Here are 14 books that Exmoor trilogy fans have personally recommended once you finish the Exmoor trilogy series.
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I’m fascinated by long stories where things aren’t exactly as they seem. Most crime fiction is secrets and lies and their eventual uncovering but most ‘literary’ fiction is too. For what it’s worth, I was a book reviewer for all the posh UK papers for about 15 years, including crime fiction critic for The Observer for twelve (so I’ve read far more crime novels than is healthy for anyone!). I’m a voracious reader and writer and I love making things more complicated for myself (and the reader) by coming up with stuff that I’ve then somehow got to fit together.
More insane narrators (or are they?) but you can’t get more unreliable than that. Discovered these thematically linked novels decades ago and came back to them when I was trying to work out the voice of the Trunk Murderer in my Trilogy and what mental state that person might have been in.
In The Deadly Percheron a psychiatrist has a patient, otherwise seeming perfectly sane, claiming delusions that aren’t necessarily believable. (Except, of course, in fiction the best delusions are. The psychiatrist is drawn in and you know that’s not going to end well.)
Between 1946 and 1948 john franklin bardin produced 3 quite extraordinary novels, all distinguished by a hallucinatory intensity of feeling and an absorption in morbid psychology remarkable for the period. "the deadly percheron", "the last of philip banter" and "devil take the blue-tail fly" are unlike anything else in modern crime literature. 10/6/87 UK PRIORITY REISSUE
I’ve written many types of book—fiction and non-fiction—for readers of all ages. But I keep returning to my first passion—the clever, crazy, over the top psychological thrillers I was addicted to reading or watching on TV when I was growing up. I’ve always loved trying to write page turners with plots readers have never seen before. Certainly, I want my audience to care about the book’s characters and laugh at the one-liners. But nothing beats making people think… there’s no way he can possibly pull all these plot strands together at the end. And then doing it. Besides, my nutty thrillers are the ones that get the best reviews.
I love an intricate plot. But sometimes you want some real literary heft to go along with it. In which case, you can’t do better than anything by Dan Chaon.
A lot of books witter on about the nature of self and identity. This one actually nails it. The characterizations and descriptions are superb. Best of all, it’s a sublimely written triple mystery, whose disparate strands finally lock in a devastating fashion.
BONUS: This edition contains an Await Your Reply discussion guide.
The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways–and with unexpected consequences–in acclaimed author Dan Chaon’s gripping, brilliantly written new novel.
Longing to get on with his life, Miles Cheshire nevertheless can’t stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. Hayden has covered his tracks skillfully, moving stealthily from place to place, managing along the way to hold down various jobs and seem, to the people he meets, entirely normal. But some version of the truth is always concealed.
I’ve written many types of book—fiction and non-fiction—for readers of all ages. But I keep returning to my first passion—the clever, crazy, over the top psychological thrillers I was addicted to reading or watching on TV when I was growing up. I’ve always loved trying to write page turners with plots readers have never seen before. Certainly, I want my audience to care about the book’s characters and laugh at the one-liners. But nothing beats making people think… there’s no way he can possibly pull all these plot strands together at the end. And then doing it. Besides, my nutty thrillers are the ones that get the best reviews.
Written in the 80s, the characters are unbelievable, the dialogue stilted and the plot is totally over the top. Plus Campbell reveals the killer’s identity halfway through. Yet, when I first read it, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Thirty years later, I still can’t. The whole thing is simply too weird and creepy. The first chapter is a great indicator of how the rest of the book will go. It’s just dumb. And then, suddenly… “Where has his ARM gone!” And you’re utterly hooked.
This is Ramsey Campbell's first novel, originally published in 1976 in the UK. It is stated in Wikipedia that revisions were made in 1985. This is the 2nd UK edition, published in 1987. There is not indication of revisions in this edition, so I'm not certain.
My family was divided by religion, leaving me skeptical about belief systems. After a background in science, I studied philosophy and became intrigued by Heidegger's ‘pitiless atheism.’ The power of his thought but his personal failings have long been an issue for academics. I have since been fascinated partly by powerful personalities but more by the struggle of their followers as they suspend critical thinking and make huge sacrifices to offer their support. This struggle and difficulty of turning back, particularly as the systems begin to collapse, are a feature of many of the works of fiction that intrigue me most, particularly in the books I have chosen.
The novel presents a range of archival material, including graphical elements. The main account has an objective restraint that reads almost like a scientific report, which makes it moving at times. The main character Bella develops rapidly from a child-like state into a mature woman and way her language and insight progresses is skillfully handled.
I found it fascinating how reasonable-sounding scientific ideas can become barbaric actions. The novel is multi-layered, with competing narratives and Bella undermining most of what appears in the Lanthimos film, Poor Things. In the end, I was left in a state of exhilarated confusion and went to read it all again.
What strange secret made rich, beautiful, tempestuous Bella Baxter irresistible to the poor Scottish medical student Archie McCandless? Was it her mysterious origin in the home of his monstrous friend Godwin Baxter, the genius whose voice could perforate eardrums? This story of true love and scientific daring whirls the reader from the private operating-theatres of late-Victorian Glasgow through aristocratic casinos, low-life Alexandria and a Parisian bordello, reaching an interrupted climax in a Scottish church.
Like Patrick in "Rubbernecker," I excelled at dissecting animals in high school and college biology labs. I was also preoccupied by death, specifically violent deaths, and the reasons why people did such horrible things. Perhaps it was because of the Perry Mason mysteries my father gave me when I had a bad case of insomnia at age thirteen. So when I saw my first autopsy while interning at the Fulton County ME's office in Atlanta during graduate school, I was riveted. And while I didn't become a pathologist, my career in the criminal justice field gave me a front-row seat to observe the sad, traumatic, and often violent ways in which disturbed individuals impact society.
I've never read a book quite like this. It was a little challenging to get into, but by the time I finished, I was blown away by the author's talent.
The character-driven plot makes whiplash-inducing twists and turns from several points of view. The reader is first drawn into the mind of a comatose patient who is slowly regaining consciousness and thinks he sees his roommate being murdered.
Next, we're following Patrick Fort, a teenager with Asperger's Syndrome, who has won a disability scholarship to study anatomy at Cardiff University. Patrick has spent the last ten years fixated on finding out what happened to his father, the victim of a hit-and-run driver.
His habit of bringing home dead animals and examining them alarms his mother but is the foundation for his later expertise in biology, particularly in dissection. At university, he and his team are given a human cadaver and…
“Breathtaking. I read this and wished I’d written it.”—Val McDermid
Belinda Bauer is a phenomenal voice in British crime fiction, whose work has won the CWA’s Gold Dagger Award for Crime Novel of the Year and garnered rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Winner of the 2014 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, Rubbernecker is a gripping thriller about a medical student who begins to suspect that something strange is going on in this cadaver lab.
“The dead can’t speak to us,” Professor Madoc had said. But that was a lie. The body Patrick Fort…
I’ve been reading crime fiction all my life. I love following the detective sifting through the evidence—the clues, the false trails, and the eventual denouement. It was a crime fiction book that made me realise that history is not fixed but is, in fact, detective work. It changes as more evidence is discovered or a new interpretation is accepted. That book made me decide to take history as my subject at university and I spent six deliriously happy years examining evidence, evaluating it, and, reaching conclusions. Amongst my case studies were the princes in the tower, the gunpowder plot, and witchcraft. Happy days!
The search for the body commenced. Then the victim walked into town.
Behind the picture-postcard façade of Kingsmarkham lies a community rife with violence, betrayal, and a taste for vengeance. When sixteen-year-old Lizzie Cromwell reappears no one knows where she has been, including Lizzie herself. Inspector Wexford thinks she was with a boyfriend. But the disappearance of a three-year-old girl casts a more ominous light on events. And when the public's outrage turns toward a recently released pederast and another suspect turns up stabbed to death, Wexford must try to unravel the mystery before any more bodies appear, and before…
I’ve been reading crime fiction all my life. I love following the detective sifting through the evidence—the clues, the false trails, and the eventual denouement. It was a crime fiction book that made me realise that history is not fixed but is, in fact, detective work. It changes as more evidence is discovered or a new interpretation is accepted. That book made me decide to take history as my subject at university and I spent six deliriously happy years examining evidence, evaluating it, and, reaching conclusions. Amongst my case studies were the princes in the tower, the gunpowder plot, and witchcraft. Happy days!
Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist dedicated to helping her patients overcome their private horrors. She tells them that they are in a safe place with her—nothing will go beyond these walls. Until one day, a patient’s dreams and desires accord so closely to the case of a missing child that she decides to break that promise.
She finds herself involved in a complex police investigation that can only be solved with her specialist insight. The tension mounts to breaking point as she tracks down the killer, ending in a shocking climax that comes straight out of the left field.
"Complex psychological suspense at its best." -Booklist (starred review)
Immensely intelligent and poignantly human, Frieda Klein has captivated book critics and crime readers everywhere with her debut outing as Blue Monday's iconoclastic heroine. A psychotherapist and insomniac who spends her nights walking along the ancient rivers that lie beneath modern London, Frieda stars in a dazzling new crime series in which the terrors of the mind spill over into real life.
When five-year-old Matthew Farraday is abducted, Frieda cannot ignore the fact that his photograph perfectly matches the boy one of…
I’ve been reading crime fiction all my life. I love following the detective sifting through the evidence—the clues, the false trails, and the eventual denouement. It was a crime fiction book that made me realise that history is not fixed but is, in fact, detective work. It changes as more evidence is discovered or a new interpretation is accepted. That book made me decide to take history as my subject at university and I spent six deliriously happy years examining evidence, evaluating it, and, reaching conclusions. Amongst my case studies were the princes in the tower, the gunpowder plot, and witchcraft. Happy days!
I discovered Belinda Bauer through my local book club and have been addicted ever since. Her plots are thrilling, dark, and original.
The opening scene in this one will draw you in immediately and you will have trouble putting the book down until you have reached the end. It is the story of three children whose mother just disappeared one day. She told them to wait in the car and she walked away andnever came back!
Jack has to look after his sisters in any way he can. He goes to some very dark places, always wondering what happened to his mother.
The tension throughout is unbelievably high.
This story terrifies me and attracts me. I read it again and again, and it still gets me every time.
Crime & Thriller Book of the Year (Specsavers National Book Awards) Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018.
'The best crime novel I've read in a very long time.' VAL MCDERMID
SNAP DECISIONS CAN BE DANGEROUS . . .
On a stifling summer's day, eleven-year-old Jack and his two sisters sit in their broken-down car, waiting for their mother to come back and rescue them. Jack's in charge, she'd said. I won't be long.
But she doesn't come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed for ever.
I have always been intrigued by missing persons. I wonder how their family copes with having no closure on the situation and how they can live wondering where their loved one is and whether they are dead or alive. I have read these recommended books many times to satisfy this craving. I enjoy a sense of the macabre even though the story may be about mundane everyday topics. This only adds to the sense of dread and wonder. I enjoy the intriguing twists and turns, keeping me on my toes and wanting more until the end. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have.
I recommend this book and the author’s fabulous writing, comprising of
dread and humour (which I love), all rolled into one. Three separate case
histories, interlinked, each littered with fabulous, memorable
characters. Jackson Brodie, the Detective trying to solve the case, is one of the best, with brilliant detective skills and a haunting
personal life.
An intriguing mix of family drama and mystery, giving it
more depth than just an ordinary thriller. I have read this book many
times, and it’s always new, never boring, and the ending is still a surprise.
Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge ...
My whole family shared a love for classic British mysteries, especially light-hearted, witty ones. With the enduring popularity of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, people sometimes forget there were lots of other great writers from the “golden age” of mysteries. I first found most of these books on my parents’ bookshelves when I was a bored teenager growing up in snowy central Maine. Several of the paperbacks were so well-worn the cellophane was peeling off their covers. For me, reading classic mysteries is like listening to Mozart—they are endlessly stirring and fascinating, and in the end, order is restored, and all is right with the world.
This book is one of my favorite mysteries of all time. It addresses one of the great unsolved mysteries in English history: Did Richard III kill the princes in the tower? Tey’s sleuth, Alan Grant, is a dogged investigator, and, in the hospital with a broken leg, he treats this historical mystery like a contemporary murder. His step-by-step investigation pulled me in and convinced me that Richard Plantagenet has been mistreated by history.
Miss Tey is so convincing that she inspired me to write the (very innocent) ghost of Richard III into one of my own mystery novels after the monarch’s body was found under a Midlands car park in 2012.
_________________________ Josephine Tey's classic novel about Richard III, the hunchback king whose skeleton was famously discovered in a council car park, investigates his role in the death of his nephews, the princes in the Tower, and his own death at the Battle of Bosworth.
Richard III reigned for only two years, and for centuries he was villified as the hunch-backed wicked uncle, murderer of the princes in the Tower. Josephine Tey's novel The Daughter of Time is an investigation into the real facts behind the last Plantagenet king's reign, and an attempt to right what many believe to be the…
