Here are 35 books that The Laws of Murder fans have personally recommended if you like
The Laws of Murder.
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I don’t warm to crime novels where the only point is to find whodunnit. Those that resonate with me are the ones that have an extra dimension. It may be taking me into a world I am unfamiliar with, like bell-ringing or a theatre troupe. Or it could be a richly-evoked setting, like Donna Fletcher Crow’s Celtic Christian background. Or a character whose very flaws make them more gripping, such as Rebus or Wallender. I want to come away feeling enriched and not just pleased that I guessed that it was the butler with the candlestick.
I loved both the richly evoked setting of the Lincolnshire Fens and the detailed knowledge of bell-ringing. The latter is not just an add-on. The knowledge of change-ringing is crucial to solving the cipher in a document found in the bell-chamber. It also has a very real bearing on the death of the victim.
I really enjoy books that leave me feeling I’ve been enriched and not merely entertained.
In other books by Sayers I warmed to the character of Harriet Vane and the frisson of the relationship between her and the investigator Lord Peter Wimsey.
When his sexton finds a corpse in the wrong grave, the rector of Fenchurch St Paul asks Lord Peter Wimsey to find out who the dead man was and how he came to be there.
The lore of bell-ringing and a brilliantly-evoked village in the remote fens of East Anglia are the unforgettable background to a story of an old unsolved crime and its violent unravelling twenty years later.
'I admire her novels ... she has great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail' Ruth Rendell
Puzzles intrigued me since I was a three-year-old. Puzzle pieces that fit into pre-sized spaces. Then, disassembling and reassembling small 3-D animal shapes. Crosswords were next. Finally, Nancy Drew entered my life. I was addicted. Sherlock and Agatha became my mentors. But I loved to paint as well, so art was my first major at Michigan State University. Changed it to advertising in my senior year. Shortly after, Leo Burnett hired me to write print and radio media for Buster Brown shoes. Television was next. I solved many advertising puzzles at Foote, Cone & Belding, but after retiring, mystery re-entered my life when I wrote my first book.
A murder in the world of law courts in London’s legal community brings in P.D. James’ iconic detective Adam Dalgleish to investigate—a protagonist with razor focus and discernment, and a man famous for his poetry in the literary world.
James has incredible skill marrying the unexpected attributes of detection with the sensitivity and intimacy of a novel. She is a queen in my mystery reading world.
Venetia Aldridge QC is a distinguished barrister. When she agrees to defend Garry Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, it is one more opportunity to triumph in her distinguished career as a criminal lawyer. But just four weeks later, Miss Aldridge is found dead at her desk.
Commander Adam Dalgliesh, called in to investigate, finds motives for murder among the clients Venetia has defended, her professional colleagues, her family - even her lover. As Dalgliesh narrows the field of suspects, a second brutal murder…
Puzzles intrigued me since I was a three-year-old. Puzzle pieces that fit into pre-sized spaces. Then, disassembling and reassembling small 3-D animal shapes. Crosswords were next. Finally, Nancy Drew entered my life. I was addicted. Sherlock and Agatha became my mentors. But I loved to paint as well, so art was my first major at Michigan State University. Changed it to advertising in my senior year. Shortly after, Leo Burnett hired me to write print and radio media for Buster Brown shoes. Television was next. I solved many advertising puzzles at Foote, Cone & Belding, but after retiring, mystery re-entered my life when I wrote my first book.
The plight of a single mom is an unusual state of being for a former cop who is dragged into a murder investigation.
Technological secrets open the door to an acute realization of how easy it is to reach into someone’s past and learn that anyone’s life is most certainly an open book. Baldacci writes it with an understanding of tech, an honest representation of a mom with a mind that won’t stop, and murder by one who refuses to forget.
His characters are never cookie-cutter, that's why I read his books.
Memory man FBI agent, Amos Decker, returns in this action-packed thriller to investigate the mysterious and brutal murder of a federal judge and her bodyguard at her home in an exclusive, gated community in Florida from international bestselling author David Baldacci.
Things are changing for Decker. He's in crisis following the suicide of a close friend and receipt of a letter concerning a personal issue which could change his life forever. Together with the prospect of working with a new partner, Frederica White, Amos knows that this…
A historical thriller set in south London just after World War II, as Britain returns to civilian life and the men return home from the fight, causing the women to leave their wartime roles. The South London Hospital for Women and Children is a hospital, (based on a real place)…
Puzzles intrigued me since I was a three-year-old. Puzzle pieces that fit into pre-sized spaces. Then, disassembling and reassembling small 3-D animal shapes. Crosswords were next. Finally, Nancy Drew entered my life. I was addicted. Sherlock and Agatha became my mentors. But I loved to paint as well, so art was my first major at Michigan State University. Changed it to advertising in my senior year. Shortly after, Leo Burnett hired me to write print and radio media for Buster Brown shoes. Television was next. I solved many advertising puzzles at Foote, Cone & Belding, but after retiring, mystery re-entered my life when I wrote my first book.
Life throws us many curves. How some of us deal with them at times forces an action that is unforgivable. Others take pains to hide the act and watch as another is punished for it.
However, in some cases circumstances recall the unforgivable act and the realization that the ‘guilty’ one who died in prison was also a victim. No matter how much time may pass, or how close the friendship, the threads of secrets unravel. No protagonist crime fighter here, just a friend searching for the truth to discover the real who and the why.
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Everyone wanted her life Someone wanted her dead
It was Hannah who found April's body ten years ago. It was Hannah who didn't question what she saw that day. Did her testimony put an innocent man in prison?
She needs to know the truth.
Even if it means questioning her own friends. Even if it means putting her own life at risk.
I grew up in New York City, practically within walking distance of the Broadway theatre district. My first show was the original production of 1776. Everything grabbed my attention: Ian McKellan in Amadeus, Patrick Stewart in Macbeth, Richard Dreyfuss in Julius Caesar, and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. In high school, I was an eager, if not especially talented, member of the theatre club. I became curious about the whole theatre scene, and what could be a better place for a mystery, where actors, directors, and scene designers are already creating an alternate world.
Few authors could delver more perfectly into characters than Allingham. Although she created excellent puzzles, the beauty of her books is in the incisive portrayals. Here, she does a magnificent job of stripping away the glamour and finding the pride and jealousy behind the lively theater world. And it's impossible not to be engaged by the shrewd and mysterious sleuth, Albert Campion.
When song-and-dance star Jimmy Sutane falls victim to a string of malicious practical jokes, there's only one man who can get to the bottom of the apparent vendetta against the music hall darling - Albert Campion.
Soon, however, the backstage pranks escalate and an ageing starlet is killed.
Under pressure to uncover the culprit and plagued by his growing feelings for Sutane's wife, Campion finds himself uncomfortably embroiled in an investigation which tests his ingenuity and integrity to the limit.
"Allingham's work is always of the first rank." (New York Times)
"The real queen of crime." (Guardian)
"Allingham captures her…
All of the books I’ve listed above have flawed characters. Characters that deal with emotional and/or moral dilemmas. The plots: murder, missing children, or runaway husbands are secondary to me. What I look for in a book and what I write about in my Cole and Callahan series, are characters with flaws. People who struggle with truth. Cops or investigators that hide or skew evidence because the truth would cause more harm than good. It’s the moral dilemma I want. The angst we all feel when we are faced with a particularly painful decision. That’s what real life is and that’s what brings a book and a character to life.
Cormoran Strike and his business partner, Robin Ellacott, are searching for a missing writer who has penned a scathing novel, revealing his friend's most tightly held secrets. Any one of them would be happy to take him out. Ellacott and Strike are hired by his wife to find him. They do, brutally murdered. Besides facing a plethora of possible murderers, Strike and Ellacott face that there’s more than a working relationship evolving between them. But with Stike’s recent break-up and Ellacott’s live-in boyfriend, feelings are buried. After they solve their twisted case, I’m on to the next book in the series to see how Cormoran and Robin will move forward together. I love a good mystery and I love a relationship plagued with obstacles. The Silkworm delivers on both.
'Teems with sly humour, witty asides and intelligence ... A pleasure to read' TIMES
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Now a major BBC drama: The Strike series
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.
But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost…
Two women, a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives after leaving their homelands. Arriving in tropical Singapore, they find romance, but also find they haven’t left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
Haunted by the specter of terrorism after 9/11, Aislinn Givens leaves her New York career…
I walked to the library every Saturday to find a new mystery. I think I read everyone and read some more than once. As I matured, I discovered the mixture of romance and suspense I was hooked. I literally read every book in the genre’ at my local library.
Intricately woven romantic suspense set in New Orleans.
I
love a book where the ending is a surprise, and the characters are entertaining
and intelligent. You will fall in love with the secondary characters. Gabe is a
chef who father is dead, but the authorities call it a suicide. He doesn’t
believe it and hires a private investigator, Molly.
There are good cops and
some really bad cops. Fantastic ride. Finished it in one sitting.
The truth of what happened that night lies with a secret witness.
Quarter to Midnight is the first thrilling novel in a brand new series by Sunday Times bestselling author Karen Rose, set in New Orleans.
Rocky Hebert walks into his death at quarter to midnight one New Orleans night.
His son Gabe cannot accept the official verdict of suicide and enlists the help of the Burke Broussard Private Investigation Agency to discover the real cause of death.
PI Molly Sutton knows what it's like to lose a father in tragic circumstances and will go to any lengths to crack…
I’d always known about the Lady of the Dunes. I’d read about how she was found in the dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, on July 26, 1974. I didn’t know about the tens of thousands of other unidentified victims like her, stowed around the US in the back rooms of morgues and unmarked graves. As a journalist who has always given a voice to those who struggle to be heard, I feel compelled to research and write about these Jane and John Does and the people who work to keep their cases in the public eye. I share a unique bond with writers who do the same.
Many get obsessed with cold cases involving Jane and John Does, and Sue Grafton was no exception. After a chance encounter with the forensic pathologist who investigated a Jane Doe who had been discovered near a quarry in Santa Barbara County, California, in 1969, Grafton incorporated the true story into one of her iconic works of fiction.
Sue Grafton delivers an intensely gripping mystery based on an actual unsolved murder in this #1 New York Times bestseller featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone.
She was a "Jane Doe," an unidentified white female whose decomposed body was discovered near a quarry off California's Highway 1. The case fell to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department, but the detectives had little to go on. The woman was young, her hands were bound with a length of wire, there were multiple stab wounds, and her throat had been slashed. After months of investigation, the murder remained unsolved...
I am fascinated by all that was happening in the world before WWII. Amidst a silent, looming economic collapse, many social norms were turned on their head, women broke out of their molds, and art, literature, technology, and music all flourished. And a heady mix of cultures blended not altogether seamlessly to influence the Roaring Twenties like no other decade before it. The juxtaposition of this exciting yet challenging tumult lures me into reading books and writing immigrant-forward stories about this period—and as an author with deep roots in the boot—I particularly enjoy doing so through an Italian lens.
I fell in love with Miss Phryne Fisher on TV first, then in all of the books only after binge-watching all the seasons in short order. Her attitude, her clothes, her wit—all of it makes her adventures so fun to read. Besides, what list of Jazz Age mysteries is complete without this bobbed-hair socialite and her gaggle of misfits helping her to solve mysteries? Add in a spa vacation for Phyrne and I was hooked to see how she solved a murder while on holiday in some fabulous resort town. After 7 years, my Phryne drought is over!
'. . . there is no doubt Phryne is back at her best.' The Book Muse
When a mysterious invitation arrives for Miss Phryne Fisher from an unknown Captain Herbert Spencer in Victoria's spa country, Phryne's curiosity is excited.
Phryne accepts Spencer's invitation but from their arrival, she and her loyal maid Dot are thrown into the midst of disturbing Highland gatherings, cases of disappearing women, murder and the mystery of the Temperance Hotel.
Meanwhile, Cec, Bert and Tinker find a young woman floating face down in the harbour. Tinker, with Jane and Ruth, Phryne's resilient adopted daughters, together decide…
In the harrowing aftermath of Chornobyl's meltdown in 1986, the fate of Eastern Europe hangs by a thread.
From Beijing, American radiation scientist Lara, once a thorn in the Russian mob's side, is drawn back into the shadows of the Soviet Union on the Trans-Mongolian Express. She isn't alone. Anton,…
As a screenwriter I’ve always enjoyed noir stories, whether books or movies. Stories where the characters are not your squeaky-clean “good guys.” I like to see “ordinary” people; people who are flawed (like all of us), or maybe with a shady past, who are swayed or manipulated by dire circumstances into doing something they would not ordinarily do. I enjoy stories with unique, interesting characters that are not your run-of-the-mill private eyes, and whose moral compass might be a bit off. I particularly like stories where characters are forced to become investigators because of a situation they are thrust into, whether by accident or by their own dubious actions.
Okay, so this main character is Private Investigator, but I loved this book. A good flawed, dubious, tough-guy main character, a sexy femme fatale, dangerous mobsters, and lots of keep-you-guessing plot twists and turns. This page-turner, with great, witty, wise-guy banter, fulfills all that this Neo-Noir Crime Novel fan craves for.
PI Pete Fortunato, half-Italian, half-Jewish, who suffers from anger management issues and insomnia, wakes up one morning with a bad taste in his mouth. This is never a good sign. Working out of a friend’s downtown real estate office, Fortunato, who spent a mysteriously short, forgettable stint as a cop in a small upstate New York town, lives from paycheck to paycheck. So, when a beautiful woman wants to hire him to find her husband, he doesn’t hesitate to say yes. Within a day, Fortunato finds the husband in the apartment of his client’s young, stud lover. He’s been shot…
