Here are 78 books that The Death of Lucy Kyte fans have personally recommended if you like
The Death of Lucy Kyte.
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An experienced genealogist, I became fascinated by true historical crime reports when I found murderers in my family tree. Since then, I have written ten historical mystery books featuring true unsolved crimes. My novels re-imagine what might have happened had the killers been brought to justice. My background in genealogy and vast experience trawling through historical newspaper reports has given me a passion for the past and a desire to resolve the unknown.
This riveting book covers the gruesome discovery of a murder in a Georgian house in the sleepy village of Road in Wiltshire. That someone has died is awful enough but realising that the murderer is a member of the household brings fresh horrors. The author meticulously follows the crime and subsequent investigation, sticking strictly to the facts while using her imagination to recreate the tense atmosphere while bringing the characters to life. Unputdownable.
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WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK
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'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times
'A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing' - John le Carre
'Absolutely riveting' - Sarah Waters, Guardian
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On a summer's morning in 1860, the Kent family awakes in their elegant Wiltshire home to a terrible discovery; their youngest son has been brutally murdered. When celebrated detective Jack Whicher is summoned from Scotland Yard he faces the unenviable task of identifying the killer - when the grieving family are the…
I adore crime fiction, especially mysteries. They make sense. In the real world, crime rarely has the resolution of fiction, and almost never has Belgian detectives with very neat moustaches, or old ladies solving a who-dunnit… I grew up reading these books, mentally inhaling everything from Christie to Rankin to McDermid, and now I spend my days writing brutal but quite silly murders solved by a woman who would really rather wear an old grey fleece and jeans than a sparkly dress, and her friends, the fictional TRASH drag family. Murder mysteries are fun – perfect escapism. In a world so messed up as ours is right now, don’t we need to escape into fiction?
I hate this book for all the reasons I love it: because it’s perfect.
It’s a perfect crime novel and a perfect mystery, with perfectly awful characters, set in a perfectly fabulous situation, and as a mystery writer I know I will never ever top Christie’s brilliance – but oh my, any chance I have, I fall into this story.
Romance. Deception. Murder. Shiny things.
Genius.
Forget the movie, pick up the real thing. Poirot at his best.
THE MOST WIDELY READ MYSTERY OF ALL TIME—NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY KENNETH BRANAGH AND PRODUCED BY RIDLEY SCOTT!
“The murderer is with us—on the train now . . .”
Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Without a shred of doubt, one of his fellow passengers is the murderer.
Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s…
An experienced genealogist, I became fascinated by true historical crime reports when I found murderers in my family tree. Since then, I have written ten historical mystery books featuring true unsolved crimes. My novels re-imagine what might have happened had the killers been brought to justice. My background in genealogy and vast experience trawling through historical newspaper reports has given me a passion for the past and a desire to resolve the unknown.
No true crime list would be complete without reference to the infamous Jack the Ripper, and of the many books I have read, this one stands out. True, the subject is gory, and for that reason, some might think that humour is out of place, but I like the bumbling detective Lestrade, and the author clearly knows his stuff. The detailed historical research accurately portrays the setting and times of the novel. Trow brings a different approach to a Sherlock Holmes-type story with an easy-to-read and witty style in a book well worth trying.
In the year 1888, London was horrified by a series of brutal killings. All the victims were discovered in the same district, Whitechapel, and they were all prostitutes. But they weren’t the only murders to perplex the brains of Scotland Yard. In Brighton, the body of one Edmund Gurney was also found.
Foremost among the Yard’s top men was the young Inspector Sholto Lestrade and it was to his lot that the un-solved cases of a deceased colleague fell. Cases that included the murder of Martha Tabram, formerly a prostitute from Whitechapel, and…
An experienced genealogist, I became fascinated by true historical crime reports when I found murderers in my family tree. Since then, I have written ten historical mystery books featuring true unsolved crimes. My novels re-imagine what might have happened had the killers been brought to justice. My background in genealogy and vast experience trawling through historical newspaper reports has given me a passion for the past and a desire to resolve the unknown.
While technically a novella, this profoundly disturbing story takes inspiration from the notorious BTK killer of the 1970s. BTK, alias Dennis Rader, killed at least ten people, yet his wife of 34 years denied ever knowing anything about his murderous exploits. Stephen King develops the story to show what it would be like for a happily married wife to discover suddenly that her husband has a hitherto unknown, sinister hobby. A chilling and thought-provoking read.
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Kristen Connelly, Joan Allen, and Anthony La Paglia, Stephen King’s short story, “A Good Marriage” from Full Dark, No Stars is now available as a stand-alone audio edition!
Bob Anderson, Darcy’s husband of more than twenty years, is away on one of his business trips, when his unsuspecting wife looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers she doesn’t know her husband at all, but rather has been living with a stranger. This horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, could be…
I’ve loved mysteries since I was a kid and became hooked on the Fear Street books by RL Stine. In college, I took a class on suspense and mystery and was introduced to the greats: Chandler, Hammett, Collins, Christie, Doyle… I could go on and on. As I consumed more, I became enamored with mysteries that were more than just stories about victims but also used crime as a vehicle to comment on the region’s social and economic issues. My favorite mysteries are more than the sum of its body parts. They also scrutinize the worlds where these heinous crimes were allowed to occur.
I loved visiting the Shetland isles with world-weary police inspector Jimmy Perez. The islands, the unique culture, weather, and the remoteness were such compelling components of the story. I loved how Ms. Cleeves used Scotland as one of her characters. She created this lush and detailed world that’s eerie and uncomfortable, the perfect setting for a murder mystery.
I’m also a sucker for a grumpy detective, and Jimmy Perez is such an understandably jaded character, but he still has a kind, warm heart under his crusty exterior that comes out when he’s interacting with his more novice colleagues and members of the community.
Introducing Inspector Jimmy Perez. Raven Black is the first book in Ann Cleeves' bestselling Shetland series - now a major BBC One drama, starring Douglas Henshal.
A remote community with a killer in their midst . . .
On New Year's Day, Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance . . .
At twelve, my favorite thing to read were the tattered, dog-eared Ellery Queen, or Alfred Hitchcock Mystery magazines my aunt let me borrow. From there I read every Agatha Christie novel available, and so began a lifetime of reading British authors. I love suspense these days, and of course, every British detective series I can find to stream. To research my books I’ve traveled to Britain, and have visited with my cousins, my family never lost touch with, in Scotland and in Yorkshire. You’ve heard “write what you know”. I love to write what I love. That’s why I wrote Deadly Thyme set in Cornwall, England.
In this book, the author uses a new character Elvira (her character reappears in subsequent books) who leads the reader forward in the first person, a breakaway from the usual (close) third person in the other books in the series. Her voice is so clear, you can’t help but fall in love with her strange quirks. She is a medical student and trained in body combat. Elvira’s sister has been missing for 59 days and she can’t get the police interested enough to take her seriously. Her sister was an adult after all and left with a packed bag. Anderson and Costello eventually do get involved as more and more young women disappear.
The action in this novel is fast and furious. It left me breathless at times. I had to put the book down and walk away a few times near the end it was that intense.
Elvie McCulloch's sister Sophie has been missing for 57 days. She went out for a run - and never came home. Several young woman in the area have disappeared in similar circumstances, and Elvie's family fears the worst.
As Elvie is driving to her new job late at night, the naked, emaciated body of a young woman crashes from high above onto an oncoming car. Elvie recognises her as Lorna Lennox, who has been missing for weeks. But why was she up there? Where had she been all this time? And why was she running for her life?
I grew up binge-reading murder mysteries and promised myself that some day, I would write one too. A Long Shadow is the first book in my Chief Inspector Shadow series set in York. Luckily, living in a city so full of history, dark corners, and hidden snickelways, I am never short of inspiration. When I’m not coming up with new ways to bump people off, I enjoy red wine, dark chocolate, and blue cheese—not necessarily together!
This is another murder mystery set in a quintessential English village and where we meet detective Adam Dalgleish for the first time. The day after the church fete, Sally Jupp is found dead in her bedroom, the door locked from the inside. I loved the way tension gradually builds through the story and how expertly each character is drawn. Nobody is who they seem, including the victim.
The first in the series of scintillating mysteries to feature cunning Scotland Yard detective, Adam Dalgliesh from P.D. James, the bestselling author hailed by People magazine as “the greatest living mystery writer.”
Sally Jupp was a sly and sensuous young woman who used her body and her brains to make her way up the social ladder. Now she lies across her bed with dark bruises from a strangler’s fingers forever marring her lily-white throat. Someone has decided that the wages of sin should be death...and it is up to Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to find who that someone is.
I write horror and crime thrillers grounded in my unusual lived experience as an author and attorney who has also overcome poverty, incarceration, and violent crime. I feel most fulfilled when I read a book that both entertains and expands me in meaningful ways, immersing me in lives, cultures, and history I might not otherwise know. So I love Social Horror novels, which feature characters who face significant human adversity beyond my own experience and leave me questioning what was worse, the human or the supernatural.
Grayson Hale claims that the devil made him commit a gruesome murder. This brilliant page-turner kept me guessing whether the blame should fall on the devil or untreated mental illness, given Grayson’s upbringing within a fundamentalist Christian household where he was viewed as evil.
I love psychological horror, so this book was right up my alley as I turned the pages to see whether the murder had a human or supernatural cause. The book beautifully unfolds the story of Grayson’s trauma, shame, and self-loathing as an isolated and marginalized person.
I will say no more about that to avoid spoilers, but I loved how this book kept me guessing and entertained while it provided me with a new understanding and compassion.
This “disorienting, creepy, paranoia-inducing reimagining of the devil-made-me-do-it tale” (Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World) follows the harrowing downfall of a tortured graduate student arrested for murder.
Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The twenty-five-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it.
When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted…
I’ve worked in and around journalism long enough to know that not all journalists are heroes. Few even aspire to be. But there is something quietly heroic about the daily task of holding the powerful to account, even in democracies where the risk of imprisonment or assassination is less than in more authoritarian states. Here is my selection of books to remind all of us about some of these more heroic aspects of the journalism trade. I hope you find reading them enjoyable and maybe even inspiring.
Thriller writer and contemporary ‘queen of crime’ Val McDermid draws deeply on her own years as a tabloid journalist to bring fictional reporter Allie Burns to life during the winter of discontent. This unputdownable tale of a newspaper investigation into matters of life, death, and corruption is so evocative of a 1970s Glasgow newsroom that I could practically smell the fags and taste the whisky. More Allie Burns stories are promised, and I for one can’t wait.
THE FIRST IN A THRILLING NEW SERIES FROM THE NO.1 BESTSELLER
Pre-order Val McDermid's explosive new novel, 1989, now! ____________________
She's on the hunt for a killer story . . .
1979. It's the winter of discontent, and Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. One of few women in the newsroom, she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously.
Soon Allie and fellow reporter Danny Sullivan are making powerful enemies with their investigations - and Allie won't stop there. When she discovers a terrorist threat close to home, she devises a dangerous plan to…
As an avid reader, I read a wide variety of books. Of the fiction genre mystery and suspense remain my favorite. From the classics to the gritty, a well-told mystery is a literary gem. As my mystery palette has aged—like my taste in wine—so are my demands of what makes a good mystery novel. The best mysteries for me contain more than a serpentine journey toward the hidden truth. They have intriguing characters, crisp dialogue, interesting settings, formidable foes, and of course indispensable heroes or anti-heroes. My writing goal is aimed at achieving the same level of literary penmanship of the mysteries I enjoy reading so much.
Twenty prominent men hold a secret meeting on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer of 1952 to formulate a plan to manipulate the President of the United States. A rising Harlem literary star, Eddie Wesley discovers the body of a famous lawyer Philmont Castle while leaving the engagement party of Kevin Garland and the woman he loves, Aurelia Treene. The mysterious disappearance of Eddie’s younger sister shortly thereafter sparks a twenty-year search by Eddie and Aurelia for the truth. Wesley and Aurelia uncoil secrets involving a conspiracy and murder that leads them to the Oval Office. One of the things I enjoy about this novel is Carter’s ability to dispense with stereotypes. A multifaceted, suspenseful, unique, captivating read.
Summer, 1952. Twenty powerful men gather in secret and devise a plot to manipulate the President of the United States.
Soon after, writer Eddie Wesley leaves a party hosted by affluent and influential members of black society, and discovers a body. The murdered man had an unusual gold cross gripped between his hands and Eddie is determined to find out why he was killed and what the cross signifies.
But then Eddie's sister Junie becomes entangled in an underground movement and vanishes...
Is her disappearance connected to the conspiracy to control the President of the United States?
