85 books like The Bomber

Benny Griessel has elements of a stereotypical cop who drinks too much and loses his family as a result, but Griessel’s humanity and self-loathing set him apart as a protagonist. He doesn’t believe that he’s any good as a detective or a human being, yet his ability to solve murders and to connect with people contradict this self-destructive inner dialogue. Themes of redemption, forgiveness, and revenge drive the book (and series), making this more layered than a simple whodunit. I like Griessel’s resolve to change and become a better person, even as he fights having a drink every hour of every day. His compassion, empathy, and humility ultimately seal the deal for me. I particularly enjoy the glimpses Meyer gives into South African society and policing.

McKinty takes you right to the streets of a city in chaos. An excellent, edgy, police procedural with a great sense of place––and McKinty doesn’t spare the language or violence in DS Sean Duffy’s first appearance.

In 1981 Belfast, it seems a serial killer is targeting homosexuals––an anomaly in Ulster during the troubles when most murders are sectarian. Just as Duffy starts to doubt this angle, a young woman, ex-wife of a hunger striker, commits suicide, or was she murdered––and was she connected somehow to the killings?

We’re immediately caught up in Duffy’s dysfunctional world, he’s a Catholic detective in the predominantly Protestant RUC. A hard drinker, too smart for his own good, but with a strong moral compass. 

I loved the main character Paddy Meehan’s voice in this series. Paddy is a lowly copygirl at a Glasgow newspaper with dreams of becoming an investigative journalist during a time when girls are expected to marry out of high school and have babies, not unlike the way things were when I entered the work world. Paddy is intelligent and driven and so outside the mold that her family and boyfriend, indeed the Scottish community, cannot understand her drive to be more than what society demands she should be. She’s someone I rooted for every step of the way as she navigates the old boys’ club in the 1980s and 1990s. Combine Paddy with Mina’s brilliant writing, realistic dialogue, and compelling plotlines, and this series is one to be savored. 

I absolutely love Blunt’s writing in this series. It is nuanced and beautifully paired with the troubled, multi-faceted characters. The books are set in the fictional town of Algonquin Bay, based in North Bay in Northern Ontario, a part of the country I know well having grown up a bit farther north and west. The setting permeates the stories—small town, dead of winter, lots of bush and conifer trees. The discovery of a body in a mine shaft fits perfectly. John Cardinal, lead cop, is struggling to help his clinically depressed wife and has recently been demoted. He’s a compelling character and so well drawn as is his new partner Lise Delorme. The books have been made into a gritty television series with superb acting, but I’d say read the books first because the writing is just that good.

Focusing on a deeply disturbed serial killer, this book got under my skin! I felt such a wide range of emotions reading this, from fascination to fear and shock, and couldn’t stop turning the page. Although the central character, detective Joona Linna, features in all the Kepler books, this book can be read as a stand-alone. 

Taking place in northern Sweden, where the cold and snowy environment plays its own part, this story focuses on a cult-like church where the founder has been brutally murdered. A lawyer and friend of the victim’s sister, Rebecka Martinsson, travels up from Stockholm to help solve the case. It’s dark and gritty and suspenseful – it’s also the first of 6 books. 

There are so few novels in English that explore Gustavian Stockholm, and this is a thrilling page-turner set in 1793 that explores the dark side of the capital city one year after the assassination of King Gustav III. Mikel Cardell, a watchman with a brutal past in the army, and Cecil Winge, an investigator who is hovering near death himself, team up to find the perpetrator of a heinous murder. Author Niklas Natt och Dag (translates to Night and Day — an old aristocratic name) has written a story steeped in graphic, gory period detail and authentic atmosphere.  

Musician, poet, drunkard, genius, and scoundrel, Carl Michael Bellman was a fascinating historical figure that I badly wanted as a character in my novel but had to cut. If music can define an era, then Bellman is the voice of the Gustavian age. This wonderful, illustrated non-fiction work brought Bellman and 18th century Stockholm to life for me; I borrowed it from the library for two years while working on the first draft of my own book. (Eventually, I bought my own copy.) Bellman’s songs and spirit remain part of Swedish culture today. 

Johan Theorin has received so much praise and accolades for this book that it feels a bit repetitive to heap more on. But here goes anyway. Like most of the books recommended here this one couples a mystery and a ghost story, never leaning completely to one side. The family moving into and restoring an old house is not exactly trailblazing in the ghostly realm but that does not matter at all. There is never too much of a good thing in my opinion. But make no mistake that a haunted house is not all that is being dealt with here, enter lighthouses, past shipwrecks, and drownings. Throw in present-day drug-addicted burglars, a tragedy, and excerpts from an old manuscript and the outcome is a master class in eeriness, drawing from an incredible sense of place and great storytelling.     

One early summer afternoon, the body of a young woman is dredged from the mud of Lake Vättern, and Detective Inspector Martin Beck of the Swedish National Police is assigned to the case. Who was she? Who killed her? These questions remain unanswered for months and months (and months). Catching a killer, it seems, is a slog, and the routines of police work are captured here in all their tedium. And this is exactly why I love this book, as it compellingly dramatizes (to quote from Henning Mankell’s introduction) “the fundamental virtue of the police: patience.” There’s a heroism to these steadfast and rumpled men, and something thrilling about their dogged, often frustrating, yet ultimately successful pursuit of the truth.