Here are 90 books that The Long Call fans have personally recommended if you like
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My first published novel, Mahu, was about a gay cop coming out of the closet in Honolulu while investigating a dangerous case. I didn’t even realize there was a whole genre of gay mysteries until I’d finished it, but since then I have made it my business to read as much as I can of these books, both classics and new ones. My reading has deepened my understanding only of my protagonist’s life, but of my own.
Doug Orlando is a conflicted New York City detective with a past, and that gives him a lot of psychological depth. Originally published in 1992, this was one of the best of the wave of gay mysteries. I loved it because the police procedures seemed so authentic and Doug seemed like a guy I’d want to know, and want on my side in case of trouble.
LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST MYSTERY! The bestselling crime novels of New York life in the early nineties are back. Gruff, weary, gay Brooklyn Homicide cop Doug Orlando is facing his most shocking case: Rabbi Avraham Rabowitz lay in a pool of his own blood, a prayer shawl stuffed down his throat, and his beard shaved off. The question for Detective Orlando isn’t who hated the right wing religious sect leader—Rabowitz had been the open enemy of blacks, gays, pro-choice women, even fellow Jews. In a case that moves from the depths of the ghetto to the high-rise office…
My first published novel, Mahu, was about a gay cop coming out of the closet in Honolulu while investigating a dangerous case. I didn’t even realize there was a whole genre of gay mysteries until I’d finished it, but since then I have made it my business to read as much as I can of these books, both classics and new ones. My reading has deepened my understanding only of my protagonist’s life, but of my own.
This book introduces Detective Paul Turner, a gay father of two who is also a homicide cop in Chicago. The daughter of a prominent right-wing minister is murdered, and Paul connects this homicide to others, where the same comment-- "Sorry now?" -- has been left. The murderers know how to go right for Paul's Achilles heel-- his two sons, one of whom has spina bifida. Zubro was the first to create a gay cop with a solid family life, and his writing shines.
When right-wing televangelist Bruce Mucklewrath is attacked and his daughter is killed, Chicago Police Detective Paul Turner suspects a conspiracy of vengeance against right-wing bigots perpetrated by the homosexual community--of which he is a member
My first published novel, Mahu, was about a gay cop coming out of the closet in Honolulu while investigating a dangerous case. I didn’t even realize there was a whole genre of gay mysteries until I’d finished it, but since then I have made it my business to read as much as I can of these books, both classics and new ones. My reading has deepened my understanding only of my protagonist’s life, but of my own.
Daniel Owen is a cop in a small Welsh town where everyone knows everyone else, and it seems like everyone is holding secrets. I love this book because of the atmosphere and the chance to see a different culture. Daniel is a great guy and I’ve enjoyed all the books featuring him so far.
Why don’t the local police want to find out who dumped the body in the woods?
Just how unpopular will Daniel be if he investigates the murder himself? Why is DCI Kent always there when Daniel needs rescuing, and why is he so hostile the rest of the time?
The abandoned mine shafts give Daniel the creeps, especially when he finds another dumped body. No one wants Daniel around. And no one wants DCI Kent around either.
Unless the two men work together the murderer will go free.
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can run from the past no longer: Cass and her family come under intense scrutiny from the disturbingly shrewd Detective Inspector Gavin Macrae.
Even if Cass’s local knowledge and sailing wisdom help to clear the Lynch family of suspicion, they may not be enough to stay ahead of the murderer’s game... and avoid becoming the next victim.
Death on a Shetland Longship: The Shetland Sailing Mysteries
When she wangles the job of skippering a Viking longship for a film, Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived - even though it means returning home to the Shetland Islands, which she ran away from as a teenager. Then the `accidents' begin - and when a dead woman turns up on the boat's deck, Cass realises that she, her family and her past are under suspicion from the disturbingly shrewd Detective Inspector Macrae. Cass must call on all her local knowledge, the wisdom she didn't realise she'd gained from sailing and her glamorous, French opera singer mother…
I’m a long-time writer who recently published my first two books in a genre I’ll call urban fantasy/queer historical romance. I also co-host a history podcast. It’s made me much more interested in how time and place figure into fiction! I also love a good love story, but after devouring a ton of romance novels, I realized I want a good plot to go along with the googly eyes and tender declarations of eternal devotion.
It’s the roaring twenties—fast cars, slinky dresses, and international spy agencies. Will Darling, a former soldier turned bookshop owner, gets stuck into a mystery, and it’s all so much fun.
Will has a wonderfully dark sense of humor, his love interest Kim is morally gray but tries hard, the supporting characters sparkle, and although it’s escapism all the way down, it’s the highest class of escapism. This is the first of a trilogy, and they’re all delicious and frothy.
Will Darling came back from the Great War with a few scars, a lot of medals, and no idea what to do next. Inheriting his uncle’s chaotic second-hand bookshop is a blessing...until strange visitors start making threats. First a criminal gang, then the War Office, both telling Will to give them the information they want, or else. Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan—charming, cultured, oddly attractive—steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger. And then…
I’m a long-time writer who recently published my first two books in a genre I’ll call urban fantasy/queer historical romance. I also co-host a history podcast. It’s made me much more interested in how time and place figure into fiction! I also love a good love story, but after devouring a ton of romance novels, I realized I want a good plot to go along with the googly eyes and tender declarations of eternal devotion.
The tagline for this book is “Agatha Christie but make it gay.” But Cat Sebastian does something better than that; although like Christie, everyone is concealing a secret, in Hither, Page almost everyone’s secret is being kept for a good reason—to prevent hurting someone they care about. In this book, Leo, a jaded, world-weary spy, is sent to investigate a murder in a small village. It's just after the end of WWII, and everyone is exhausted and wishes life would just get back to normal already, none more so than James, a local doctor with a touch of PTSD who needs nothing less than to get involved with espionage and smuggling. And then he meets Leo. (Spoiler: things go better than you'd think for the two of them.)
Reading this book is like someone you care about bringing you a bowl of tomato soup on a rainy day.
A jaded spy and a shell-shocked country doctor team up to solve a murder in postwar England.
James Sommers returned from the war with his nerves in tatters. All he wants is to retreat to the quiet village of his childhood and enjoy the boring, predictable life of a country doctor. The last thing in the world he needs is a handsome stranger who seems to be mixed up with the first violent death the village has seen in years. It certainly doesn't help that this stranger is the first person James has wanted to touch since before the war.…
I’m a public health research scientist who writes humorous historical mysteries set in 1900s Los Angeles among the police matrons of the LAPD. Like you, I read. I love smart, well-researched historical fiction with strong female protagonists and a good romantic subplot. Extra points if the book is funny because studies show laughter is good for you.
Jane Wunderly survives her abusive now-dead husband and does not want to get married again. She fends off the match-making efforts of her aunt Millie while solving a murder at a destination hotel in 1920s Egypt. Enter Mr. Redvers, a bad-boy banker and the romantic subplot. Maybe I have a thing for strong, smart, single heroines. Maybe I have a thing for Egypt. I spent a whole summer painting an orphanage there in 1984 when I was 17. The land is magic. Erica Ruth Neubauer makes the 1920s in Egypt come vibrantly to life. Her novel conjures the romance of the desert, colonial excess, and vast oceans of sand. It’s just cool.
Well-heeled travelers from around the world flock to the Mena House Hotel—an exotic gem in the heart of Cairo where cocktails flow, adventure dispels the aftershocks of World War I, and deadly dangers wait in the shadows . . .
WINNER OF THE 2021 AGATHA AWARD
Egypt, 1926.Fiercely independent American Jane Wunderly has made up her mind: she won’t be swept off her feet on a trip abroad. Despite her Aunt Millie’s best efforts, the young widow would rather gaze at the Great Pyramids of Giza than into the eyes of a dashing stranger. Yet Jane’s plans to remain cool…
I have some insight into the crime fiction genre that's unique. After graduating from Georgetown University I desperately wanted a job as a writer. Unfortunately, it was in the midst of a deep recession, and being $40,000 in debt with college loans decided to take a job that would help pay bills and give me insight into the criminal mind and the detectives that chase them for my literary endeavors. I became a deputy sheriff in Arlington, VA, transporting federal criminals from Washington, D.C. to sundry institutions. It was then that my writing career began in earnest as I started publishing stories about the crimes, criminals, and detectives I worked with in True Detectivemagazine.
An American Dream beats with the pulse of some huge night carnivore. It’s a wild story set in Manhattan with its protagonist, Stephen Rojack, drunk, dismally in debt, and trapped in a kind of purgatory he calls “marriage”. What I particularly like about this novel is Mailer’s writing style. It is magical in that he somehow combines the gritty talk of a hipster with the edgy rhetoric of psychiatry. What comes out of that confluence is a prose as sharp and effective as a switchblade. This novel, I believe, redefines the American crime novel by presenting the most extreme of our realities–murder, love, and spirit strangulated, the corruption of power and the sacrifice of self to image, all of it mix mastered into murder, booze, and heat-and-serve sex. A masterpiece that stands the test of time.
In this wild battering ram of a novel, which was originally published to vast controversy in 1965, Norman Mailer creates a character who might be a fictional precursor of the philosopher-killer he would later profile in The Executioner’s Song. As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. One part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and…
Having had two books orphaned (Maze in Blue andShould Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery), I wanted to write a cozy mystery. Most cozy mysteries feature an excellent cook, baker, or craftswoman. I hate all those things. Stumped for a moment, I realized there were other readers like me—and that is how Sarah Blair, a woman who finds being in the kitchen more frightening than murder was born. Professionally and personally, I’ve been a writer, lawyer, judge, wife, mother of twins, step-mother, and community volunteer, but the Sarah Blair books combine my love of animals with my propensity for accidentally blowing up my kitchen.
Financial whiz Julia Snowden returns to her Maine hometown to rescue the family’s clambake business. Although she has financial acumen, she lacks true knowledge of how a clam bake works. She learns the hard way when a murder and a wedding reception don’t mix. I wasn’t familiar with the inner workings of clam bakes, from menu to preparation, but I learned with Julia. I also enjoy Ross’s writing style. The combination of the storytelling plus the facts interwoven make this a good book choice.
Summer has come to Busman's Harbor, Maine, and tourists are lining up for a taste of authentic New England seafood, courtesy of the Snowden Family Clambake Company. But there's something sinister on the boil this season. A killer has crashed a wedding party, adding mystery to the menu at the worst possible moment. . .
Julia Snowden returned to her hometown to rescue her family's struggling clambake business--not to solve crimes. But that was before a catered wedding on picturesque Morrow Island turned into a reception for murder. When the best man's corpse is found hanging from the grand staircase…
I’ve been reading and writing horror for more than forty years and am prolific in both aspects. Show me a book with a tentacle and I’ll show you my newest purchase.
Cool cover, right? What’s the book about? When it comes to this great author, it could be anything in the scary realm of horror. This book is amazing, with perfect doses of Lovecraftian horror, pulp fiction, and riveting characters. Still a favorite. Well-written and turns up not only the horror but well-defined characters, this author never misses the mark. A great book to introduce yourself to his work, too.
An author's murder during an H. P. Lovecraft fan convention reveals dark secrets beneath the printed page in this biting murder-mystery satire.
At the Summer Tentacular, murder is non-fiction.
For fans of legendary pulp author H. P. Lovecraft, there is nothing bigger than the annual Providence-based convention the Summer Tentacular. Horror writer Colleen Danzig doesn't know what to expect when she arrives, but is unsettled to find that among the hobnobbing between scholars and literary critics are a group of real freaks: book collectors looking for volumes bound in human skin, and true believers claiming the power to summon the…
As a cozy mystery lover with a sweet tooth, I devour dozens of mystery novels every year (many featuring food) and I love to sample new series while also following my long-time favorites. I have also written and published more than 15 cozy mysteries of my own, many of which have a culinary theme. Although I grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, I now live in a small town and I have a particular fondness for cozy small-town mysteries set by the ocean, as well as those featuring scrumptious treats.
As a chocoholic, I had to check out the Death by Chocolate Mysteries by Sarah Graves, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed.
Protagonist Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree and her best friend sell their delectable chocolate creations from their shop, the Chocolate Moose, in Eastport, Maine, while solving local mysteries.
Death by Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake is sprinkled with intense, page-turning scenes and plenty of chocolate, making this a fun and delicious cozy mystery.
Life just got a little sweeter in the island fishing village of Eastport, Maine. Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree and her best friend Ellie are opening a waterfront bake shop, The Chocolate Moose, where their tasty treats pair perfectly with the salty ocean breeze. But while Jake has moved on from fixing up houses, she still can't resist the urge to snoop into the occasional murder.
Jake and Ellie have been through a lot together, from home repair to homicide investigation. So when they decide to open a chocolate-themed bakery, they figure it’ll be a piece of cake. With Ellie’s old family…
