The most recommended police books

This one is in my top ten books because of its “wow” factor, and its influence on me as a writer. It’s the first in the late, great Mo Hayder’s series featuring D.I. Jack Caffrey. He’s a character who is haunted by grief and guilt but driven to find out what happened to his brother, who went missing as a child, and to track down a present-day killer known as ‘Birdman’. How this maniac gets his nickname still makes my stomach churn.  

This tremendous little book is about who has the right to discipline and kill. In an ideal world, the author argues, this right is monopolized by territorial entities we know as states. This is not the case in Brazil, however. In Brazil, or rather in metropolitan São Paulo, the right to discipline and kill is shared—hence the book’s title—between the various agents of the public security state and an extremely well-organized and powerful criminal faction known as the Primeiro Comando do Capital or PCC.

This novel sparked my initial interest in learning more about the history of the IRA.

It’s a well-told tale of a group of Irish nationalists (or criminals/terrorists, depending on your point of view) who hatch a complex plot to take over St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City (with hostages, naturally) on St. Patrick’s Day—and the detectives trying to stop them.

While some of the language is a bit dated (it was published in 1981) with the expected stereotypes and so on, the story is well-plotted, the characters are well-drawn and their motivations plausible, and, best of all, the minute detail about the interior of the cathedral is believable.

The infighting among the various branches of law enforcement and local politicians is also very well done and entirely accurate: mostly, they want to avoid blame.

Can I make this list and not include a golden-age detective story set in a country house at Christmas? This one has all the ingredients required for an afternoon by the fire, looking out at the wintry weather—a locked room, an appealing detective, and a cast of people compelled, rather unwisely, to spend Christmas in each other’s company. "If you ask me, there very likely wouldn’t have been a murder at all if it hadn’t been for him getting ideas about peace and goodwill, and assembling all these highly uncongenial people under the same roof at the same time.” 

I've read quite a few Maigret's now, but this is my favourite so far. As a detective, Maigret is the opposite of Columbo. There's never "just one more thing here". In fact, there's rarely any questioning at all.

By his very presence, Maigret seems to invite confessions, for the 'villains' to bottle everything up in fear of interrogation only for themselves to let everything out. It's a tour de force of sustained suspense to keep a novel at that bubbling point, and the plot here is intricate and tragic; essentially, a man who has worked his way up to have everything but through egoism and happenstance can't find the right people to share it with.

And even more tragic, he finds himself harking back to those simpler times, undoing his status. There's much to relate to here, and the prose is knife-edge sharp.

It’s every author’s worst nightmare. You’ve just discovered that a famous author has a book that sounds uncannily similar to your new and unpublished masterpiece. Yikes!

Dugoni’s series starter featured a feisty female detective investigating her sister’s past murder. I had to read it. Thankfully, that’s where the similarities ended. The novel is a gripping read with meticulous forensic details and an expertly laid twist. And both our stories warn against the dangers of old secrets. Are some doors better left closed?

Having personally investigated numerous missing persons cases (not all of which ended well), I was drawn to this book and identified with DI Rebus’ frustrations with the police bureaucracy. The inner demons that are the cornerstone of the Rebus character make for a wonderfully flawed protagonist and one exceptionally good read.

This is a crime novel set in 1919 Calcutta. We follow Captain Sam Wyndham, who is a former Scotland Yard detective seeking a fresh start after the emotional wounds following WWI and the death of his wife.

When a senior official is murdered, he doesn't hold back during his search from British mansions to seedy opium dens with his new sidekick, Sergeant Banerjee. Rising tensions, the clash of societies, the heat, dirt, and crowding all contribute to bringing this colorful period to life.

This is the debut novel and the first in a remarkably well-told series so interesting I found it impossible to put down. 

Due to the financial success of The Exorcist film, a sequel was ordered (The Exorcist II: The Heretic) which had no involvement from the original writer and director and was universally panned. William Peter Blatty then wrote a screenplay for what would have been a sequel to the original film that ignored the second entry. William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist, was attached but backed out. Blatty turned his inactive script into what became the novel, Legion, which he eventually re-adapted and directed in 1990. The majority of the book is dialogue, so it’s easy to see its origins as a screenplay, but that does not make it any less effective.

This story takes a minor character from the original novel, Detective Kinderman, and chronicles his confrontation with a patient in a mental institution claiming to be possessed by the spirit of a dead… show more.

The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 introduced many people to the idea of abolishing police and prisons. Mariame Kaba might be the most thoughtful abolitionist organizer. This book of essays is both daring and humble, forward-thinking, and rooted in the everyday lives of young Black and Brown people.

Using simple language to convey profound ideas, Kaba asks if the massive expenditures of money and violence in our criminal justice system actually bring satisfaction and healing to those who are victims of crime. She insists that abolition is about not just ending a failed institution for public safety but also about experimenting with how to create better ones that are based in community and democracy. It’s a book that teaches you how to hope.