61 books like The Wind Began to Howl

Child’s Jack Reacher is a classic knight errant, strong, resourceful, and courageous who has headlined dozens of books. But this book stands out because, in the finale, he squares off with a formidable opponent with a hook for a hand.

Reacher struggles to stay conscious during this standoff because he has a woodworking nail stuck in his head, shrapnel from a shotgun blast, that is inexorably shutting down his brain and body. I will remember that passage for quite some time.  

This is how good Mosley is: I couldn’t escape the feeling that I knew his protagonist the whole time I was reading this. I swear I had met the guy somewhere. I walked those same Brooklyn streets, and Mosley’s portrait of them was strong enough and real enough to make me miss the place, even though Brooklyn is overrun with lawyers and stock brokers these days.

And Mosley’s secondary characters are just as real, and if you screw up, you just might meet some of them. One last thing: when Mosley writes about race, he does it in lowercase. That way, the story sneaks under your defenses and hits you much harder than if it was all in caps. Walter Mosley is not just a writer; he’s an artist.

You know what I like about Donald Strachey? His boyfriend. I’m kidding—Strachey’s fine.

He’s a smart, tough detective in the hard-boiled tradition so of course I like him, but do you ever think way more of someone because they had the good taste to pick the partner they did? Timothy Callahan is a Jesuit-educated political aide, former Peace Corps volunteer and one of those characters who gets called a “moral centre” because they are one.

I was half in love with him before he (accurately) dissed Mother Teresa but I adored him after that. I came to the Strachey books for canny, realistic and never twee gay detective fiction but I’ve stayed for Timmy. He’s a soothing, reaffirming, hilarious wonder and you never know—he might smack-talk Gandhi next.

One of the most comedic books I’ve ever read. Actually, I listened to the audiobook, which is expertly read by the author, the late great Douglas Adams.

Between his British accent and speedy and offhanded reading style, Adams whistles listeners through this book. I hit “pause” or “rewind” many times to laugh or to re-listen to his cavalcade of hysterical situations and dialogue. Dirk Gently is truly an original character. Otherworldly and somewhat metaphysical, this is one of my all-time favorite novels. The audacity of Douglas Adams. I love it.

I love reading a thriller with a complex plot that has me trying to figure out who did what, where and when, and what or who may be connected in the main or subplot.

This was one of those books I had to read twice, not because I didn’t “get it” but because I admired the way Chandler weaved his characters around, like the actors in a Whitehall farce play. This is a book I kept turning back a few pages to keep up with the who, where, and when. Fantastic read.

In Mosely’s first Easy Rawlins novel, Easy is in the thick of it. He’s a war-scarred veteran living in 40s Los Angeles who has to contend with brutal racist cops and white men who wish to harm him for the sole offense of talking to a white woman. He lost his factory job, his mortgage is due, and he finds himself on shifting terrain where it’s nearly impossible to tell allies from enemies.

When the phone rings, it’s never good news. So Easy has to play it smart. Bide his time. Enlist help from his memorably violent associate, Mouse. His foes have more power, more money, and more guns and like to remind him that they’re no one to be trifled with. But then again, neither is Easy.

In 2009, after years of writing Easy Rawlins novels set in a past Los Angeles, Walter Mosley began a new series set in contemporary New York. African-American Leonid McGill is a hard PI, with a complex seamy past who aspires to become a better person, despite the pressures of being a husband and family man caught in a near-loveless marriage. The New York in which McGill lives and struggles is the upscale but still gritty descendant of earlier versions of the city in the Mike Hammer novels of Mickey Spillane and the Matthew Scudder novels of Buffalo-born Lawrence Block. It is a land of wealth and culture but danger and deceit.

I love Agatha Christie, and I love her fussy, brilliant detective, Hercule Poirot. This novel has all the hallmarks of a classic Christie—grand English home, mysterious death, greedy relatives, dark shenanigans, with the added bonus of Bob the terrier whose penchant for a certain red rubber ball is a key part of the mystery. 

One of the best explanations I’ve read of the rise of Fascism in Hitler’s Germany. I agree that ignoring the lessons of history means we’ll be forced to endure repetition. And Kerr paints such a chilling scenario no one in their right mind would wish the maxim to come true. His prose applies color and form like an artist at the top of their game.

At times I found him reminiscent of Chandler in the way he portrays the Nazis as the worst gangsters in the game. This is the first book of the Bernard Gunther series, and I was so enthralled that I raced through the others in just a few days. His storyline is filled with horror, passion, fear, and pathos—a tour de force of emotions.

I love all of Jacqueline Winspear’s books about Maisie Dobbs and am sorry to see that the author is retiring this character. I liked Maisie from the first, maybe because the 1920s are an era of fascination for me.

Not only was the mystery a good read, but it led me to do further research on the after-effects of World War I and the toll it took on the young soldiers, most of them barely out of their teens. Winspear is a great storyteller with a compelling heroine.