100 books like Vanishing Act

While this wasn’t written as a historical, it was published in the 1960s, so it qualifies as one.

Mrs. Pollifax is another unlikely spunky heroine who’s one of my favorites. A suburban housewife and widow with grown children and an empty nest, Pollifax is so bored with gardening and yoga that she volunteers to help the CIA! What was supposed to be a short and safe trip to Mexico City turns into something far more sinister, and she ends up in an Albanian prison.

It could be a wild and unbelievable read, but in this author’s skillful hands, the plot comes together perfectly. Gillman’s sense of society and cultural context is nuanced, and I love how her books bring out her belief in the strength of innate human kindness.

Stephen Hunter’s crime fiction masterpiece, Dirty White Boys, begins with a sentence lovingly detailing the villain’s genitals. 

I assure you this opening is in no way gratuitous or prurient; it signals that we’re in for a wild ride, informing us that only “…three men at McAlester State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye….” 

Pye is one of the great literary villains of all time – racist, crude, violent, and cruel… and smart as a whip. And the tone here is pitch-dark hillbilly noir. If you’re brave enough to read this book it will live in your imagination for the rest of your life. 

The Harry Bosch series has been long and often predictable.

Bosch has a strong belief that if everybody doesn’t count, nobody counts. He has to hold up his image of justice against an LAPD that plays politics, and a city populace easily swayed by the latest headlines.

What I love about The Last Coyote is that it’s a very personal novel where Bosch examines his relationship with his deceased mother Marjorie Phillips Lowe, a prostitute who was brutally murdered. While on psychiatric leave, Bosch takes on the case of his mother’s unsolved murder.

It’s a wonderfully nuanced exploration of the relationship between a mother and son, a cop and his own psyche, and a city and its most reviled citizens.

I might have picked A Maiden’s Grave for the title alone, though you’ll have to read it to learn the subtle double meaning packed into those three words. But of course there’s a lot more to this fast-paced story of a school for the deaf caught in the crossfire of a police standoff. Jeffery Deaver deftly intertwines full-bodied characters, crackling tension, and emotionally affecting backstories. Reading it, I realized that it could have been a pretty ordinary police procedural and that only the author’s determination to add layers of depth and detail lifted it to a new level. 

Gerald Petievich must have used a crystal ball when writing Earth Angels in 1989, because only nine years later, all the basic elements of the story would hit the headlines, as rogue elements within the LAPD were exposed in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy known as the Rampart scandal. The book’s eerie prescience is only one reason it’s a modern classic. Its depiction of police procedure is almost unmatched in accuracy and detail, and it perfectly captures the dark, gritty side of Los Angeles, far away from the bright lights of movie premieres. If I ever need to remind myself why I left L.A. after twelve years, I only need to revisit Petievich’s open-eyed exposé of official corruption, casual lawlessness, and random violence. 

I have a soft spot for women during times of war or adversity. This story spans the early years of the 1900s as Maggie lives her father’s legacy to “make a difference in the world.” She never gives in, or gives up, and contributes to the safety of those around her during the end of the Great War and troubles in Ireland. Setting is a big thing for me, and in this book the location, the surroundings, and the times evoked an understanding of Ireland and the Irish. As with the fictional characters I like most, Maggie is a person I’d love to have as a friend.

I love the heroine in this book. She’s an unconventional young woman with a seemingly insurmountable flaw, or two. Her considerable knowledge about farming and her forthright nature discourages suitors in spite of her hefty dowry. If that were not enough, her eyes are two different colors and more than one person suspects her of being fey. Phoebe acts as if she doesn’t give a toss and lives her life on her own terms. When presented with an unusual solution, she acts and does not look back. I loved Phoebe, her feisty nature, and was reminded by her that there are solutions to the dilemmas in life if one holds a forward-looking attitude. This is a shorter read that left me wanting more. 

I enjoyed this book. As a writer, I can’t often say that flat out. I get distracted by “writerly” issues. The “what if” premise in this story hooked me and the journey into a fictional word as an extension of other fictional worlds delighted me. Mary Jekyll’s story, her quest to find out who she is and to make her way in a difficult situation, matches my reading tastes. Whatever the flaws in construction, craft, or typos, I read this one immersed in concept and characters. I read to be distracted from a world gone crazy, and I found this a refreshing and entertaining read. Ideal for those who like a gander at the possible extended worlds of fictional characters like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde among others.

This book of essays by the Seneca scholar and activist, John Mohawk, is vital because its title pinpoints what the center of my life and work is: focusing on Indigenous ways of thinking about the world as a vital and necessary alternative way of understanding the world to Western thought, which has brought us to the brink of climate collapse and has failed to solve, indeed has only increased, social and economic inequality.

I value the book, then, because it reminds me of the way to achieve real democracy.

American Indian Jane Whitefield rescues people the police can’t protect and helps them find new identities and new homes. But now her job is complicated because Pete Hatcher, a Vegas gambling executive, is the target of Earl and Linda, a lethal tag team who will become very rich if Hatcher dies. The job is even more complicated because Jane has recently married Corey, a successful local surgeon, so it’s harder to maintain a low profile in the town. When Earl and Linda hone in on Corey, Jane realizes she has to protect her own family as well as her client, and her foes know every trick that she knows, too.