Here are 35 books that The Silkworm fans have personally recommended if you like
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All of the books Iāve 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. Itās the moral dilemma I want. The angst we all feel when we are faced with a particularly painful decision. Thatās what real life is and thatās what brings a book and a character to life.
Gone Baby Gone is book 4 in Lehaneās Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro series. As private detectives, Gennaro and Kenzie are a top-notch investigative team and the story itself is one that will suck you in from the start. It keeps you guessing with its mix of characters, reliable, and unreliable, upfront and in the shadows. Itās my kind of story and one I often referred to while writing my book. Beyond the story of a missing girl, Lehane uses the relationship between Gennaro and Kenzie as a subplot. The friction, the conflict, the barriers in their personal life continue to give the reader angst even after the facts are uncovered. Gone Baby Gone is a suspense story that doesnāt just solve a crime, but also takes the reader into the lives of the investigators, questioning their morality, their decisions and ultimately asking the reader, is the truth always worthā¦
Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda Cready.
Despite extensive news coverage and dogged investigation into her abduction, the police have uncovered nothing. And as the Indian summer fades, Amanda McCready stays gone - vanished so completely that she seems never to have existed.
Then a second child disappears.
Confronted with a police force seething with lethal secrets, Kenzie and Gennaro soon discover that those who go looking for the missing may not come back alive.
I retired from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, as a detective assigned to the Major Crimes Unit, but Iāve always been a writer at heart and an avid reader. I graduated from California State University in Long Beach, CA, with a major in Film. I am the author of six crime fiction books, three of which involve retired detective turned PI Frank Marr. This trilogy was critically acclaimed.
Coffin is a retired detective sergeant out of Portland, Maine. I love books by authors who write what they know and, obviously, write it well.
This book is the first in a series involving Portland PD Detective Sergeant John Byron. Coffin draws on his life experience to create an exhilarating, believable suspense novel and a likable character I want to continue to read.
"A first-rate novel. Suspenseful and highly entertaining." -- New York Times bestselling author Gayle Lynds
Fall in Portland, Maine usually arrives as a welcome respite from summerās sweltering temperatures and, with the tourists gone, a return to normal lifeāusually. But when a retired cop is murdered, things heat up quickly, setting the city on edge.
Detective Sergeant John Byron, a second-generation cop, is tasked with investigating the caseāat the very moment his life is unraveling. On the outs with his departmentās upper echelon, separated from his wife, and feeling the strong pull of the bottle, Byron remains all business asā¦
When I finally accepted that Iām analytical, it was surprisingly liberating. I think thatās why I enjoy trying to figure out a story and its characters and what will happen next. Because of this, itās delightful when a story genuinely surprises me. I especially appreciate magical elements that defy reality. Iām also a motivational speaker and filmmaker, two powerful story-telling mediums, so I love books that inspire me in some way, challenge my perspectives, and leave me thinking about them for days. When a book is so well written that I can turn off my brain and lose myself in the story, itās a fabulous escape for me.
I love an intriguing premise and an unexpected twist. This book promised both, and it really delivered!
I think we are all curious about what goes on behind the closed doors of our neighbors, though the truth is usually incredibly mundaneā¦especially when compared to this story! From the first page to the last, I couldnāt put down this psychological thriller.
Because I love a tale of great suspense, I find myself growing impatient whenever a story starts to peter out without any satisfying resolution. That was not the case with this book. It delivered great, well-developed characters and an unexpected ending. Bravo!
āOMG!!! SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!!!ā¦ The most heart-racing book Iāve read in a long time, if not ever!!! It had me hook, line and sinker from the first page and I could not put it down!!!ā¦ Clear your day because it is truly unputdownableā¦ What an absolute twist!!!ā¦ If you read one book in your life, make sure it is this!!!!ā Bookworm86, āāāāā
Sometimes, the most perfect families are hiding the most terrible secrets. How well do you know the people next doorā¦?
Everybody wants to live on Hogarth Street, the pretty, tree-lined avenue with its white houses. The newā¦
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: āAre his love songs closer to heaven than dying?ā Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard itā¦
All of the books Iāve 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. Itās the moral dilemma I want. The angst we all feel when we are faced with a particularly painful decision. Thatās what real life is and thatās what brings a book and a character to life.
Not A Happy Family is a Domestic Suspense novel. The Mertons have everything, money, a beautiful home, and plenty of vacations. So why, after Easter dinner with their three children are they found dead? The kids are distraught. Or are they? What childhood secrets do each of them carry and is one of them murderously vindictive? I come from a big family and always enjoy reading about dysfunctional families. Luckily, my own family was only semi-dysfunctional for the most part. Nothing I needed to kill my parents over.
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 periodāand as an author with deep roots in the bootāI 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 witāall 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 decideā¦
The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and itās where I will see out my days. Itās a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as weāve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Yearā to āUK City of Culture.ā Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, Iāll continue to map the city and the regionās trials and tribulations.
The North of England isnāt all post-industrial urban centres of decay. As well as being home to large and important cities, its green spaces are plentiful and attract numerous tourists to its many attractions. Frances Brodyās PI Kate Shackleton series makes use of Yorkshireās picturesque and pleasant rural settings, not least the rolling moors leading to the coastal town of Whitby in the seriesā eighth outing. Set in the 1920s, Brodyās series is also a reminder of the importance of subverting and challenging social norms, but never at the expense of entertaining the reader.
'Frances Brody has made it to the top rank of crime writers' Daily Mail
'Brody's writing is like her central character Kate Shackleton: witty, acerbic and very, very perceptive' Ann Cleeves
AN IDYLLIC SEASIDE TOWN
Nothing ever happens in August, and tenacious sleuth Kate Shackleton deserves a break. Heading off for a long-overdue holiday to Whitby, she visits her school friend Alma who works as a fortune teller there.
A MISSING GIRL
Kate had been looking forward to a relaxing seaside sojourn, but upon arrival discovers that Alma's daughter Felicity has disappeared, leaving her mother a note and the pawnā¦
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 canā¦
I've been hooked on the magic of storytelling since childhood, always eager to go wherever imagination can take me. I think that early fascination led me to become a costume designer ā because costume design is about using clothing to help tell a story. I spent 27 years working on the costume design teams for films like Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Angels & Demons, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. When I decided to take what felt like a logical creative step, to write my own stories, I knew I wanted to write murder mysteries. And I thought the world behind the scenes of a movie would make the perfect setting.
This twisty, hypnotic story by the great Ross Macdonald focuses on the dark side of the Hollywood dream.
Private detective Lew Archer is drawn into the search for a missing woman, Hester Campbell-Wall, who seemed poised on the cusp of success via an oblique connection to Helio-Graff Studios when she vanished after a frantic phone call to her estranged husband.
Against his better judgment Archer agrees to look for Hester, a quest that pits him against the powerful and corrupt studio head, Simon Graff. The book is full of complex characters who are neither all good nor all bad, despite their acts of betrayal, deceit, and even murder.
Thatās what makes them so poignant and believable: in various ways, they are all broken by dreams that didnāt come true.
The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. Hired by her hotheaded husband and her rummy āuncle,ā Lew Archer sniffs around Malibu and finds the stink of blackmail, blood-money, and murder on every pricey silk shirt. Beset by dirty cops, a bumptious boxer turned silver screen pretty boy and a Hollywood mogul with a dark past, Archer discovers the secret of a grisly murder that just won't stay hidden.Lew Archer navigates through the watery, violent world of wealth and privilege, in this electrifying story of obsessionā¦
I grew up on the ocean, surrounded by stories of pirates and mystery. Back then, I became enthralled with old detective series like Nancy Drew. Today, I am hooked on Agatha Christie. Though I primarily read and write nonfiction, they retain that mysterious element that has always intrigued me. In my teaching, writing, and research, I work with genealogy and true crime. Iām also obsessed with true crime books and podcasts. I hope you enjoy the list I have picked for you!
Brad Ricca's book is a fascinating look at the difference one person can make in an unsolved case. In February 1917, eighteen-year-old Ruth Cruger disappeared after she left home to pick up a pair of ice skates at a local repair shop.
In his expertly researched book, Ricca recounts the story of Grace Humistonāthe lawyer, detective, and one-time U.S. District Attorneyāwho eventually solved the case of the missing girl.
This book has all the elements I loveāa historical case, a compelling mystery, and a strong female who trusts her instincts and fights for the missing when no one else will.
Mrs. Sherlock Holmes tells the incredible story of Mrs. Grace Humiston, the New York lawyer and detective who solved the famous cold case of Ruth Cruger, an 18-year-old girl who disappeared in 1917. Grace was an amazing lawyer and traveling detective during a time when no women were practicing these professions. She focused on solving cases no one else wanted and advocating for innocents. Grace became the first female U.S. District Attorney and made ground-breaking investigations into modern slavery. One of Grace's greatest accomplishments was solving the Cruger case after following a trail of corruption that lead from New Yorkā¦
Iāve always enjoyed murder mysteries, with spy novels coming a very close second. I like the puzzle aspect of the story and the unravelling thereof. From early in my childhood I have written and it has never occurred to me to write in any other genre than Crime Fiction. I do like, however, both in my own output and that which I read, to gain an insight into other peopleās lives and histories. I like to learn about the surroundings in which the stories are set. Also, for me a must, the characters have to be rounded and three dimensional.
Agatha Christie has got to be considered as one of the master craftsmen of the āwhodunnitā. In this novel, she presents us with an intriguing mystery and brings in her famous character, Hercule Poirot to solve it. As always, Poirot faces a varied array of possible suspects and the highly-credible reasons as to why he/she may be the guilty party. The pace is consistent and keeps the reader turning the page and trying to guess until the unmasking at the very end.
Hercule Poirot is called on to investigate the murder of a brother and sister, in this classic Agatha Christie mystery now available in an updated edition with a foreword Sophie Hannah.
āHe was murdered, wasnāt he?ā
When Cora Lansquenet is savagely murdered, the extraordinary remark she had made the previous day at her brother Richardās funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richardās will, Cora was clearly heard to say, āItās been hushed up very nicely, hasnāt it. But he was murdered, wasnāt he?ā
Did Coraās accusation a dark truth that sealed her own fate? Orā¦
Riley Masterson has moved to Greenbrier, SC, anxious to escape the chaos that has overwhelmed her life.
Questioned in a murder in Alabama, she has spent eighteen months under suspicion by a sheriffās office, unable to make an arrest. But things in gentrifying Greenbrier are not as they seem. Asā¦
Iād always known about the Lady of the Dunes. Iād read about how she was found in the dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, on July 26, 1974. I didnāt 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...