93 books like The Blank Wall

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.

This is a Gothic suspense classic, but the suspense is gradual in the most delicious way. The book begins with a 1930s meet-cute in which a young paid companion to a rich and unpleasant woman meets a wealthy, unhappy widower at a resort. The young woman befriends the man while her employer is bedridden with a cold, and the two share some funny and touching moments.

The Gothic part comes when he unexpectedly proposes marriage, and they return to his gargantuan family estate, Manderley, which was formerly run by his late wife, Rebecca. Now, the spookiness permeates the story, from the shadowy corners of the mansion to the constant watchfulness of the very creepy housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Rebecca has been in print for almost a hundred years, and that alone is evidence of its awesomeness.

In this modern feminist era, Maxim DeWinter might seem horribly patriarchal, but it’s utterly believable… show more.

I was intrigued by the twists and turns in this story. The writing is matter-of-fact, describing everyday events that culminate in a wonderfully unexpected ending.

I love the characters and, even though the main character is really not nice, I was drawn to him, realising that the influence of your parents, your upbringing, can affect who you are.

The Vault is the sequel to A Sight for Sore Eyes. It is a police procedural with the detective trying to identify several dead bodies found in an abandoned coal cellar. The dead seem to have no connection to each other, so the detective must also puzzle out how each of them came to be there. I recommend it because the reader has some fun: She knows the answers to all those questions from having read the first book. It’s a great twist on mystery-as-riddle whodunits. 

Jim Thompson’s novel is arguably San Diego’s greatest classic noir work.

While not a crime novel, it captures wartime San Diego through the glass darkly, and I was moved and unsettled by Thompson’s unsparing forays into the alienation of those who were the most exploited in the city.

Everyone loves a bastard, and Pinkie, the hero of Brighton Rock, is such an awful bastard. He doesn’t like his friends, hates his girlfriend, and is driven by a pathetically brittle ego that can never be satisfied. But it’s the fact he’s so hopelessly trapped in the prison of his own angry, petty horizons that makes me love him. I love a doomed character.

When an author can make you know, it’s all going to end badly and still make you hope it won’t? That’s magic. I love it when I’m reading books that I can feel playing with my emotions but I’m enjoying it so much I don’t care. Pinkie is a bastard, and he sort of knows it, when it comes to the crunch, and he goes out like a coward, I can’t help but wish he’d managed to pull it off.

Do I judge a book by its cover? Why yes, yes I do! And the moment I saw this gorgeous cover I put it right into my shopping cart, paid full price, and never looked back.

Luckily for me, Women in Intelligence happens to be an excellent book where the content more than matched the expectations I had from the fabulous artwork. Although there are a few familiar faces that appear, most of the women were completely new to me. Not the femme fatales of popular culture; these were patriotic women who often went unseen in the background.

I love that Fry truly delves into uncovering the unsung heroines of WWI and WWII, giving these quiet, determined women a chance to be recognized and to shine.

With compelling characters and true insights into the historical period it is set in, I consider this the best novel of all time. The movie it inspired is a classic, but the novel delivers much more.

The characters are brought to life with realistic motivations, dialogue, and inner monologues. Heinrich's masterful changes of point of view and suspenseful chapter breaks still maintain my interest every time. 

I can't praise the book enough for its pure literary quality, and even though it is a work of fiction, it has a ring of authenticity about it. The author served in the same regiment his fictional Steiner character belongs to and based him on a soldier who lived through the real-world events Heinrich set his novel in.

Most of this novel’s action occurs between World War I and World War II. It’s the riveting tale of a young German crushed by his country’s defeat and dedicated to doing something about it. He joins a network of assassins and aids in the murder of a high-ranking Jew in the Weimar government. Sent to prison, he meets a unique individual and begins an acute reexamination of everything he’s previously believed. This is a passionately compelling tale of one man looking deep within himself to make sense of what he’s done with his life. The author brings the times, as well as his characters vividly to life and makes this chronicle of redemption a supremely fulfilling read.

There are a handful of books that, upon finishing, I remark with absolute admiration, “I wish I would have written that.” This is one of these select, extraordinary books. Yergin presents an eye-opening, at times uncomfortably shocking, journey through petroleum geopolitics, challenging conventional notions about historical events, the modern world order, and how it came to pass.