Fans pick 72 books like The Dry

This book caught my attention because it involves a house-sitter, just as my series does. But Morag’s story could not be more different. It depicts a terrible sequence of events arising from an innocent house-sitting assignment and a growing love for the place, which I as a reader very much shared. The house itself becomes both the setting and the main threat to the well-being of the ‘half-broken’ characters. The story is hauntingly compelling, the characters deeply likeable, and the writing a real delight. This has been one of my great favourites ever since I first read it.

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.

This whole series always makes me smile–Mma Ramotswe remains one of the most hilarious main characters in any cozy mystery I’ve ever read. The crimes she comes up against are usually low-key, usually secondary to the backdrop of Botswana, and often solved by accident as much as design.

Precious Ramotswe’s commentary on Botswanan life is simply brilliant, but almost even more amusing is her sidekick, Grace Makutsi, who bumbles through her role as secretary-promoted-to-assistant-detective, and the interaction between the characters never fails to give me laugh-out-loud moments.

This whole series has to be the most feel-good series ever, and now I’m rediscovering it as an audio production of the radio series; it’s as heart-warming as a bright bunch of flowers on a dull day, a bowl of hot soup when you’re sick; a hot bubble bath when it’s snowing outside…I love it, love it, love it!

From the moment I began reading Blacktop Wasteland, I knew S.A. Cosby would become one of crime fiction's most notable authors. His protagonist, Beauregard “Bug” Montage, drew me in and still won't let me go. What I love most are the gray areas between right and wrong, good and bad. There are no easy answers or choices in this strikingly honest look at Black life in the rural South. The action sequences and fights wing as true as Cosby’s characters and dilemmas.

I admit I’m old enough that memories of the post-Vietnam War era had begun to fade (mercifully?) until this book brought them back into sharp focus.

Vientiane, Laos, in 1976, after the Communist takeover, is so vividly portrayed–from the scent of the “Crow Shit blossoms” on the banks of the Mekhong to the inertia of the socialistic hierarchy, to the chicken counter spies turning their neighbors in for their capitalistic extravagances. And I found the 72-year-old Laotian coroner protagonist so endearing!

His cynical outlook and visitations from the dead make him a singularly sage and unconventional hero who can roll with the wildly absurd changes of the new regime. 

Crime but with such achingly good prose, I sometimes have to stop and re-read a sentence just to admire the way Temple wrote it. It’s a slow-burn, with a very dark, noir feeling, and the more you learn about the backstory of protagonist, Detective Senior Sergeant Joe Cashin, the more intriguing he becomes. A great plot, and I love the way Temple weaves different threads together to bring about the slick resolution. If you’re unfamiliar with Australian slang, expect a crash course in the first part of this novel. What makes this book one I return to again and again is the way Temple takes the standard formula of crime fiction and bends it to his will. This is not just a great crime, it’s a great novel.  

Okay, you've almost certainly heard of this one. You might even be thinking that The Husband's Secret is a more obvious choice for this list. But I'm including BLL anyway because I couldn't believe how enthralling it was (even though I've been a Liane Moriarty fan since The Hypnotist's Love Story).

Many of the entries on this list have depicted a marriage that looks perfect from the outside but is rotten within. This book inverts this formula, or at least complicates it—Celeste thinks her marriage is perfect (or is telling herself she thinks that), but it's obvious from the reader's outside perspective that her husband is an abuser.

There are many intriguing threads woven through this story (all coming together in a showdown so satisfying that I read it several times), but the scenes with Perry are the most impressive. They left me sick with fear.

In Black Harbor, Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, Morrissey has created a town that is a villain all on its own. A place no one wants to live. Hazel Greenlee has no choice.

An aspiring writer, Hazel is trapped in a less-than-perfect marriage and takes the only job she can find—as a police transcriber. But when her neighbor confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster, Hazel sees the potential for a story that might help her break out of the frozen hell of Black Harbor.

Morrissey builds Hazel’s desperation, and the desperation of the town itself, with mounting tension so well drawn you can actually feel it in your bones and an ending so intense it leaves you breathless. 

I enjoy reading crime novels that feature other cultures or countries. Dark Pines (and the series that follows) whisked me off to deepest, darkest Sweden.

The main character, a local reporter called Tuva Moodyson, is a strong female lead. She’s young, feisty and tenacious. Her deafness makes her multidimensional, overcoming life’s challenges, without author Will Dean resorting to common tropes of crime fiction protagonists (e.g. cynical, alcoholic detective).

Dark Pines features a host of memorable and eccentric characters in a creepy and claustrophobic small town, giving this quirky book a Twin Peaks vibe. For me, the setting was a character in its own right – with the visceral descriptions of the dark pine forests.

This is an evocative mystery with not one but two atmospheric settings: Long Island’s Suffolk County, and Ireland’s County Clare. When an Irish national is found dead on a Long Island beach, Detective Maggie D’arcy’s planned vacation to Ireland becomes a tense investigation into the mysterious victim’s death, and a fight to keep her young daughter safe both abroad and back at home. I found A Distant Grave to be deeply chilling and impossible to put down.