100 books like The Man in My Basement

By Walter Mosely,

Here are 100 books that The Man in My Basement fans have personally recommended if you like The Man in My Basement. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of It Ends with Us

Sylvia Hubbard Author Of Wicked Chances

From my list on books that weave romance around suspense.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since I was a tween, I’ve been fascinated by romance. That happily ever after has always taken my breath away. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, suspense and mystery have always surrounded my life, and intertwining these two elements in my own stories was a norm, but reading them was required and loved. I’m a part of several groups that focus on these genres and I share my readings with them along with my own group on Facebook. I know you will enjoy reading these books as much as I have.

Sylvia's book list on books that weave romance around suspense

Sylvia Hubbard Why did Sylvia love this book?

I really loved these characters that pushed and pulled me throughout the story. I found myself engrossed in their lives, loves, and moments that could make or break them, and I found myself hopelessly in love with them, never wanting this story to end.

I recommended this book to my book club, and each member enjoyed this book as well.

By Colleen Hoover,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked It Ends with Us as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Lily hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town where she grew up-she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life seems too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He's also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn't hurt. Lily can't get…


Book cover of Razorblade Tears

Sylvia Hubbard Author Of Wicked Chances

From my list on books that weave romance around suspense.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since I was a tween, I’ve been fascinated by romance. That happily ever after has always taken my breath away. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, suspense and mystery have always surrounded my life, and intertwining these two elements in my own stories was a norm, but reading them was required and loved. I’m a part of several groups that focus on these genres and I share my readings with them along with my own group on Facebook. I know you will enjoy reading these books as much as I have.

Sylvia's book list on books that weave romance around suspense

Sylvia Hubbard Why did Sylvia love this book?

A friend recommended this book to try to get me out of a reading slump, and man, this book had me crawling out fast. I was impressed with just a darn good story that had me from the start.

Not only did this story contain the elements of suspense and romance that I enjoy, but the intricate lives of the characters had me rooting and emotional, wanting more of them by the end. I would highly recommend this to other readers.

By S.A. Cosby,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Razorblade Tears as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer • New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books of 2021 • Washington Post’s Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year • TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 • New York Public Library’s Best Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • Book of the Month’s Book of the Year Finalist
“Provocative, violent — beautiful and moving, too.” —Washington Post
“Superb...Cuts right to the heart of the most important questions of our times.” —Michael Connelly
“A tour de force – poignant, action-packed,…


Book cover of Lover Unveiled

Sylvia Hubbard Author Of Wicked Chances

From my list on books that weave romance around suspense.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since I was a tween, I’ve been fascinated by romance. That happily ever after has always taken my breath away. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, suspense and mystery have always surrounded my life, and intertwining these two elements in my own stories was a norm, but reading them was required and loved. I’m a part of several groups that focus on these genres and I share my readings with them along with my own group on Facebook. I know you will enjoy reading these books as much as I have.

Sylvia's book list on books that weave romance around suspense

Sylvia Hubbard Why did Sylvia love this book?

I dove in not knowing what to expect but loving that this book met my expectations.

I enjoyed the immediate burn, with lots of it weaved into the story as I progressed through waves of suspense. Both elements made this a great surprise good read. This was one of the first books I picked up from this author and I’ve become a fan of more books by her.

By J. R. Ward,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lover Unveiled as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Utterly absorbing and deliciously erotic' Angela Knight

'Hot, sexy, unique, intriguingly wicked' Christine Feehan

Meet Sahvage: a powerful MMA fighter with a buried secret that could change the world of Caldwell forever...

Sahvage has been living under the radar for centuries-and he has every intention of staying 'dead and buried.' But when a civilian female sucks him into her dangerous battle with an evil as ancient as time, his protective side overrides his common sense.

Mae has lost everything, and desperation sets her on a collision course with fate. Determined to reverse a tragedy, she goes where mortals should fear…


Book cover of The Edge of Midnight

Sylvia Hubbard Author Of Wicked Chances

From my list on books that weave romance around suspense.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since I was a tween, I’ve been fascinated by romance. That happily ever after has always taken my breath away. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, suspense and mystery have always surrounded my life, and intertwining these two elements in my own stories was a norm, but reading them was required and loved. I’m a part of several groups that focus on these genres and I share my readings with them along with my own group on Facebook. I know you will enjoy reading these books as much as I have.

Sylvia's book list on books that weave romance around suspense

Sylvia Hubbard Why did Sylvia love this book?

I’m always down for Ms Bev, and jumping into this story ready to be swept up, I definitely got caught up with every word. This book was filled with sensuality and suspense throughout each chapter. I will admit I read this book twice.

Beverly Jenkins is usually a a historical romance writer, but her switch up in a contemporary sub-genre proved what a powerful writer she is in any genre.

By Beverly Jenkins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Edge of Midnight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Blackboard bestselling author Beverly Jenkins launches her first contemporary romantic suspense with this exciting sizzler. Sparks fly when Mykal Chandler, the head of a covert government agency, fights to protect the woman he has fallen in love with.

Sarita Grayson is desperate. That’s the only explanation for her late night rendezvous with a bag of stolen diamonds. But then a handsome stranger stands between her and a clean getaway. In the struggle for freedom, she accidentally shoots him.

Mykal Chandler, head of a covert government agency NIA, can’t believe he’s been shot. He’s shocked, he’s furious, but he’s also attracted…


Book cover of Blood Grove

Michael R. Lane Author Of The Gem Connection

From my list on African American mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

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.

Michael's book list on African American mysteries

Michael R. Lane Why did Michael love this book?

Easy Rawlins is an African American private detective in 1960s Los Angeles. Easy gets a visit from a troubled Vietnam veteran at his office. The vet tells an implausible story of him and his lover being attacked in a citrus grove outside the city. He may have killed the man. The woman and his dog are missing. Rawlins’ gut tells him the case is nothing but trouble. He takes the case anyway. The bond between veterans overriding all other concerns. Blood Grove is an exhilarating, mystery soup involving moguls, sociopaths, cops, hippies, extremists, and swindlers. Requiring Easy to call upon help from his friends. Friends who range from genius to lethal. I loved going along with Easy on this case. Admiring his resolve and intelligence in solving the mystery.

By Walter Mosley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Blood Grove as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles.

But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran- a young white man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man- he knows he shouldn't take the case.

Though he sees nothing but trouble in the brooding ex-soldier's eyes, Easy, a vet himself, feels a kinship form between them. Easy embarks on an investigation that takes him from…


Book cover of Devil in a Blue Dress

Michael Amedeo Author Of Past Tense: A Matt Moulton Mystery

From my list on American novels centering on private detectives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a journalist who’s focused on culture, particularly film, and especially classic film and film noir. That sparked me to write two crime novels, with a third on the way, for Level Best Books. The first came out in February. The next will reach the market in May 2025. The third will come out in 2026. For more information, please go to my website.

Michael's book list on American novels centering on private detectives

Michael Amedeo Why did Michael love this book?

In the dark world of hardboiled literature, anything can happen at any time for any reason—or no reason at all. In my view, that makes things easy for this debut novel about an unemployed LA factory worker named Easy Rawlins, and that makes things challenging for the story—for the character—as well. 

A man with money and power offers Easy a job looking for a missing blond-haired, white-skinned beauty. Rawlins faces only two problems: He has no experience as a private detective, and he needs to do the detecting with black skin in a segregated, remarkably unequal 1948 America. 

But I think Mosley has found the perfect genre for his character, one whose tough and humane and even psychologically insightful qualities have enabled him to adjust to, learn from, and survive in a place where laws can break out or disappear, depending on the color of his skin. Rawlins finds it…

By Walter Mosley,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked Devil in a Blue Dress as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Devil in a Blue Dress honors the tradition of the classic American detective novel by bestowing on it a vivid social canvas and the freshest new voice in crime writing in years, mixing the hard-boiled poetry of Raymond Chandler with the racial realism of Richard Wright to explosive effect.


Book cover of In Case You Forgot

Hari Ziyad Author Of Black Boy Out of Time

From my list on loss and grief from a certified death doula.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a journalist, author and screenwriter, my work has always pondered loss and grief. I think this has something to do with the fact that of my mother’s religion; she was a convert to Hinduism and started conversations about the inevitability of death and how the soul and the body aren’t the same when us children were at a very young age. It probably also has something to do with the constant presence of death within my family and communities as a Black and queer person in a violently anti-Black and queerantagonistic world. I currently volunteer at a hospice, and provide community-building programming to death workers from diverse communities.

Hari's book list on loss and grief from a certified death doula

Hari Ziyad Why did Hari love this book?

This rare Black queer romance novel is a heartfelt exploration of friendship and second chances.

It doesn’t shy away from the complexities of maintaining relationships in the midst of grief, addressing head on one of the most difficult and underexplored aspects of loss. It’s a reminder that our past shapes us, but our present can redefine us, through the refreshing lens of Black queer characters just trying to figure out their lives.

By Frederick Smith, Chaz Lamar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In Case You Forgot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two newly single, Black, queer, and socially aware men have packed up to start again--in love, career, and life--in the West Hollywood neighborhood of LA.

Zaire James, on the cusp of 30, has decided marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be. Despite friends, family, and coworkers loving Zaire's "perfect" partner, divorce is a necessary step for finding himself and being free. If only it were that easy.

Kenny Kane has made a career of deferring dreams, lowering expectations, and chasing partners not on his level in hopes of finding a love to call his own. However, on the verge…


Book cover of Cinnamon Kiss

Paul Stoller Author Of Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times

From my list on writing about the wisdom of others.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was passionate about anthropology in the 1970s when I was in my twenties and am still passionate about anthropology in the 2020s in my seventies. Throughout the years I have expressed my passion for anthropology in university classrooms, in public lectures, and in the 16 books I have published. As my mind has matured, I understand more and more fully just how important it is to write powerfully, cogently, and accessibly about the wisdom of others. In all my books I have attempted to convey to the public this fundamental wisdom, none more so than in my latest book, Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times.   

Paul's book list on writing about the wisdom of others

Paul Stoller Why did Paul love this book?

Walter Mosely is one of my favorite fiction writers. His Easy Rollins mysteries, of which Cinnamon Kiss is a prime example, describe with great skill the cultural texture of street life among African Americans in Los Angeles. 

He does so through sensuous descriptions of LA neighborhoods, gripping dialogue, and creative construction of character.  In so doing he evokes the practical wisdom of urban street life—a model for writing about contemporary wisdom.

By Walter Mosley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cinnamon Kiss as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times bestseller Walter Mosley's sizzling new novel pits Easy Rawlins against his greatest ever challenge.

It is the Summer of Love as CINNAMON KISS opens, and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armoured car. It's further outside the law than Easy has ever travelled, but his daughter Feather needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it's a cinch.

Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy's problem without jail time. He has to track the disappearance of an eccentric,…


Book cover of Solitary

Abigail Leslie Andrews Author Of Banished Men: How Migrants Endure the Violence of Deportation

From my list on the criminalization of immigrant men.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a scholar of gender and state violence, and I live and work at the US-Mexico border. For the past several years, I’ve worked collaboratively with large teams of Latinx-identified students to study the impacts of US immigration policies on migrants from Mexico and Central America. We realized that even though about half of immigrants are women, around 95% of deportees are men. So, we started to think about how US policies criminalize immigrant men. I became especially interested in how immigration enforcement (at the border and beyond) intersects with mass incarceration. In the list, I pick up books that trace the multinational reach of the carceral apparatus that comes to treat migrants as criminals.

Abigail's book list on the criminalization of immigrant men

Abigail Leslie Andrews Why did Abigail love this book?

This is Albert Woodfox’s shocking and amazing life history of spending most of his life in Angola, the most brutal prison in Louisiana.

It’s an exposé of prison brutality and dehumanization. But it’s also a stunning account of his own courage and spirit. On top, the writing is sparse, stark, and beautiful. 

By Albert Woodfox,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Solitary as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Praise for Solitary:

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE IN GENERAL NONFICTION
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION
Named One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2019
Winner of the Stowe Prize
Named the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year
Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, Publishers Weekly, BookBrowse, and Literary Hub
Winner of the BookBrowse Award for Best Debut of 2019
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

“An uncommonly powerful memoir about four decades in confinement . . . A profound book about…


Book cover of Imperium in Imperio

Chuck Redman Author Of A Cottonwood Stand: A Novel of Nebraska

From my list on fiction that is more hysterical than historical.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an old lawyer, a writer, and now I’ve stumbled into acting, but reading, just plain old sitting on the couch and reading, has always been my personal slice of heaven. I was a history major but not a history buff like those folks that can rattle off dates or win $287,000 on Jeopardy. These stories from history can be told realistically, romantically, impressionistically, philosophically, and lots of other ways. But satirically is how stories capture and move me the most. Nothing stirs me or grows goosebumps on me as effectively as a story of hard times and hard-hearted people who deserve a bit of exposure from some well-aimed wit.

Chuck's book list on fiction that is more hysterical than historical

Chuck Redman Why did Chuck love this book?

I read Imperium in an Afro-American Literature course in college. The instructor was excellent. I was the only non-Afro-American male in the class. I sat in the back. As soon as I finished reading Imperium I said to myself “This would make a great movie.” About ten years later I adapted the book into a screenplay. I typed it myself on my old typewriter. There was gunk on some of the keys and they needed cleaning. I realized that around Scene Five. If you ever read my old manuscript, I apologize for the first twenty pages. You can tell Sutton Griggs I’m sorry, also.

By Sutton E. Griggs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Imperium in Imperio as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Imperium in Imperio (1899) is a novel by Sutton E. Griggs. Written while Sutton was at the beginning of his career as a Baptist minister, Imperium in Imperio was sold door to door and earned modest praise upon publication. Although Griggs' novels were largely forgotten by the mid-twentieth century, scholars have recently sought to emphasize his role as an activist and author involved with the movement for Black nationalism in the United States. Critics since have recognized Griggs as a pioneering political figure and author whose utopian themes and engagement with contemporary crises constitute some of the era's most radical…


Book cover of It Ends with Us
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