Here are 74 books that Truly, Darkly, Deeply fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have written nine crime novels, mostly psychological thrillers, but some blend procedural and PI elements and two are gangland stories. I went to the BRIT school in the 90’s and studied Drama and English Literature at University. I always think that my Performing Arts background gave me a great tool kit for ‘getting into character’ which is useful for writing. I also have an MA in journalism but I definitely prefer fiction to fact. I love the immediacy of first person prose and I am a sucker for an unreliable narrator.
This is a book told from the point of view of Mother Rob and her daughter Callie.
It deals with topics of child psychopathy and innate evil and is beautifully written. I’m a huge fan of Catriona Ward’s and was torn between this book or The Last House On Needless Street but I really enjoyed the exploration of motherhood and childhood here and found myself rooting for the characters long after I turned the last page.
Like all of Ward’s books, Sundial has strong horror vibes and the world we are drawn into is full of lush descriptions but it is the characters that really stand out to me. This book also has some really good twists.
“DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK. Authentically terrifying.” —Stephen King
Sharp as a snakebite, Sundial is a gripping novel about the secrets we bury from the ones we love most, from Catriona Ward, the author of The Last House on Needless Street.
You can't escape what's in your blood...
Rob has spent her life running from Sundial, the family’s ranch deep in the Mojave Desert, and her childhood memories.
But she’s worried about her daughter, Callie, who collects animal bones and whispers to imaginary friends. It reminds her of a darkness that runs in her family, and Rob knows it’s time…
I’m an October baby born during a full moon, into a small New England town notorious for their connection to the Salem Witch Trials. My house was for sure haunted growing up, I’ve had a lot of nightmares over the years, and I found solace in the horror genre. Though my true background is in comedy having studied with Second City Chicago, the experience afforded me the opportunity to explore the more pained and shadowed sides of myself as a tool to write relevant material. I learned to focus those explorations into narratives and create stories with a lot of heart that highlight my own quest to uncover inner peace.
This is the only book that has ever made me physically sweat while reading it. I admit to being a true crime junkie, and this book scratched that itch in a huge way – despite being fiction.
Jumping back and forth between the day of a family’s horrific murder and present-day, where the surviving daughter is obsessively sought after by true crime enthusiasts (heyo!) and internet sleuths, this book turned a glaring spotlight on the hardships of both the economically poor, and single parenthood.
To say this book left me devastated would be an understatement. Add in a touch of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and this page-turner is nothing short of an absolute masterpiece of character work and cultural empathy. Not only did this book give me 759 heart attacks (the good kind), but it had me guessing up until the very last page.
'Eerily macabre... Wonderful' Guardian 'A nerve-fraying thriller' New York Times 'Every bit as horribly fascinating as In Cold Blood' Daily Mail
Libby Day was seven when her family was murdered: she survived by hiding in a closet - and famously testified that her older brother Ben was the killer.
Twenty-five years later the Kill Club - a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes - gets in touch with Libby to try to discover proof that may free Ben. Almost broke, Libby agrees to go back to her hometown to investigate - for a fee.
I have written nine crime novels, mostly psychological thrillers, but some blend procedural and PI elements and two are gangland stories. I went to the BRIT school in the 90’s and studied Drama and English Literature at University. I always think that my Performing Arts background gave me a great tool kit for ‘getting into character’ which is useful for writing. I also have an MA in journalism but I definitely prefer fiction to fact. I love the immediacy of first person prose and I am a sucker for an unreliable narrator.
Kit Quinn is a psychologist who is brutally attacked by a prisoner while working. The same prisoner is under suspicion of murder and Kit is called in.
She, however doesn’t think they have the culprit. So ensues a fast-paced race to solve the case. This was one of the first psychological thrillers I ever read and served as a fantastic intro to the genre. It probably pushes the boundaries of believability but it remains one of my favourite books
At the request of London police, psychologist Kit Quinn agrees to evaluate Michael Doll, a sexual predator who slashes her face. As she recovers, Kit has horrible dreams of a red room. Months later, Doll is arrested for murder. As Doll's obsession with Kit escalates, Kit is gripped with a paralyzing fear that the killer isn't Doll--but someone close to her heart.
I have written nine crime novels, mostly psychological thrillers, but some blend procedural and PI elements and two are gangland stories. I went to the BRIT school in the 90’s and studied Drama and English Literature at University. I always think that my Performing Arts background gave me a great tool kit for ‘getting into character’ which is useful for writing. I also have an MA in journalism but I definitely prefer fiction to fact. I love the immediacy of first person prose and I am a sucker for an unreliable narrator.
Based on the case of child killer Mary Bell this book is an unexpected page-turner and is written with so much heart. It’s dark, compulsive, and the prose sparkles.
This is another dual timeline book we follow Chrissie as a child living a hard life and eventually committing murder. We meet her again as an adult with a new identity and a daughter of her own. Nancy Tucker is a psychologist I believe and it certainly comes across.
The entire cast in this book is written with such tenderness and insight. A really difficult book dealing with a tough topic but also a story of redemption and understanding.
'So that was all it took,' I thought. 'That was all it took for me to feel like I had all the power in the world. One morning, one moment, one yellow-haired boy. It wasn't so much after all.'
Chrissie knows how to steal sweets from the shop without getting caught, the best hiding place for hide-and-seek, the perfect wall for handstands.
Now she has a new secret. It gives her a fizzing, sherbet feeling in her belly. She doesn't get to feel power like this at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer.
I’ve been obsessed with London since childhood. The English side of my family lived and worked throughout the city, and a day out with my father walking its streets was my greatest treat. He was a doctor, so a London trip could involve shopping for medical equipment, trawling bookshops, an afternoon at his tailor, or pub crawls where he seemed to know everyone. I’ve always been aware of the eccentricity of the place, which still thrills me. I really struggled to choose these books because there’s just so much material that I had to leave out. But I hope what I’ve chosen might be of interest.
I love comics, and here is the Master at the top of his game.
Ostensibly, it’s a reimagination of the Whitechapel Murders, how this narrative has been handed down to us, and a final dissection of and dismissal of its meaning. But like all his stuff, it’s brimful of ideas, notably an exploration of psychogeography, the effect of geography and architecture on behaviour.
Plenty of other London writers, like Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, also explore this, in greater depth, but Moore made me see it most clearly. Maybe because of the visual medium of the work? Perhaps. But the idea of a city that echoes and re-echoes with emotional triggers is really exciting.
Alan Moore (Watchmen) and Eddie Campbell (Bacchus), grandmasters of the comics medium, present a book often ranked among the greatest graphic novels of all time: From Hell.
From the squalid alleys of the East End to the Houses of Parliament, from church naves to dens of the occult, all of London feels the uniquely irresistable blend of fascination, revulsion, and panic that the Ripper offers. The city teeters on the brink of the twentieth century, and only the slightest prodding is necessary to plunge it into a modern age of terror.
Moore and Campbell have created a gripping, hallucinatory piece…
While completing a Master’s degree in Victorian Studies at the University of London, I stumbled across a passing reference to a series of killings in 1831 in East London. I was astonished that I had never heard of these and further research resulted in my first book, The Italian Boy.
Three books later I realise now that all my work is an attempt to squeeze out of the archives the less-recorded aspects of the everyday life of ‘marginalised’ people. And I guess that’s why I have selected the true crime books below – they all shine a bright light on previously little-known aspects of our world, and reveal the inter-relationship of victims, criminal, and location of the deed.
There is something very wrong with the official version of the Ratcliff Highway Murders of 1811, in which seven were killed – so much that simply does not add up. Detective fiction writer James and historian Critchley teamed up in 1971 to use their respective talents to sift the contradictory accounts of the killings of the Marr and Williamson households. They brilliantly capture the atmosphere of Regency Wapping and come up with an unusual partial solution, exonerating John Williams, whom tradition has always fingered as the killer.
In 1811 John Williams was buried with a stake in his heart. Was he the notorious East End killer or his eighth victim in the bizarre and shocking Ratcliffe Highway Murders? In this vivid and gripping reconstruction P. D. James and police historian T. A. Critchley draw on forensics, public records, newspaper clippings and hitherto unpublished sources, expertly sifting the evidence to shed new light on this infamous Wapping mystery.
This true crime novel begins amid the horror of a dark, wintry London in the year 1811. Using elegant historical detection P.D. James and police historian T.A. Critchley piece together…
I’m a writer and avid reader of crime fiction. Since I was four, my parents instilled in me a love for books, which has become a part of who I am. Before I became a bestselling and award-winning author, I was a reader, and I’ve always wanted to create stories that I love to read. I’m passionate about plots that stimulate my mind and characters that sneak into my heart and stay there. When I’m not writing, I work as a graphic designer. In my spare time, I watch crime shows and true crime documentaries. And when my mind needs a break from crime, I switch to my alter ego and write romantic comedies.
Book one in the Lacey Flint series,Now You See Me, got me hooked on the author and British mysteries. The writing style is evocative and deeply atmospheric, reminding me of gothic novels with a modern aspect.
I liked Lacey as a character, but what I found most compelling was the plot, which was a literary spider web. Although it was too graphic for my taste in places, the story was riveting enough to keep me engrossed until the very last page. I could barely keep track of all the twists and turns. By the time I finished reading, I had applauded the mind that could come up with such a complex story.
This breathtaking and exhilarating thriller from bestselling author Sharon Bolton packs a real punch: gruesome, atmospheric and utterly compelling, it relentlessly drives the reader on in their search uncover the truth. It twists and it turns and is taut with mystery and suspense...Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Cara Hunter and Karin Slaughter.
'Really special' -- LEE CHILD 'Chilling and mesmerising' -- TESS GERRITSEN 'Probably one of the best thrillers that you will read all year' -- Choice Magazine 'Brilliant story, brilliant writer' -- ***** Reader review 'A brilliantly fast-paced crime novel' -- ***** Reader review 'A real page-turner' --…
Having always been fascinated with the dark and macabre, I grew up hanging out in the library, forging a love of reading through Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and James Herbert. To write The Echo Man, I read more serial killer books than should be deemed healthy – anything from biographies to first-person accounts to psychology and profiling. So who better to recommend serial killer fiction, then a self-confessed serial killer nerd?!
The Jigsaw Man introduces us to DI Anjelica Henley and the Serial Crimes Unit as they investigate body parts found along the River Thames. Matheson pulls no punches with her portrait of her gritty East London, combined with pacey action and characters that quickly feel like old friends.
"A heart-pounding roller coaster ride."—Tami Hoag, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boy
*A Crime Reads Most Anticipated Book of 2021*
A serial killer and his copycat are locked in a violent game of cat and mouse. Can DI Anjelica Henley stop them before it’s too late?
On the day she returns to active duty with the Serial Crimes Unit, Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley is called to a crime scene. Dismembered body parts from two victims have been found by the river.
The modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to Peter Olivier, the notorious Jigsaw Killer, who has…
I love to read a good story, but I also get the greatest satisfaction from writing one, or several. I believe good fiction can say what factual books cannot, and done right, they can offer differing perspectives to any accepted norm. The trick is to let the characters speak, regardless of whether I agree with what they say, or not. The secret to good presentation is to offer the reader the choice to think about what has been said, consider and delve deeper, or not and pass by.
Silent Fear is a stunning mystery novel, scary because it is set in an institute for the blind during a lockdown. There is a serial killer on the loose and no inmates have the ability to see their persecutor. Yes, this one gets right inside your mind and I felt privileged to read it.
Scotland Yard detective Valerie Crowther is assigned to investigate the murder of a student at a university for the Deaf in London, England. The murder investigation coincides with a deadly flu virus outbreak, resulting in the university being quarantined from the outside world.
When more Deaf students are murdered, it becomes clear there is a serial killer operating within the sealed-off university. A chilling cat-and-mouse game evolves as the unknown killer targets Valerie and the virus claims more lives.
A stunning, claustrophobic, "whodunit" murder mystery, Silent Fear (A novel inspired by true crimes) is…
I’m an English nonfiction writer who is, I suppose, best-known for Members Only, my biography of the London strip club owner, theatre impresario, property magnate, and porn baron Paul Raymond, which was adapted into a big-budget movie called The Look of Love. Like many of my books, Members Only strayed into true crime, a genre that has, for all sorts of reasons, been attractive to me as a writer. Probably the most important of those is that it provides the opportunity to tell inherently dramatic stories and to convey a vivid picture of the past, thanks to the wealth of documentation associated with major crimes.
Now that’s a question that can be answered in a few sentences. Here’s goes…
This is among the finest examples of the true-crime genre. It’s an enthralling, pacey, and ingeniously structured account of the murders committed on both sides of the Atlantic by Dr. Neill Cream, a Scottish-born Canadian whose medical career served as camouflage for his psychopathic misogyny.
Macabre though the subject matter is, Jobb never wallows in that side of things, preferring to use the story as a vehicle for his vivid and insightful portrait of late nineteenth-century society.
The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream takes readers to the late nineteenth century as Scotland Yard follows the trail of a cold-blooded serial killer who was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper and who would finally be brought to justice by detectives employing a new science called forensics.
"When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals," Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most baffling investigations. "He has nerve and he has knowledge." In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream poisoned at least ten women in the United States, Britain,…
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