Books like A Matter of Blood — picked by fans

I remember summers growing up when we were out of the house seeking freedom from parents as we streamed toward our teenage years, so I can identify with this story’s start. We’d follow deer trails through brush and trees to spots up in the hills we’d claimed as our own. This book begins with a prologue made vivid with three children and Tana French’s gorgeous prose.

The children go up and over a rock wall and into “A summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silk skin blue…your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat…” “…long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways…” and the haunted last sentence, “These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer.”

I can’t even tell you how many times in many years working for newspapers that I rushed out after hearing a body had been found in an empty house or neglected alley. In almost every case, I would arrive to have police officers tell me, “No story here. No homicide. Just another overdose.” The newspaper didn’t tally overdose deaths as it did murders, even if many fatalities are linked to heroin that has been mixed with fentanyl without the users’ knowledge. It’s very rare for those who sell the killer substance to face homicide charges. 

The city is basically another character in this book. While the opioid epidemic had touched communities across the country, Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood is widely acknowledged as a disaster zone. A 2018 New York Times article called Kensington is the largest open-air narcotics market on the east coast. 

The plot centers on Philadelphia police officer Mickey… show more.

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.

James Ellroy’s 1987 novel exploring the infamous unsolved and ghoulish murder of Elizabeth Short, the so-called “Black Dahlia,” gripped me with its chilling portrayal of two very different cops who become obsessed with solving the 1947 murder.

Although this is a relatively early work of Ellroy’s and extremely visceral owing to the nature of the historical crime, it’s arguably the author’s first mature novel, proved to be his breakout book, and pre-dates the rather alliterative, staccato prose style he would adopt not long after.

Post-war Los Angeles is seedily, disturbingly rendered in surreal and gothic relief, while Ellroy also masterfully portrays many of the haunted LAPD detectives who actually worked the case.

I really enjoyed the entire 87th Precinct series, wherein Ed McBain creates the American police procedural genre.

Cop Hater, the first in the series, is hard-hitting, fast-paced, filled with complex characters, and captures the essence of a cop’s soul while giving the reader a wonderful glimpse into the world of criminal investigations.

I’ve always enjoyed mysteries, especially police procedural stories. Harry Bosch is the kind of detective that you want to root for. During his lengthy career, Bosch followed the motto that ‘everybody counts or nobody counts.’ That approach speaks volumes to me, especially when writing my own stories.

Investigating a cold case homicide requires turning over all the evidence, digging into the interviews, and developing new theories and suspects. This is dramatically different from a ‘fresh’ case, where there can be pressure from multiple directions to find the guilty party and bring them to justice quickly.

I like Connelly’s style and have read every one of his books that I can get my hands on. Bosch ruffles feathers, but gets it done!

I’ve always been a big fan of police procedurals and courtroom drama books, and I am even bigger a fan of books with great characterizations. This book has all that.

Lissa Marie Redmond is a former cold case homicide detective for the Buffalo Police Department. Her protagonist, Lauren Riley, is also a retired cold case homicide detective, and this book is the first in a series with her. I loved this book because it has a lot of memorable courtroom scenes with nice dialogue, and I was surprised by the ending, which is not easy to do. 

U.K. author Stephen Leather has written so many books and in a variety of genres. His supernatural Detective Jack Nightingale series is of interest to me here. In Nightfall and subsequent Jack Nightingale novels, our hero is struggling against demonic forces brought into his orbit courtesy of his now-dead father. Unusual, certainly. Many readers, I suspect, enjoy the injection of a new element into the now-crowded police procedural genre. 

Graham Masterton grew to fame with his horror novels, including the best-selling novel The Manitou. It was only decades later that he began his Katie Maguire series of police procedurals, which have been equally successful. Having read Masterton over the years, I was fascinated by his shift from horror to crime fiction, often incorporating horror elements into his work. I started primarily as a horror writer, but have now shifted toward crime fiction. Masterton’s novels have been great “guides” in this respect.

I discovered Kirschman through her non-fiction—a book called I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know—when I was working on my first mystery.

Later I discovered she also writes a darned good story herself. Like this one, featuring Dot Meyerhoff, newly hired police psychologist. Dot’s job? Help the police cope better with their stress—those daily dangers, risks, uglinesses.

First client—Ben Gomez, a rookie who just encountered his first corpse. He strikes Dot as a little too sensitive. When Ben becomes a corpse himself, it looks like another cop suicide. Shouldn’t Dot have seen this coming? But she didn’t.

The secondary theme is significant and well handled: the prevalence of police suicide. I learned a lot. Hint: it’s a cozy, not a police procedural.