Here are 100 books that Act of Fear fans have personally recommended if you like
Act of Fear.
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I have always been a writer—and hence—a reader. I was an American historian and published eight books on twentieth-century American history. But, dissatisfied with the rigidity of historical research and composition, I became a novelist and have, since retirement, published eight novels, several of them in the Amanda Pennyworth Mystery Series.
Many of the books I read are mystery stories, a genre which I believe often gives the writer an opportunity to explore subjects and characters who are beyond the scope of ordinary literature. The books I have chosen are all classics, each in its own way a wonderful example of the variety and depth of mystery literature. My passion begins with such books.
Dashiell Hammett is one of the great stylists in American literature.
His characters are absolutely real, and the plot is a wonderful tour of the seamy side of 20th-century America. What I absolutely love about this story is that it ends, not with the apprehension of a killer, but with the sense that the pursuit of mystery in the first place was not worth it.
To pull this off—to undercut the idea of a mystery at all, is a great achievement. The book, then, is stunning for its characters, descriptions, and serpentine plot.
One of the greatest crime novels of the 20th century.
'His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow' Independent
Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a…
The Smart Mission brings together NASA’s most important lessons on how people, knowledge, and systems shape complex projects.
Drawing on decades of experience at NASA—including my time as the agency’s first Chief Knowledge Officer—this book explains why mission success depends less on process and more on culture, learning, and collaboration.…
I grew up reading murder mysteries and watching old black-and-white films on television. As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I loved challenging myself to solve the mystery before the end of the book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
One thing I noticed in reading the classics is that LGBTQ+ people were either completely absent or used for comic relief or tragic effect. I wanted to change that with my stories, showing that they can be compelling protagonists, solving murders and sometimes finding love.
What’s not to love about this? I first experienced The Big Sleep by viewing the classic Humphrey Bogart movie, and while I thoroughly enjoyed the film, I admit I was a bit perplexed over some of the plot points.
Reading the book cleared up some, but not all, of my confusion, and yet it’s a book I would read again and again. The classic 1930s setting of Los Angeles and Hollywood, the noir elements, and the hard-boiled detective, Phillip Marlowe, are an unbeatable combination in my mind.
Raymond Chandler's first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction.
The Big Sleep, Chandler's first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder.
In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women.
In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself…
I grew up watching old Bogart movies on TV with my father. From Phillip Marlowe to Sam Spade, I was taken with the life of the P. I. Once I was old enough to read and enjoy the irony as well as the sex and violence in Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer tales, I’d pull the detective novels from under my old man’s bed and spend time with all the lowlifes. Guess I’ve never grown out of my love for noir. That’s why I started writing P. I. novels as well as reading them. I hope they bring as much entertainment to others as those old-school sagas brought to me.
I was pulled in by the concept of the birth of a private eye.
Easy Rollins, a guy with no background in law enforcement, a day laborer, accepts money to find a missing woman, and a shamus is born. Did I mention that Easy is black, and has to deal with all the prejudices and difficulties that entails?
In addition to being a great whodunit of who and why, it’s a cool trip riding along with Easy on his maiden voyage into gumshoe land.
Devil in a Blue Dress honors the tradition of the classic American detective novel by bestowing on it a vivid social canvas and the freshest new voice in crime writing in years, mixing the hard-boiled poetry of Raymond Chandler with the racial realism of Richard Wright to explosive effect.
The Smart Mission brings together NASA’s most important lessons on how people, knowledge, and systems shape complex projects.
Drawing on decades of experience at NASA—including my time as the agency’s first Chief Knowledge Officer—this book explains why mission success depends less on process and more on culture, learning, and collaboration.…
Flannery O’Connor once said that all fiction is ultimately about the “mystery of personality.” I agree. In fact, I have always suspected that all good novels, genre-based or otherwise, are secretly mystery novels, if only in the psychological sense. Conversely, many so-called genre novels have just as much depth, insight, and realism as any literary work. I have read a lot of genre and literary fiction in my time, and I have long been fascinated by works that blur the line between the two. My favorite kind of book is one that feels like a genre novel (that is, it has a great plot) but also has the depth and vividness of a literary novel.
If there is one central defining quality of noir crime fiction, it is the main character’s struggle to preserve his moral center in a fundamentally corrupt and evil world. The best P.I. novels are able to render this kind of character in brushstrokes that are both beautiful and subtle.
One of my favorites is Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer, first introduced in this novel. When Archer is hired to find a missing rich guy in a tony, Southern California beach town, he finds himself knee-deep in violence, greed, and deceit, uncertain of who is guilty, who he can trust, and even who is worth saving. A moving target, indeed.
The first book in Ross Macdonald's acclaimed Lew Archer series introduces the detective who redefined the role of the American private eye and gave the crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity only hinted at before.
Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There's the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now one of Sampson's friends may have arranged his kidnapping.
As Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to jazz joints where you get beaten up…
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…
Given the state of the world today, laughter truly is the best coping mechanism. The best satire is all about excess in design, intention, characterization, and deployment of attitude. The more extreme, the better; leave restraint to the prudish moralists!
Really hard to pick just one Pynchon for this list, as he is an all-around master of satire. But Inherent Vice is probably his LOL funniest, a stoner take on the detective genre set in the hippie world of 1970s southern California. The cinematic adaptation by Paul Thomas Anderson ain’t half bad, either.
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon-Private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.
It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail…
I write the West Investigations series, a romantic thriller series, centered around the men and women running a private investigations firm. When I began the series I knew I wanted it to be set in an urban city, not just because I’m a city girl at heart, but because of the eclectic nature, diversity, and color that can be found in the big city. Each of the books I’ve recommended below features a big city PI that jumps off the page, grabs you, and doesn’t let go for 200+ pages.
Joe Pike may live in the City of Angels, but he is as far away from angelic as a man can get.
The ex-mercenary turned sometimes PI is tasked with protecting a spoiled Hollywood princess in this gritty, fast-moving novel. Joe has little patience for doing things the conventional way and no compunction about using violence to get what he wants.
Even though his investigatory methods can be destructive, to both him and others, he’s a man you find yourself rooting for…and wondering about. A compelling PI who anyone would want on their team when it really hits the fan.
'Packed with whiplash plot twists and taut dialogue...THE WATCHMAN is as good a psychological test case as it is a thriller' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
A long time ago, Joe Pike asked for help. In return, he would, one day, be called upon to return the favour, no questions asked. That day has come.
Joe Pike is asked to protect the life of Larkin Conner Barkley, a spoiled rich girl who happens to be a federal witness in a major case. But someone is leaking information about their whereabouts, and the killers are getting all too close. So Pike hatches a plan:…
Having taken up the brush myself, I can attest to some sort of mystical, out-of-body experience that sometimes surfaces as an artist creates. Emotions and senses become directly connected to one’s hands, releasing the unconscious, allowing the artist to bring something to life that was buried deep inside. My favorite class in art school was Aesthetics, which explored the philosophy of art – what possessed the artist to paint – and what passions and beliefs were behind some of the art movements, including Surrealism, Dadaism, and Futurism. Books that delve into the craft and passion behind great works of art are my favorite reads.
Peter Lovesey’s detective discovers the power of art in this recent mystery set in Bath, England.
This book in the series is unusual, since most of the story is told through the eyes of a cheap private detective, who views Diamond as a grumpy old man. A body found in an antique sarcophagus and the disappearance of the antique dealer is at the start of the mystery, but the piece of art which was purchased in an antiques roadshow drives the plot.
Greed and ambition, stirred by the provenance of the art, results in several murder attempts which confound Diamond’s and the private detective’s investigation.
Of all the weird characters Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond has met in Bath, this one is the most extreme: a twenty-first-century private eye called Johnny Getz, whose office is over Shear Amazing, a hairdressing salon. Johnny has been hired by Ruby Hubbard, whose father, an antiques shop owner, has gone missing, and Johnny insists on involving 'Pete' in his investigation.
When Diamond, Johnny and Ruby enter the shop, they find a body and a murder investigation is launched. Diamond is forced to house his team in the dilapidated Corn Market building across the street. His problems grow when his boss…
As the author of the Dr. Josephine Plantae Paradoxes, a historical mystery series based on my grandmother, an early trailblazing woman doctor, I stay true to the facts. I remember entering her apothecary filled with strange bottles of little homeopathic white pills, giant stills, and finding poisonous plants in her atrium. In my novels, Dr. Josephine Reva fights for woman’s equality and practices a mix of botanical and modern medicine, and moonlights as a sleuth to solve paradoxical ‘poison cure’ crimes. An award-winning journalist, author, and former professor with an MS from Columbia University, I studied botany. I currently live between France and New England with my family, furry friends, and lots of plants.
Hemlockcontains much information about this poisonous botanical, famous for killing Socrates.
The mystery revolves around the disappearance of a rare and valuable volume of A Curious Herbal by the botanist Elizabeth Blackwell.
There’s a novel within a novel framework, and the second novel concerns the difficult life of Mrs. Blackwell as she attempts to save her family from debtor’s prison by publishing her botanical treatise.
Interestingly, Sussan Wittig Albert is a successful self-published author, and very original. Hemlockis sure to please for its exciting dual-arc stories, both concerning poisonous plants.
From Susan Wittig Albert, the New York Times bestselling author of A Plain Vanilla Murder, comes a tightly crafted novel that juxtaposes the disappearance of a rare, remarkably illustrated 18th-century herbal with the true and all-too-human story of its gifted creator, Elizabeth Blackwell.
Herbalist China Bayles' latest adventure takes her to the mountains of North Carolina, where her friend Dorothea Harper serves as the director and curator of the Hemlock House Library, a priceless collection of rare gardening books housed in a haunted mountainside mansion that once belonged to Sunny Carswell, a reclusive heiress. But the most valuable book-A Curious…
I’m still trying to figure out who I am. I’ve made films, I’ve written fiction, I’ve been in a punk band, and now I’m in law school. I’ve bopped around to different interests my whole life and never quite felt like I fit in anywhere, maybe because I grew up a part Puerto Rican kid in Kentucky. I don’t know. All I know is I’ve been a reader all this time, and I think because I’ve always found my own identity elusive, the mysteries and thrillers I gravitate towards are ones with characters that aren’t so easy to pin down.
Pinky fell into becoming a private investigator, but it’s a perfect fit for her personality.
She’s naturally curious. And skeptical. But now, even though she has an actual assignment she needs to work on, she’s spending her time investigating the guy who moved in next door. But his identity is impossible to pin down.
My favorite part is when Pinky gets caught following her weird neighbor. He introduces himself as Clarence, which is strikingly similar to Pinky’s real name, Clarice. It’s like he’s saying no matter how hard you try, you’ll never find out anything about me, but I know everything about you. I had to keep reading just to try to figure out who this guy was and what he was up to.
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent and The Last Trial returns with a riveting legal thriller in which a reckless private detective is embroiled in a fraught police scandal.
For as long as Lucia Gomez has been the police chief in the city of Highland Isle, near Kindle County, she has known that any woman in law enforcement must walk a precarious line between authority and camaraderie to gain respect. She has maintained a spotless reputation—until now. Three male police officers have accused her of soliciting sex in exchange for promotions to higher ranks. With few…
