100 books like The Warsaw Anagrams

What’s a better family secret than a golem tasked with protecting the main character?

Set against World War II in France, remarkable characters that I rooted for faced unspeakable odds. The book is a testament to what makes us human: The power of love and redemption. The golem, Ava, is a fully fleshed character with her own character arc. 

This 1988 anthology provides fifty stories, dating from the medieval period to the last century: from central and eastern Europe, the Middle East, and across northern Africa.

Although we find "possession" in several of the narratives, we do not find the ibbur. Nevertheless, some of the demons who take possession of the living are truly evil, and perhaps thus similar to the dybbuk in that regard. Many of the selections read almost like fairy tales, although not all have a "happy ending."

This is by no means a source for the ibbur, but it is a nice introduction to the Jewish supernatural. A few tales are actually rather profound, though most are quite simple. Those unfamiliar with this aspect of Jewish culture might find Schwartz’s anthology a nice place to begin.

This study offers a thorough presentation of the traditional (and non-traditional) Jewish thoughts about various topics, including ghosts and apparitions, magic and superstition, and even reincarnation. However, the main thrust is the analysis of six (presumably) documented accounts of possession by spirits and subsequent exorcisms. 

I have listed this work for two reasons. First, it underscores the significance of possession within a community not known for performing exorcisms. Then, more personally, I found the presentation challenging, intriguing, and perhaps even provocative. If such malevolent possession has been documented, why not a benevolent ibbur?

Perhaps the best-known play in the Yiddish canon, The Dybbuk has spawned other cinematic, dramatic, and literary efforts.

Of course, the dybbuk is, by definition, a malevolent entity: a dead spirit unwilling to depart; instead it takes possession of a living person. In Ansky’s play, the pious Khonen was not necessarily “evil,” but he felt betrayed by Leah’s engagement to Menashe, took possession of “his” intended, and had to be exorcised by Rabbi Azriel (with the inevitable tragic consequences). 

An ibbur is a benevolent spirit, and in my novella, Benjamin works willingly with Miriam, in order to help her complete her last task. Nevertheless, I feel profoundly indebted to Ansky’s masterful drama, particularly because it presents a more sympathetic dybbuk. This treatment prompted me to offer a more modern ibbur!

Winner of the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Novel, James Kestrel’s Five Decembers tells a gripping story of survival that spans the entirety of World War II.

It’s got it all, man, and it is a helluva fantastic read. The story begins in Honolulu, Hawaii, and follows detective Joe McGrady on the trail of a murder that takes him far from home and far from the woman he loves.

Before he knows it, he’s in the middle of the war, in Japan, no less, and nothing for him will ever be the same.

Don’t walk for this one, run, and keep a copy on your shelf. You’re sure to reread it a few times and the cover’s a true beaut.

It is the best true crime book I have read in recent years. It is a gripping murder story and tragic romance, and a terrific biography of a thoroughly modern woman trapped between the freedoms earned on the one hand by women’s critical participation in two world wars, and the suffocating conservatism of the 1920s and 1920s. For challenging the status quo Alma Rattenbury paid the heaviest price. On a broader note, this book offers a fascinating slice of women’s lives in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

An Agatha Christie-style mystery set in Buenos Aires. At two in the morning, Pancho Soler returns drunk to his apartment building on Santa Fe Avenue. He presses the button for the lift, and it arrives with a surprise inside: a beautiful blonde woman, sitting upright, but dead. Many of the suspects who live in the building are recent immigrants from Europe and, as the novel is set in the 1950s, their memories and secrets from WW2 are still fresh. Boris, a Bulgarian chemist who worked for the Nazis, is the most entertaining of the lot. There are the usual red herrings and revelations in the search for the murderer. The young Argentinian detective is a little flat by Christie's standards, but this is a satisfying whodunnit.   

For my last pick, I’ve chosen a novel published near the end of the Golden Age (roughly the 1920s through the 1950s). Author and solicitor Michael Gilbert set his novel in the chambers of Horniman, Birley, and Craine. After the death of the firm’s senior partner, a hermetically sealed deed box is opened, revealing the corpse of Marcus Smallbone, a co-trustee with the late Mr. Horniman of the valuable Ichbod Trust. With the help of newly qualified solicitor Henry Bohun, Chief Inspector Hazelrigg sorts through a maze of lies and misdirection to uncover the surprising perpetrator and motive. Martin Edwards, in the foreword to the Poisoned Pen Press edition, said, “The book blends in masterly fashion, an authentic setting, pleasingly differentiated characters, smoothly readable prose, and a clever puzzle.” 

Brand’s Green for Danger is another closed group mystery, this time the suspects are the medical staff at a small, rural military hospital. Medical and hospital staff live there, so outsiders are very few.  It’s World War Two in England, during the blitz. Bombs are dropping, lights are going off and on, and it’s during an operation that a person is murdered. Later in the story, a nurse is killed. I liked being plunged into the hospital community, getting to know them, and seeing what their lives are like during the war. I liked the feeling of remoteness to this closed group, as well as the overall tension and urgency that the war and the blitz add: solve the murders before a third one might happen!

Logan McKenna isn’t even a cop, but she is ready to go to war to defend a friend falsely accused of murder in a tight-knit artist community. 

She’s determined. She will keep digging even when the danger factor rises. 

The mystery keeps you guessing. 

All these factors make for a fun read.