Here are 100 books that A Sight for Sore Eyes fans have personally recommended if you like
A Sight for Sore Eyes.
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I like fiction which makes a character confront what the poet Thom Gunn called ‘the blackmail of his circumstances’: where you are born, the expectations of you. I like to think I am very much a self-created individual, but I can never escape what I was born into; the self is a prison that the will is trying to break out of. I like literature which reflects that challenge.
I find Tom Ripley such a wonderful character—a con man who commits crimes under the guise of someone else, a male protagonist written by a lesbian.
I love the levels of deception the reader is pulled in, so is on the side of the criminal throughout, hoping for him not to get caught in his awful, amoral behaviour.
It is a masterful use of the narrative voice in crime fiction at its best.
It's here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith's five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a "sissy." Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley's fascination with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie's ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game. "Sinister and strangely alluring"…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I was twelve years old when I first read Jane Eyre, the beginning of my love for gothic fiction. Murder mysteries are fine, but add a remote location, a decaying old house, some tormented characters, ancient family secrets, and I’m all in. Traditional Gothic, American Gothic (love this painting), Australian Gothic, Mexican Gothic (perfect title by the way), I love them all. The setting in gothic fiction is like a character in itself, and wherever I travel, I’m drawn to these locations, all food for my own writing.
So much so that I’ve read it several times since I first encountered it as a teenager. (Plus watched both movie versions, twice each.)
The first line, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again," drew me in and refused to let go. I wanted to return to Manderley. I wanted to find out what dark secrets would be revealed there. The unnamed, naive young heroine is haunted by the all-pervading presence of her husband’s first wife, Rebecca… and so was I.
And although some of the social attitudes are jarring to a 21st-century reader, and although I know the plot by heart now… I will still return to it.
* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY * 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS * 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH
'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .'
Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the south of France, she meets a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory…
Growing up in theatre, I was completely immersed in plays, which tend to be deep dives of the human psyche, and I latched on to those examinations like a dog with a bone. I’ve always loved the complexities of the human mind, specifically how we so desperately want to believe that anything beautiful, expensive, or exclusive must mean that the person, place, or thing is of more value. But if we pull back the curtain, and really take a raw look, we see that nothing is exempt from smudges of ugliness. It’s the ugliness, especially in regard to human character, that I find most fascinating.
I’ve read this book no less than five times, and it remains one of my all-time favorite books. Tartt’s literary style of writing is not only beautiful in its own right but becomes a tool to enrich the story that surrounds all things literary.
The idea of an exclusive New England college where you have the luxury of unabashedly studying the classics and taking school breaks in Italy is my ultimate idea of luxury. Where do I sign up?! Taking it a step further, the fact that these academic outcasts are stone-cold murderers hits my sweet spot.
This juxtaposition of elevation and depravation pulls me in every single time. When I went to college, I initially wanted to study criminal psychology, and this book is a perfect example of why.
'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'
Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
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 ...
Do you see the pattern in the five books I’ve recommended? In each of them, a woman writer explores the darker side of human nature and lures the law-abiding reader to explore it, too. I do not expect to ever commit a murder or to have to cover one up for the sake of a loved one. But could I? Could the person next to me in the grocery store line? Hmmm, I wonder. Traditional mystery stories and police procedurals reassure the reader that in the end, justice will be served and order restored. The women writers of noir/psychological suspense make us contemplate the world very differently.
The Vault is the sequel to A Sight for Sore Eyes. It is a police procedural with the detective trying to identify several dead bodies found in an abandoned coal cellar. The dead seem to have no connection to each other, so the detective must also puzzle out how each of them came to be there. I recommend it because the reader has some fun: She knows the answers to all those questions from having read the first book. It’s a great twist on mystery-as-riddle whodunits.
INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL’S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS
In the stunning climax to Rendell’s classic 1998 novel A Sight for Sore Eyes, three bodies—two dead, one living—are entombed in an underground chamber beneath a picturesque London house. Twelve years later, the house’s new owner pulls back a manhole cover, and discovers the vault—and its grisly contents. Only now, the number of bodies is four. How did somebody else end up in the chamber? And who knew of its existence?
With their own detectives at an impasse, London police call on former Kingsmarkham Chief Inspector Wexford, now retired and living…
Do you see the pattern in the five books I’ve recommended? In each of them, a woman writer explores the darker side of human nature and lures the law-abiding reader to explore it, too. I do not expect to ever commit a murder or to have to cover one up for the sake of a loved one. But could I? Could the person next to me in the grocery store line? Hmmm, I wonder. Traditional mystery stories and police procedurals reassure the reader that in the end, justice will be served and order restored. The women writers of noir/psychological suspense make us contemplate the world very differently.
The Blank Wallis a departure from my first three recommendations. It focuses on a woman who leads a frazzled but ordinary life during World War II. She must keep her family and home going while her husband is at war. She has to fight a source of evil that invades her home to preserve the norms that seem all-important to her. The fight means stepping outside of those very norms. I recommend this book as an exploration of what it means to do whatever it takes to protect a loved one.
In The Blank Wall (1947) ‘a suburban matron, harassed by wartime domestic problems – her husband is overseas – finds herself implicated in the murder of her young daughter’s extremely unattractive beau’ (The New Yorker). An outstanding example of the psychological thriller genre, ‘worthy of the great Patricia Highsmith herself,’ as Lady Antonia Fraser said in the Spectator, it was filmed as The Reckless Moment in 1949 and as The Deep End in 2001, starring Tilda Swinton. In 1950 Raymond Chandler asked his English publisher, ‘Does anybody in England publish Elisabeth Sanxay Holding? For my money she’s the top suspense…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
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 was drawn to this book by the insight into the mind of a mother who swears that the child she sees is not her own, despite reassurances from her husband, friends, and doctors, who say it is.
I always feel a sense of heart-thumping dread as I read it. I want to help the mother, who nobody will listen to. I feel it is a great piece of suspenseful writing.
One of the Sunday Times 100 Best Crime Novels and Thrillers Since 1945
The first extraordinary psychological suspense thriller from internationally bestselling author Sophie Hannah. Not to be missed for readers of Clare Mackintosh and Paula Hawkins
'Terrifying' Scotsman 'Ingenious' Sunday Times
It's every mother's nightmare . . .
She's only been gone two hours.
Her husband David was meant to be looking after their two-week-old daughter. But when Alice Fancourt walks into the nursery, her terrifying ordeal begins, for Alice insists the baby in the cot is a stranger she's never seen before.
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 loved this author’s brilliant writing and also
the sense of menace that oozes from every page. As each page turns,
you delve deeper into mundane activities with family filled with the
possibility of murder. Culminating in a clever ending, carrying out an
everyday household task.
A very clever book that I’ve read time and time
again. Even long into the night.
A contemporary psychological thriller in the style of Ruth Rendell, from one of today's most versatile and compelling storytellers.
It was easy for Elizabeth. She married the man she loved, bore him two children and made a home for him which was the envy of their friends.
It was harder for Ruth. She married Elizabeth's son and then found that, somehow, she could never quite measure up...
Isolation, deceit and betrayal fill the gaps between the two individual women and between their different worlds. In this complex thriller, Philippa Gregory deploys all her insight into what women want and what…
When I was not yet a teen, a neighbor had what I considered to be a valuable treasure—all of the Nancy Drew Mystery series. Her daughter had died of leukemia, and she had held onto them as a reminder of her precious child. To my surprise, she entrusted them to me to read. That was the beginning of my passion for mysteries. As I got older, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie and P. D. James. I visit them often, like old friends, but I am also eager to make new literary acquaintances. My list has only five, but it could have included thousands. Enjoy this diverse sampling.
I love all of Jacqueline Winspear’s books about Maisie Dobbs and am sorry to see that the author is retiring this character. I liked Maisie from the first, maybe because the 1920s are an era of fascination for me.
Not only was the mystery a good read, but it led me to do further research on the after-effects of World War I and the toll it took on the young soldiers, most of them barely out of their teens. Winspear is a great storyteller with a compelling heroine.
A favorite mystery series of Hillary Clinton (as mentioned in What Happened, The New York Times Book Review, and New York Magazine) A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Agatha Award Winner for Best First Novel Macavity Award Winner for Best First Novel Alex Award Winner
Fiercely independent Maisie Dobbs has recently set herself up as a private detective. Such a move may not seem especially startling. But this is 1929, and Maisie is exceptional in many ways.
Having started as a maid to the London aristocracy, studied her way to Cambridge and served as a nurse in…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
If I knew why I'm attracted to ghost stories, spooky stories; “mysteries from beyond the veil”, it wouldn't be a mystery, would it? My brother was the same. We can (or could) suddenly find the streets where we lived as mysterious as a lost world. We used to call it “The Land of Ghosts and Witches”. Did we imagine this feeling? Did we make it up? I don't know. But there is a long name for a condition, a little kink that matches my experiences. I found an article in New Scientist about it once, but I've forgotten what it was.
A Japanese ghost story, set in an imaginary, contemporary, Japanese town by a Singaporean first novelist.
I picked this out at Brighton Library because I liked the cover, but Clarissa Goenawan's Rainbirds has survived the goodreads treatment, so hopefully she's a writer to watch (I mean, there will be more of these).
Readers have recalled Haruki Murakami, because it's allegedly Japanese, and a bit off-kilter, but to me this dreamlike narrative seemed fresh and floating: ungrounded, not alienated. I thought of another Japanese writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, & The Buried Giant: a misty, off-kilter take on Arthurian Britain, in which everyone seems either asleep, or else making the journey the dead make to wherever they go, while dreaming the novel's action...
No, I give up, I can't explain the charm, you'd have to try it and see, & yes, those are goldfish, not any kind of birds on the cover, and…
Set in an imagined town outside Tokyo, Clarissa Goenawan's dark, spellbinding literary debut follows a young man's path to self-discovery in the wake of his sister's murder.
Ren Ishida has nearly completed his graduate degree at Keio University when he receives news of his sister's violent death. Keiko was stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister's affairs, failing to understand why she chose to turn her back on the family and Tokyo for this desolate place years ago.But then Ren is offered Keiko's newly vacant…
