96 books like Spying in High Heels

I enjoyed being along for this wacky ride as Finlay accidentally gets herself hired as a contract killer, disposes of a body, and navigates the criminal underworld–all while raising her two small children and dealing with her infuriating ex-husband. There’s a love triangle in this book, but the relationship I enjoyed most was the friendship that develops between Finlay and Vero, her former nanny turned partner in crime.

This story is completely absurd, laugh-out-loud funny, and very suspenseful. 

In this first of the Pancake House series, we meet Marley, who comes to town to help out with her cousin’s restaurant. Immediately, Fox draws us in with relatable characters, a charming town, and that wonderful blend of new and old. For Marley, this isn’t her hometown so she has an outsider’s perspective but it is a place she spent many summers so she also has those memories that make the place more meaningful. The love interest is Brett, who she knows from those long ago summer days and as fun as the sleuthing is, the connection between these two kept me coming back for more. 

This book immediately drew me in because the main character is so relatable. I love the dynamic between her and her best friend, her ex-husband, her daughter, and the people in the town. I’m recommending this one as someone who has read all twelve in the series and I have to say, the development of the relationships and characters is simply awesome. Megan is newly divorced in book one but still living with her ex-husband (there are reasons) when we’re introduced to Eric, an out-of-town cop who, honestly, might be one of my favorite cozy love interests. 

The first book, in a really long series, pulled me in with its baking charm and the relatable main character. Set in a little village called Peridale, Julia is making her way on her own as a newly divorced woman who has shaky self-esteem and a lot of determination. I love the banter with the other characters, particularly the grandmother and the way Julia is back home but it all feels new because she’s been away for so long. I loved watching the relationship between Julia and Barker, the police inspector, develop and grow. I’m a hardcore romantic and watching them become a solid couple was a real joy. 

The Harry Bosch series has been long and often predictable.

Bosch has a strong belief that if everybody doesn’t count, nobody counts. He has to hold up his image of justice against an LAPD that plays politics, and a city populace easily swayed by the latest headlines.

What I love about The Last Coyote is that it’s a very personal novel where Bosch examines his relationship with his deceased mother Marjorie Phillips Lowe, a prostitute who was brutally murdered. While on psychiatric leave, Bosch takes on the case of his mother’s unsolved murder.

It’s a wonderfully nuanced exploration of the relationship between a mother and son, a cop and his own psyche, and a city and its most reviled citizens.

Although many fans consider Crais’s preceding book, L.A. Requiem, to be his masterpiece, I’ve chosen this because it perfectly encapsulates the relationship between flamboyant Elvis Cole and his partner, the enigmatic Joe Pike.

Pike is the ultimate sidekick. He’s taciturn, monosyllabic, and extremely complex. Dangerous as hell and completely loyal to Cole and anyone in Cole’s life; he’s taken bullets, knives—a whole bunch of weapons during the nineteen-book series.

In The Last Detective, the son of Cole’s girlfriend gets kidnapped and the evidence points to Cole’s service in Vietnam. Cole’s first call isn’t to the LAPD, it’s to Joe Pike. His message: ‘Joe, I’m scared.’ Pike drops everything and together they start hunting...

Pike is the third sidekick on my list to get his own series.

As a high school senior planning a career in law enforcement, I was mesmerized by Joseph Wambaugh’s account of the kidnapping of two Los Angeles police officers in 1963, and the murder of one of them.  Wambaugh unsympathetically details the stories of the two men convicted in the case, while at the same time humanizing the officer who survived and suffered from humiliation and guilt again and again throughout seven years of court proceedings against the men who kidnapped him and murdered his partner. The courtroom dialogue is verbatim, and to me, that leads to a feeling that the reader is actually there watching the proceedings. Wambaugh is a superb writer, and I consider this book is another must-read.

This is the first Alex Delaware book that I read, and I became immediately hooked. Delaware is a psychologist-detective based in Los Angeles, who works very closely with his good friend, Milo Sturgis, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. This story has them both looking back in time to a murder that Milo failed to solve. Between them they scour the “City of the Angels” and get to grips with this old case that never quite went away.

In the ninth book featuring Connelly’s iconic character, (now retired) LAPD detective Harry Bosch, the quintessential modern knight errant is working a case that’s haunted him for years – the murder of Angella Benton.

Her death might be linked to a bold and bloody robbery of 2 million dollars from a movie set where she worked as a production assistant, but neither crime was ever solved. Now Harry is intent on finding Angella’s killer.

The story is set against the backdrop of the movie industry and the celebrity-obsessed culture of Hollywood. Unimpressed by the trappings of power, Harry follows his instincts, led only by his guiding principle, “Everybody counts or nobody counts.”

But this time, he’s on his own without a badge or backup, and when his investigation hits very close to home, Harry finds himself facing brutal enemies determined to strike him down. 

Like any art form, fashion has its share of tortured geniuses. Perhaps none combined genius and torture with as much panache as Charles James, who dressed celebrities and socialites only to die in poverty. Vogue editor Bettina Ballard remembered that “he was constantly cutting and perfecting” his toiles, “which he turned, very occasionally, into actual dresses.” A personality as complex and demanding as his sculptural evening gowns, James knew everybody and got along with nobody—and you’ll understand why after reading Klein’s biography, which draws on recently discovered, unfiltered tapes James made for a planned autobiography that, like so many of his creations, he never he finished.