By Jordan Harper ,
Here are 12 books that A Violent Masterpiece fans have personally recommended if you like A Violent Masterpiece. Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
By Eryk Pruitt ,
This author is quickly becoming one of my favorites. His noir is gritty and real.
By Eryk Pruitt ,
1 author picked Dirtbags as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Great writer and great series!
By Bruce Robert Coffin ,
1 author picked Crimson Thaw as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A detective's fall from grace. A rookie's baptism by fire. A town's secrets laid bare.
“…reads like the real deal—a tale of trial and redemption…”—Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries
In the unforgiving wilderness of Maine, a disgraced detective must confront his past to solve a chilling murder.
Detective Brock Justice's career is on thin ice. Once the golden boy of Maine State Police, Brock now finds himself exiled to the remote northeastern wilderness, punishment for crossing the thin blue line. Assigned to the Major Crimes Unit—North, he suffers the added indignity of partnering with newly-minted Detective Chloe…
I write what I call civic noir, crime fiction where the real antagonist isn’t a person but an institution: a courthouse, a precinct, a city hall that already knows how the story ends. I’m drawn to these books because the most frightening thing in them is never the gun; it’s the machinery, the procedure, the quiet way a system decides who’s guilty before anyone enters a courtroom. As a writer, I’m less interested in the villain than in the architecture that produces him. These five novels taught me how to make a building feel dangerous, and how to keep ordinary people from disappearing into the gears.
Cosby never lets you call Bug Montage a criminal.
He’s a man doing everything right: a marriage, kids, an honest garage, while the world keeps tightening the screws until the only door left open is the wrong one.
What I love is that the antagonist is never a person. It’s the arithmetic of being poor and Black in a place that priced you out before you were born. It reads like a heist and lands like a tragedy, a propulsive, engine-roaring thriller that’s secretly an indictment of the whole system.
By S.A. Cosby ,
8 authors picked Blacktop Wasteland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
*GUARDIAN BEST CRIME AND THRILLERS OF 2020*
*LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER 2020*
'BLACKTOP WASTELAND may be the book of the year.' MICHAEL CONNELLY
'Sensationally good' LEE CHILD
'I loved BLACKTOP WASTELAND' STEPHEN KING
'Stunning. Can't remember the last time I read such a powerful crime novel' MARK BILLINGHAM
"Bug" Montage: honest mechanic, loving family man. He's no longer the criminal he was - the sharpest wheelman east of the Mississippi.
But when his respectable life crumbles, a shady associate comes calling with a one-time job promising a huge payout. Inexorably drawn to the driver's seat - and haunted by…
One terrible lie, a desperate measure to save her past, just might destroy her future…
Magnolia Merryweather, a horse breeder, is eager to celebrate Christmas for the first time after the Civil War ended, even as she grows her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after the terror…
I lived vicariously through Nancy Drew when I was young. I was naturally observant and curious, and my mom was known to tail a car through our neighborhood if she thought the driver looked suspicious. So, it’s not surprising that I developed a love for all things thrilling. While working in the oil and gas industry for fifteen years, I spent some time focused on a foreign deal that served as inspiration for my first novel. I worked with people seeking power; negotiations bordered on nefarious; the workplace became toxic. If you ever ponder the moral implications behind the pursuit of power, you’ll enjoy the books on this list!
I tell everyone I know that if they want a book with incredible character development, read The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.
This book is highly atmospheric. You can feel the biting cold, the fear, the pain. It also has characters with questionable ethics. It made me question how I feel about vengeance and retribution. Some of the content is very dark, yet it doesn’t feel sensationalized.
This is also a thriller with hints of a happy ending—at least, for some people—while also leaving some things uncertain or unresolved. I prefer a thriller to leave me hanging a little . . .
By Stieg Larsson ,
29 authors picked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly-knit but dysfunctional family.
He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.
But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and…
By Don Winslow , #1 of The Danny Ryan Trilogy series
I’m a former rock writer turned television critic, but in my teens, I became hooked on Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled Philip Marlowe detective sagas. The plotting was intricate, the writing exquisite and poetic. I also loved the no-nonsense pulp fiction of Mickey Spillane and his Mike Hammer character. So I’m always on the lookout for authors who combine realism and pace with great prose–like James Crumley, whose writing was like Chandler crossed with Hunter S. Thompson. Through journalism and band management, I came into contact with real gangsters and have always aspired to reflect their three-dimensional reality rather than glorifying them as television and Hollywood tend to do.
Part one of Winslow’s latest trilogy introduces us to a gangland war between Irish and Italian mobs in New England after their fragile peace is ruptured by a beautiful woman. The fall-out puts an end to Danny Ryan’s dream of going legit. It’s up to him to step up, take the lead, and save his family.
Winslow writes believable characters, marries action with heart, and consciously echoes Homer’s The Iliad, including a contemporary Helen of Troy.
By Don Winslow ,
3 authors picked City on Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
"One of America's greatest storytellers." - Stephen King
"No one fuses action with emotion like Winslow." - The Times
The new thriller from the #1 international bestseller - the start of a brand new trilogy
'Superb. This is storytelling with a keen edge. City on Fire is exhilarating to read.' - Stephen King
A Times Best Book for 2022
Two criminal empires together control all of New England.
Until a beautiful woman comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set…
I love crime fiction, but the genre can be very much a boys’ club where women are sometimes reduced to femmes fatales or victims who need to be saved. When I look at my bookshelves, I realize how many of the books I’ve read are written by men about men. There’s nothing wrong with stories about men, but I have a lot of strong women in my life, and I’ve learned so much from listening to their perspectives. As a writer, I like pushing myself to try and create strong female characters who find themselves ensnared in a crime and have to figure their way out.
This book grabbed me by the throat and refused to let go.
Jordan Harper does more with suggestion and a few well-crafted sentences than some writers accomplish in an entire novel. When he needs to be brutal, he’s a monster. When he needs to be tender, your eyes sting.
Polly is both a badass and a little girl—I don’t know how Harper pulled that off. And I have never cared so much about a stuffed animal as I have Polly’s teddy bear.
By Jordan Harper ,
1 author picked She Rides Shotgun as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
*WINNER OF A 2018 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT NOVEL*
*WINNER OF AN ALEX AWARD FROM THE ALA*
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Booklist
A propulsive, gritty novel about a girl marked for death who must fight and steal to stay alive, learning from the most frightening man she knows—her father.
Eleven-year-old Polly McClusky is shy, too old for the teddy bear she carries with her everywhere, when she is unexpectedly reunited with her father, Nate, fresh out of jail and driving a stolen car. He takes her from the front of her school…
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Pete meets a Czechian agent who…
The event serving as launching point of this novel is the 1974 school segregation crisis that took place in Boston. Its plot features the death of a young Black man who is killed (either by a train or on the platform and then rolled onto the track), and a young White woman gone missing the same day. Are these two events related to each other? A detective is determined to solve at least one of the mysteries, and the girl’s relentless mother (who works with the mother of the deceased man) only cares about tracking down her daughter. Small Mercies is less a mystery than an unfolding. Soon enough we know that Auggie’s death was no accident, and that Jules was one of the White kids who chased him down. Rather than a whodunnit, this fine novel is a story about race, and class, and politics, and family, and the…
By Dennis Lehane ,
8 authors picked Small Mercies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Instant New York Times Bestseller
“Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment.” — Stephen King
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River—an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.
In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to…
By Brian Panowich ,
I love crime fiction, but the genre can be very much a boys’ club where women are sometimes reduced to femmes fatales or victims who need to be saved. When I look at my bookshelves, I realize how many of the books I’ve read are written by men about men. There’s nothing wrong with stories about men, but I have a lot of strong women in my life, and I’ve learned so much from listening to their perspectives. As a writer, I like pushing myself to try and create strong female characters who find themselves ensnared in a crime and have to figure their way out.
Brian is a fellow Georgia author and a friend. I was gobsmacked by his first novel, Bull Mountain, so when he asked if I would blurb the sequel, Like Lions, I didn’t hesitate a nanosecond.
There are evildoings galore: violent criminals, drug-running, revenge killings, and a hunt for buried millions. But our hero Sheriff Clayton Burroughs is a damaged soul, dependent on alcohol and painkillers, so three powerful female characters step up to the plate.
I loved Clayton’s wife Kate, fiercely loyal and protective of her family. Vanessa is a shadowy outsider, both deadly and compassionate. And Twyla Viner is the aging matriarch of another criminal family that has a bone or two to pick with Clayton. The lions in this book are the women, and they rule this jungle.
By Brian Panowich ,
1 author picked Like Lions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
"A book filled with unforgettable characters and a tension that heightens with every chapter." ―The Wall Street Journal
A powerful follow up to multiple award-winning debut Bull Mountain.
Brian Panowich burst onto the crime fiction scene in 2015, winning awards and accolades from readers and critics alike for his smoldering debut, Bull Mountain. Now with Like Lions, he cements his place as one of the outstanding new voices in crime fiction.
Clayton Burroughs is a small-town Georgia sheriff, a new father, and, improbably, the heir apparent of Bull Mountain’s most notorious criminal family.
As he tries to juggle fatherhood,…
I love crime fiction, but the genre can be very much a boys’ club where women are sometimes reduced to femmes fatales or victims who need to be saved. When I look at my bookshelves, I realize how many of the books I’ve read are written by men about men. There’s nothing wrong with stories about men, but I have a lot of strong women in my life, and I’ve learned so much from listening to their perspectives. As a writer, I like pushing myself to try and create strong female characters who find themselves ensnared in a crime and have to figure their way out.
Amanda Kyle Williams quit school at sixteen, was diagnosed with dyslexia at twenty-two, and read her first book at twenty-three. She overcame addiction and wrote while working odd jobs, becoming a best-seller with her Keye Street series.
My wife heard Amanda speak at a dyslexia conference and told her about her husband who wanted to write books; later when I met Amanda at the Decatur Book Festival, she smiled and said, “Oh, yeah, you’re the writer.”
I love her protagonist Keye, a private investigator in Atlanta and former FBI profiler. She’s funny and gutsy and wrestles with her own demons. Don’t Talk to Strangers, the third in the series, is as good as the first two. Amanda died of cancer in 2018, but she left behind a tremendously inspiring legacy in both Keye and her own incredible story.
By Amanda Kyle Williams ,
1 author picked Don't Talk to Strangers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
If you like Karin Slaughter you'll love Amanda Kyle Williams...Two girls tied in death. Found next to each other in shallow graves in the remote wilderness outside Whisper, Georgia. One has lain there for a decade. One for only sixty days. Now their bodies have been uncovered and there is only one person who can help the local law enforcement find their killer. Former FBI profiler, bond enforcement officer and private detective. Keye Street. Her experience lets her see clues others can't find and now she is going to have to use all her skills if she is to stop…
“Intelligent, unique, and tremendously entertaining.” - Readers' Favorite 2025
BOOKLIFE EDITOR’S PICK!
EARTH… CENTURIES AFTER THE FALL!
I was created by beings who couldn’t touch this world... only watch it crumble. Every twenty years, a new tribe... a new hope... a new failure.
I was told, “Do not interfere.” But…
I’m a former rock writer turned television critic, but in my teens, I became hooked on Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled Philip Marlowe detective sagas. The plotting was intricate, the writing exquisite and poetic. I also loved the no-nonsense pulp fiction of Mickey Spillane and his Mike Hammer character. So I’m always on the lookout for authors who combine realism and pace with great prose–like James Crumley, whose writing was like Chandler crossed with Hunter S. Thompson. Through journalism and band management, I came into contact with real gangsters and have always aspired to reflect their three-dimensional reality rather than glorifying them as television and Hollywood tend to do.
Luke Crosswhite, the sensitive non-violent son of brutal imprisoned gang leader Bobby Crosswhite, is thrown into his father’s vicious world when the family mob, The Combine, is threatened by neo-Nazi gang Aryan Steel. Helped by his childhood friend Callie, Luke gets a taste for his father’s business.
Brutal but beautifully written by former rock journalist Harper, best known for his work on TV shows The Mentalist and Gotham.
By Jordan Harper ,
3 authors picked The Last King of California as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
'Beautifully written' S. A. Cosby
Sometimes to find yourself, you have to go back to where you came from.
You just might not like what you find.
After failing in his new life, Luke decides to go home, back to the one place where he'd once felt he belonged. But that was a long time ago and now he has to face the life that he chose to run away from: The Combine. The gang that his uncle now leads, but which his father still runs from prison. Brutal, unforgiving . . . family.
Reunited with his childhood…
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
readers submitted
so far, will you?
