Books like Before Baker Street — picked by fans

I became enthralled by Claudius through the TV drama starring Derek Jacobi, but later came to the novels.

A stammering, reclusive young man dismissed as a fool, the bookish Claudius is all of us who watch from the wings, hoping not to draw attention to ourselves. He manages to outlive others, including Tacitus and Caligula, to succeed to the imperial purple.

Graves is a noted historian who drew on Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus for his portrayal. His books on ancient cultures and religions were among many that I devoured in my research.

I had the great pleasure of studying with Jane Alison during my MFA at Queens University of Charlotte, and so as a diligent student, I, of course, read her books. As a poet as well as a novelist, I was captivated by the lyricism in this depiction of the Roman poet who gave us the Metamorphoses.

A different twist on historical retelling, this book is based on Ovid’s banishment to a miserable backwater far from his beloved Rome and his encounter with a fictional Black Sea enchantress. Alison built an incredible character in Xenia, a woman of power, a muse, and maybe Ovid’s match. 

It’s rare that I find a book that plunges me so deeply into the psychology of a character.

Grace is the protagonist of Alias Grace. She’s cunning. She’s bold. She’s possibly a murderess. The most fascinating aspect of Grace to me is that she is based on a real-life character from Canada in the mid-1800s.

Throughout the whole book, I kept wondering about her—not just the fictional character, but the real one too—was this what she was really thinking? Was this how she really behaved?

I found her voice in the novel to be absolutely undeniable. You want to believe everything she says, but at the same time, you mistrust her...

I’ve been deeply engaged in questions of women’s spirituality, including the accusations of witchcraft leveled at healers, psychics, and just plain unpopular women.

The witch in question is Janet Horne, whose execution in 1727 marked the last witchcraft trial and judicial killing in Britain. The harrowing story of this woman and her daughter, set in Dornoch in far northeastern Scotland, provides the basis for Paris’s heartfelt novel.

I was taken by his use of a traveling group of entertainers as a major element in the story of prejudice and malice. Just this year, an official tartan was released, commemorating the hundreds who lost their lives. The pattern is predominantly black, with red for the tape on legal documents and gray denoting ash.

I know, this is a short story and hence cheating, but how can you make lists of detective stories without including the granddaddy of them all? Poe’s short story preceded Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes by four decades and has all the main ingredients. You have an ice-cold supremely rational detective, C. Auguste Dupin. You have a loyal sidekick. You have a bumbling cop. You have two extremely gory murders. You have a locked room. You have conflicting witnesses. You have a bizarre conclusion. You know what? Don’t read my No. 1. Read the Master first.

This one has winter Narnia vibes, but with a whole new twist on the story. I was a beta reader for Jennifer and I read the book in one sitting because it was so good. This one is adventure-packed and perfect for those just starting to love reading. It’s book one of a series, and I recommend this one to everyone who loves Narnia or portal-traveling books. Imagine being able to just jump realms.

This was one of those books that I couldn’t wait until I had time to read it. I was a beta reader of this novel and even though it was unedited at the time, it drew me into a world from long ago.

It takes place in old New Mexico, by a person who grew up in that area. It’s loosely based on his great-aunt, who did many of the things the Protagonist, Pete, experiences in the story.

Pete, is like no other main character I’ve read. She is more wild than civilized and because of that, has a pure heart. She is something of a MacGyver or Jack Reacher character in that she can handle any situation, but she uses her skills to protect her nature community and the things she loves. Pete lives off the land in a way most of us wish we could.

Insights into Conan Doyle's personal life were somewhat stalled in the early 21st century—until the publication of this illuminating biography, which incorporated new material relating to the short, sad life of the author’s first wife, Louise, and their two children.

Louise died of tuberculosis in 1906, allowing Doyle to marry the much younger Jean, who bore him three further children. This is a surprisingly moving tale.

This is simply the finest short introduction to the life and works of Conan Doyle that you could hope for–written by a doyen of critics who once ran the Books pages of the Washington Post.

Dirda’s erudition and lightness of touch combine to make this a book that is succinct, illuminating, and always entertaining.

Master storyteller Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a few things to say about Atlantis. In The Maracot Deep, young zoologist Cyrus Headley travels to the edge of a deep ocean trench with a team of explorers. Suddenly, a giant sea monster attacks them and hurls them down into the trench. The explorers are rescued by the survivors of the destroyed Atlantis, who have dwelled on the seafloor for the past 8,000 years. Will Headley and his companions ever return to the surface again, or will they remain trapped for the rest of their lives like the Atlanteans? Readers expecting this novel to be like his earlier Sherlock Holms stories are in for a surprise, as it explores the spiritual and occult ideas he pondered later in his life.