Here are 45 books that PI Kate Brannigan fans have personally recommended once you finish the PI Kate Brannigan series.
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I’m a taxidermy-loving vegan who had a pet cemetery as a kid. So, I guess you could say I’m a bit of a Wednesday Adams. My airplane reading? Forensic pathology textbooks. When my first thrillers were published, a lot of people were surprised. “You seem so nice!” they said. “You’re so funny and happy!” Here’s a secret: thriller writers are some of the most jolly people I know. We get it all out on the page. We get to murder people for a living. So, if you cut me off in traffic or don’t RSVP to my Evite, it's no big deal. I won’t get upset. I’ll just kill you later...in a book.
I have said this before, but if there had been a fourth book in this series in 2004, I would not have written Heartsick and would not have had a career. I love Val’s Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books. They are the blueprint for all thrillers.
She doesn’t hold back on the violence but finds these incredibly intimate character moments that tremble my heart.
In this special 20th anniversary edition, Lee Child introduces the Gold Dagger award-winning serial killer thriller that began the Number One bestselling crime series featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill, hero of TV's much-loved Wire in the Blood.
You always remember the first time. Isn't that what they say about sex? How much more true it is of murder...
Up till now, the only serial killers Tony Hill had encountered were safely behind bars. This one's different - this one's on the loose.
Four men have been found mutilated and tortured. As fear grips the city, the police turn to…
I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison.
When I first read this book, I wanted to be the protagonist, Sam Jones. Sam is bold, confident, and very sexy, has numerous vibrant, arty friends, owns a wardrobe of fabulous outfits, and is never far from trouble.
She’s a sculptor who turns unofficial investigator when a dead body turns up at the theatre where she’s been commissioned to create a series of mobiles for a stage production.
When not solving crimes, her life is a round of making art, complicated love affairs, drinking cocktails, and going out clubbing. I love her dry wit, strength, and self-deprecating humor.
Sam Jones is back! Lauren Henderson's sexy, streetwise artist-cum-detective returns in Freeze My Margarita, the sequel to her enormously popular Black Rubber Dress.
A chance meeting in a fetish club with an old friend from art school leads to a new sculpting job for Sam: creating a series of mobiles for an avant-garde production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Plunged into the strange world of theater, Sam mingles with a bizarre, vexing, but often amusing cast of characters, including the appalling Helen, the girlfriend of Sam's best friend Janey, and Hugo, an enigmatic and acidly humorous actor with a wry…
I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison.
I love the character of Kinsey Millhone because she’s so human and relatable. Her life is messy; she gets herself caught up in situations where she knows she ought to let things drop but just can’t let them go, and she has a kind heart. She also has the endearing quality of being self-deprecating and not taking herself too seriously.
This book is set in the 1980s, and I enjoy seeing Kinsey’s legwork to solve her case without the benefit of mobile phones or the internet. I also love her relationship with her elderly neighbor and how protective she is of him when she feels that new people in the neighborhood are taking advantage of him.
X is the New York Times number 1 bestseller and thrilling, twenty-fourth book in the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series from Sue Grafton.
In hindsight, I marvel at how clueless I was . . . What I ask myself even now is whether I should have picked up the truth any faster than I did, which is to say not fast enough . . .
When a glamorous red head wishes to locate the son she put up for adoption thirty-two years ago, it seems like an easy two hundred bucks for private investigator Kinsey Millhone. But when a cop tells…
I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison.
I love the character of VI Warshawski: tough, brave, capable, and utterly loyal to her friends. VI (as she is known) is the archetypal ‘tart noir’–a female investigator in the mold of the hardboiled noir detectives but with empathy, vulnerability, and great style. VI can pack a punch, handle a gun, and is tenacious to the point of stubbornness, often at great personal risk, yet we also see her moments of self-doubt, her humanity, and her compassion towards others.
Meeting an anonymous client on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. Especially when the client lies and tells V.I. Warshawski he's the prominent banker John Thayer, looking for his son's missing girlfriend. But V.I. soon discovers the real John Thayer's son - and he's dead.
As V.I. begins to question her mysterious client's motives, she sinks deeper into Chicago's darker side: a world of gangsters, insurance fraud and contract killings. And while she must concentrate on saving the life of someone she has never met, it becomes clear that she is in danger of losing her own.
I love reading crime but oh, it does annoy me when an otherwise competent sensible female detective insists on going into the lonely house to tackle the murderer without backup, and needs to be rescued by her male sidekick. Cass is the cool-in-a-crisis heroine we’d all like to be. Like her, I’m a solo sailor (I’ve lent her my yacht for the series) and I’d love to say I’ve learned to be quick-thinking, self-reliant, and prudent—the sea doesn’t forgive stupidity. I also live in a village where everyone sees the lifeboat going out, and having to be rescued would be the ultimate embarrassment.
This one’s my go-to fantasy world when I feel middle-aged. Bett runs a mysterious team whose skills include hacking, guns, gadgets, and flying helicopters. When scientist Ross Fleming disappears from his arms research job, Bett calls in the person he knows will do anything to save Ross: his mother, bored housewife Jane Fleming who dreams of adventure. Leaving a trail of broken laws behind her, she gets herself illegally into France to join Bett, where her dreams start coming true: a sports car, a transmitter disguised as an earring, a casino, and a gun she now knows how to fire... and it’s all narrated with Brookmyre’s trademark humour.
As a teenager Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo in the company of James Bond, but in her punk phase she'd got herself pregnant and by the time she reaches forty-six she's a grandmother, her dreams as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet every day. Then her son Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer in Switzerland, is forced to disappear before some characters cut from the same cloth as Blofeld persuade him to part with the secrets of his research. But they are not the only…
I love reading crime but oh, it does annoy me when an otherwise competent sensible female detective insists on going into the lonely house to tackle the murderer without backup, and needs to be rescued by her male sidekick. Cass is the cool-in-a-crisis heroine we’d all like to be. Like her, I’m a solo sailor (I’ve lent her my yacht for the series) and I’d love to say I’ve learned to be quick-thinking, self-reliant, and prudent—the sea doesn’t forgive stupidity. I also live in a village where everyone sees the lifeboat going out, and having to be rescued would be the ultimate embarrassment.
Through Covid I revisited childhood favourites, and found I still loved this series. Cathy has grown up in a Birmingham orphanage, and the only clues to her identity are a locket with a portrait of a Highland lady and a torn luggage label. She escapes north, where she meets Ian and Sovra. They spend their time messing about in their boat on the loch or camping in a remote bothy. Their determination to help Cathy gets them all into trouble, but it’s Cathy’s own character that gives her the chance of a happy ending.
In this, the third Ian and Sovra story, the pair discover that life in Edinburgh can be as thrilling as life in their own Western Highlands. For there they meet Cathie, who's escaped from an orphanage. They smuggle her out to a secret hut on the coast, where, after her rides in lorries and rolls of carpet, she's only too delighted to enjoy the free outdoor life of her new friends, while Ian and Sovra do a spot of detection for her. How they solved the mystery and found that this land of mountains, lochs and white sand really was…
I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison.
I lived in Australia for several years and loved visiting historic buildings with their wrap-around verandas, pressed-tin high ceilings, and old-world grandeur. Greenwood’s books, set in 1920s Melbourne, remind me of those buildings. Her heroine, investigator Phryne Fisher, epitomizes 1920s glamour.
She’s wealthy, educated, sexy, and self-assured, and conducts her investigations in a dazzling array of sumptuous outfits. But what I like most about Phryne is her ability to talk to anyone, whether that’s the grandest society hostess or the roughest docker.
In this book, she’s investigating a series of murders in a theatre and also finds herself drawn to Melbourne’s Chinese community. She moves easily between worlds, often kind, always shrewd, never flinching.
From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Ruddy Gore, the next historical mystery featuring the unstoppable, elegant amateur sleuth. Can Miss Fisher use her theater ties to take care of a phantasm haunting a Gilbert and Sullivan show?
"The appeal of this story is the glimpse it provides into the 1920s theater world and the opportunity it affords to observe Phryne and Lin Chung's romance from its inception."―Booklist
Perfect for Fans of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear
Inspired the Netflix show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Movie Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears Currently Streaming on Acorn…
As both a reader and mystery & thriller author, I’ve always been drawn to stories with a strong sense of place and “atmosphere." I love landscapes that can seduce and threaten in the same breath, and a setting so immersive that it feels like you once lived there. It’s what I always seek in the books I read and what I try to create in the stories I write. There’s no greater compliment than a fan saying they re-read your books just to revisit the world you created, because it’s my own reaction to the books I cherish. Here are some of my favourite reads where the beautiful setting is inseparable from the simmering suspense.
To be honest, I could have completed this list with just Mary Stewart titles alone!
No one does lush, atmospheric suspense like she does. I discovered her books as a lonely teenager dreaming of escape, and her rich, immersive writing has inspired me not only to follow in her footsteps as an author but also to travel on “book pilgrimages” to find the settings of her wonderful stories.
And I don’t just mean ticking off a tourist spot with an Instagram selfie—I mean hours building an itinerary with guidebooks, Google Maps, and her novels to find the exact beach in southern Crete or the exact village in Provence that her heroines visited.
What I love the most is the settings woven into the plot, so that the stories couldn’t have happened anywhere else, and so vivid that they are a character in their own right. In The Moonspinners, for…
Impetuous and attractive, Nicola Ferris has just arrived in Crete for a holiday when she sees an egret fly out of a lemon grove. On impulse, she follows the bird’s path into the White Mountains. There she discovers a young Englishman who, hiding out in the hills and less than pleased to have been discovered, sends Nicola packing with the order to keep out of his affairs. This, of course, Nicola is unable to do, and before long events lead to a stunning climax among the fishing boats of Agios Georgios Bay.
In this bestselling novel, first published in 1963…
I am a writer who will never give you a sad ending! I love books that reflect on life (the good and the bad) but that look for the positive in people. My experience has taught me that there is so much good to find—and as I explore in my debut novel, The Keeper of Stories, everyone has a story to tell. My first novel was published when I was 60, so I am also a believer that you should never underestimate anyone. And I love to see that reflected in books.
My mother had every one of Georgette Heyer’s regency novels, and I inherited them. They are witty, romantic, and satisfying. When I feel sad I dive beneath their covers and lose myself in them. I also remember my mum. The Grand Sophy was her favourite, it is the story of an extraordinary young woman who has a gift for sorting out other people’s problems – whether they want her to or not!
If you love Bridgerton, you'll love Georgette Heyer!
'The greatest writer who ever lived' ANTONIA FRASER 'One of my perennial comfort authors. Heyer's books are as incisively witty and quietly subversive as any of Jane Austen's' JOANNE HARRIS 'Absolutely delicious tales of Regency heroes. . . Utter, immersive escapism' SOPHIE KINSELLA __________________
The charming Sophia Stanton-Lacy is a force to be reckoned with.
When Sophy is sent to stay with her London relatives, she finds her cousins in quite the tangle.
Cecilia is besotted with an attractive but feather-brained poet, Hubert has fallen foul of a money-lender, and the ruthlessly…
When we speak in real life, much of what we say out loud doesn't have any real meaning. But when authors write, each word a character says must convey meaning to drive the scene forward. The words must exhibit some form of information—emotion, advancement of an idea, or even be the action itself—otherwise, they're just wasted words on the page. The true challenge of writing dialogue is to convey as much as possible with as few words as possible. I love a book in which I'm yearning for specific characters to return just so I can hear the carefully crafted, intelligent, and tight words they employ when speaking, especially when two characters are verbally dueling.
The book is centered around an FBI trainee (Clarice) sent to interview an imprisoned, sophisticated, cannibalistic psychiatrist (Hannibal Lecter) to help her catch an active serial killer.
Their meetings are brilliant and tense exchanges within a psychological game in which Lecter will only offer clues if Clarice reveals deeply personal details about herself. The tone of these conversations, using dialogue to navigate an intellectual and emotional battlefield, was brilliantly crafted.
"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." In lesser hands, this single spoken sentence might have been replaced with several paragraphs of exposition to describe Hannibal Lecter.
As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames "Buffalo Bill," FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.
That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs--an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.
