.
The year is 1924. The streets of St. James ring with jazz as Britain races forward into an age of peace and prosperity. London's back alleys, however, are filled with broken soldiers and still shadowed by the lingering horrors of the Great War.
Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders himself, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: The Britannia. But when a gentleman's wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim's last words echo in the Lieutenant's head: that he would "soon right a great…
All of the books I’ve listed above have flawed characters. Characters that deal with emotional and/or moral dilemmas. The plots: murder, missing children, or runaway husbands are secondary to me. What I look for in a book and what I write about in my Cole and Callahan series, are characters with flaws. People who struggle with truth. Cops or investigators that hide or skew evidence because the truth would cause more harm than good. It’s the moral dilemma I want. The angst we all feel when we are faced with a particularly painful decision. That’s what real life is and that’s what brings a book and a character to life.
Cormoran Strike and his business partner, Robin Ellacott, are searching for a missing writer who has penned a scathing novel, revealing his friend's most tightly held secrets. Any one of them would be happy to take him out. Ellacott and Strike are hired by his wife to find him. They do, brutally murdered. Besides facing a plethora of possible murderers, Strike and Ellacott face that there’s more than a working relationship evolving between them. But with Stike’s recent break-up and Ellacott’s live-in boyfriend, feelings are buried. After they solve their twisted case, I’m on to the next book in the series to see how Cormoran and Robin will move forward together. I love a good mystery and I love a relationship plagued with obstacles. The Silkworm delivers on both.
'Teems with sly humour, witty asides and intelligence ... A pleasure to read' TIMES
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Now a major BBC drama: The Strike series
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.
But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost…
The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.
The North of England isn’t all post-industrial urban centres of decay. As well as being home to large and important cities, its green spaces are plentiful and attract numerous tourists to its many attractions. Frances Brody’s PI Kate Shackleton series makes use of Yorkshire’s picturesque and pleasant rural settings, not least the rolling moors leading to the coastal town of Whitby in the series’ eighth outing. Set in the 1920s, Brody’s series is also a reminder of the importance of subverting and challenging social norms, but never at the expense of entertaining the reader.
'Frances Brody has made it to the top rank of crime writers' Daily Mail
'Brody's writing is like her central character Kate Shackleton: witty, acerbic and very, very perceptive' Ann Cleeves
AN IDYLLIC SEASIDE TOWN
Nothing ever happens in August, and tenacious sleuth Kate Shackleton deserves a break. Heading off for a long-overdue holiday to Whitby, she visits her school friend Alma who works as a fortune teller there.
A MISSING GIRL
Kate had been looking forward to a relaxing seaside sojourn, but upon arrival discovers that Alma's daughter Felicity has disappeared, leaving her mother a note and the pawn…
I’ve always enjoyed murder mysteries, with spy novels coming a very close second. I like the puzzle aspect of the story and the unravelling thereof. From early in my childhood I have written and it has never occurred to me to write in any other genre than Crime Fiction. I do like, however, both in my own output and that which I read, to gain an insight into other people’s lives and histories. I like to learn about the surroundings in which the stories are set. Also, for me a must, the characters have to be rounded and three dimensional.
Agatha Christie has got to be considered as one of the master craftsmen of the “whodunnit”. In this novel, she presents us with an intriguing mystery and brings in her famous character, Hercule Poirot to solve it. As always, Poirot faces a varied array of possible suspects and the highly-credible reasons as to why he/she may be the guilty party. The pace is consistent and keeps the reader turning the page and trying to guess until the unmasking at the very end.
Hercule Poirot is called on to investigate the murder of a brother and sister, in this classic Agatha Christie mystery now available in an updated edition with a foreword Sophie Hannah.
“He was murdered, wasn’t he?”
When Cora Lansquenet is savagely murdered, the extraordinary remark she had made the previous day at her brother Richard’s funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richard’s will, Cora was clearly heard to say, “It’s been hushed up very nicely, hasn’t it. But he was murdered, wasn’t he?”
Did Cora’s accusation a dark truth that sealed her own fate? Or…
I have picked these books because I have a passion for good reading material. All the books I have chosen have become reading classics in their own way. They are well written and have plots that go well beyond normal literature in a sense that they unveil the 'human condition' into the realm of the protagonist being up against all odds, where in the end, truth reveals all!
This book was a birthday gift from a good friend and fellow writer at The Guardian. It captured my interest immediately because I enjoy Patterson. This exciting action thriller explores the seedy life of Las Vegas, where love and murder are lost and found for a few quick dollars.
I especially enjoyed his tale with wild twists, where his main character, Jack Morgan, is continually beaten down and challenged through incredible odds and tribulations.
Jack Morgan, head of Private Investigations, the global PI agency of the rich and famous, is being pushed to the limit. His car has been firebombed, his ex is dating someone else, and his twin brother is still out to destroy him.
But Private doesn't rest, and nor do its clients: not the LAPD who need Private's help catching two scumbags with diplomatic immunity, and not the client who has just confessed to murdering his wife.
Add to that Jack's best friend being held on a trumped-up charge that could see him locked away for a…
