74 Books Like A Trouble of Fools

After Robert B. Parker, Lehane is the most successful and skilled descendant of Eddie Coyle (a debt he acknowledges in his introduction to a reissue of the Higgins book). While you can’t go wrong with any of the entries in his Kenzie/Gennaro detective series (or his later historically-based trilogy), this stand-alone novel about three childhood friends brought back together by a crime one of them may have committed is his most powerful work, as well as the novel that first spurred my interest in trying my hand at Boston-based crime fiction.

Most people know this book due to its film adaptation, with Robert Mitchum in the title role. To me, it is a splendid book because, like all great fiction, it tells the truth. More than a great many nonfiction books, it tells the truth about the actual nature of organized crime.

It strips away the phony glamour and describes the actual nature of the mob—treacherous, violent, and unforgiving. And the dialogue is amazing! What you see in this book is not the Mafia but Irish gangsters, and they are tired blue-collar men who are just scraping by. That is what organized crime is all about today, just as it was in the 1970s.

As great as it was, Eddie Coyle didn’t leave much of a cultural footprint, at least not until the movie adaptation starring Robert Mitchum was rediscovered decades after its initial release. Robert B. Parker’s Spenser is another matter entirely, having spawned nearly 40 novels by Parker, another 10 by Ace Atkins, a popular ‘80s TV series, and a Netflix movie starring Mark Walhberg. Picking just one of the durable shamus’s adventures is a daunting task, but I’ll give the nod to Ceremony for its evocation of the seedy seventies Combat Zone (Boston’s long-gone red light district) and the murky morality of Spenser’s dealings with a teen runaway turned sex worker.

The newest book on this list is the first in the Hester Thursby series about a diminutive Harvard librarian turned sleuth. Those expecting a cozy mystery based on that character description should brace themselves because Hill’s debut has more in common with Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels than the typical “librarian investigates” yarn. I feel a personal connection to this one because it was published at the same time as my book and I did my first event for that book with Hill, but rest assured, Little Comfort and the rest of the Thursby series are tremendous reads.

Detectives Sarah Kelling and her much-loved husband Max Bittersohn live in her inherited house on Beacon Hill, Boston. These are detective novels of the cozy and charming sort, and because of the relationship between Sarah and Max are adventure romances as well.

Sarah has a large extended family and they enter into all the books as friends. This makes each one a friend and fun to read. MacCleod knows Boston and her descriptions of the habits and haunts of classic Beacon Brahmins/Yankees are as charming and rich as her plots. I recommend this and her other books for the fun of reading and the great plots.

This is the third of Barbara Neely’s mysteries about a peppery African-American housekeeper, Blanche White, and the dirt she finds while she’s cleaning other people’s houses. It’s a different house in each of the novels – and a tough task to choose just one, I can tell you. This time, we find Blanche in Boston working for the Brahmin-ish Brindle family, who have got “too-good-to-be-true” written all over them. There’s a nifty plot, but what I love (and this can’t be a surprise after the first four books, surely) is Blanche’s take on everything from how a spice-rack is organised, to why rich people have such ugly art. She is irresistible. I wish somehow she could meet Frances Wray (from The Paying Guests) and share some of her moxie. I’d kind of love to hear her thoughts on the Mortmains too.

This is a complex young adult contemporary novel that spotlights Mini as she singlehandedly organizes the wedding-of-the-year for her older sister and her fiancé. Amidst the primary plot of Mini pulling together the wedding and falling in love with the handsome Vir Mirchandani, there is a unifying theme of family. Nandini Bajpai does an incredible job of unpacking the elements of an Indian family, specifically in how they support each other after the loss of a loved one. It was heartwarming to see Mini come into her own by the end of her story, and I highly recommend this book to anyone with a penchant for Indian weddings, Indian culture, and young love. 

The biggest unsolved art crime is the 1990 robbery of the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston, during which two men disguised as policemen stole 13 works of art worth an estimated $500 million.

Not one of the stolen paintings has been recovered, and rumors about their whereabouts and the identity of the thieves continue to fuel investigations across the globe. This book is a rapid-fire read and a terrific crash course in the many challenges involved in tracing lost art, let alone ever catching the thieves.

This whole book is a powerful exploration of alcoholism, homelessness, and the father-son relationship, but it was a single chapter that made me write “WOW” in the margins.

“Same Again” is a four-page chapter composed of nothing but short sentences that contain only euphemisms for alcohol, from “the usual” to “same again.” That sounds like it wouldn’t work, but it does. It’s poetic, gripping, and follows a narrative arc through a single evening at the bar.

Read the whole book, but don’t skip this mesmerizing chapter.  

Robert B. Parker’s Cold Service is one of my favorite Spenser novels because it provides more insight into the character Hawk. Hawk is in the hospital, three bullets in his back from trying to protect a bookie from the Ukrainian mob. The Ukrainians are spreading their turf from NYC to the Boston area (a town called Marshport). Spenser comes to the rescue, and the two men take on the impossible task of defeating the Ukrainian mob and their Afghani heroine-dealing overlords while avenging Hawks shooting. Alone, Hawk can’t deal with the thought of showing weakness and Spencer ponders his mortality. Together Spenser and Hawk appear to be invincible. Their code allows them to engage in brutality and come out as likable characters. The way in which Parker spins a tale using simple dialogue is ingenious. His main characters Spenser, Hawk, and Susan Silverman are a joy to get to know… show more.