100 Books Like Dark Pines

In Black Harbor, Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, Morrissey has created a town that is a villain all on its own. A place no one wants to live. Hazel Greenlee has no choice.

An aspiring writer, Hazel is trapped in a less-than-perfect marriage and takes the only job she can find—as a police transcriber. But when her neighbor confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster, Hazel sees the potential for a story that might help her break out of the frozen hell of Black Harbor.

Morrissey builds Hazel’s desperation, and the desperation of the town itself, with mounting tension so well drawn you can actually feel it in your bones and an ending so intense it leaves you breathless. 

This is an evocative mystery with not one but two atmospheric settings: Long Island’s Suffolk County, and Ireland’s County Clare. When an Irish national is found dead on a Long Island beach, Detective Maggie D’arcy’s planned vacation to Ireland becomes a tense investigation into the mysterious victim’s death, and a fight to keep her young daughter safe both abroad and back at home. I found A Distant Grave to be deeply chilling and impossible to put down. 

The one thing I appreciate above all else in a novel is emotional gravitas. That feeling transcends time and place; the only thing that matters is what happens to the character(s) you care about. You feel your heart beating, and when you finally put the book down, all you can say is ‘wow.’

Stacy Willingham’s debut lingers long in the memory after the book is read. Her talent at describing setting is any writer’s dream, and her characters snuck into my heart and made me care deeply, all the way to the pulse-pounding conclusion. It is the best thriller I have read in the past half-decade, only challenged by her subsequent novels.

From the first page of this book, I was there. The drought-ridden farming community of Kiewarra, Australia, is evoked so vividly that the whole story feels as gritty and parched as the landscape. For me, this book has all the ingredients that make a claustrophobic setting even more intense: harsh weather conditions, hostile locals, and a dingy bar where fights break out and people drink away their troubles. For these reasons alone, I was sold! This is a community where everyone knows everyone, but they’re all under so much pressure you just know they’d turn on their neighbors in a heartbeat.

I’m also a sucker for a narrative in which someone who has moved away from their hometown is drawn reluctantly back, and this book has that in spades. The main character, Detective Aaron Falk, left Kiewarra under murky circumstances as a teenager and is forced to return when his… show more.

Block 46 features themes that are close to my heart, along with two strong, determined female leads and a thought-provoking plot.

A true-crime writer and criminal profiler join forces to investigate two murders that may be linked to Buchenwald concentration camp – an example of journalists not always investigating on their own.

I don’t usually read Holocaust fiction (only the true survivor stories), but Johana Gustawson has taken one of the darkest times in human history and woven it seamlessly and sensitively into a contemporary serial-killer crime novel.

Block 46 is well-researched, very dark, and very twisty, featuring a strong mix of past and present, and the descriptions of the concentration camp are harrowing and realistically portrayed.

Scrublands is another crime novel that took me to faraway places, this time to a remote Australian town during a relentless drought.

The desolate landscape was so well described that I could feel the intense heat of the Australian sunshine and the harshness of the outback surroundings. While battling inner demons from traumatic experiences, journalist Martin Scarsden is desperate to rekindle his career, whatever the cost, while investigating a tragic shooting incident a year earlier.

Journalists tend to be outsiders in a small town, prompting suspicion from the locals, but are also well-placed to drag up secrets from the past due to their persistent natures. Author Chris Hammer is a former journalist and his portrayal of Martin and the media feels authentic. 

Invisible City is the first book in Julia Dahl’s Rebekah Roberts series. Julia Dahl cleverly weaves together Jewish culture and a murder mystery, using a rookie journalist as her main character.

I think journalists make great detectives in crime fiction, with their investigative skills, enthusiasm, communication skills, persistence, and perseverance. They bridge the gap between amateur sleuths and the police (not that different from a private investigator).

Invisible City portrays journalists in a positive light and also provides an insight into an unknown world, with a non-judgmental portrayal of the ultra-religious Hassidic Jewish community in Brooklyn. I enjoyed following the main character’s personal journey too.

When I had the idea for my book, I had originally wondered about writing full podcast episodes but abandoned that idea as it was so tricky. In Six Stories Matt Wesolowski does exactly that and very successfully.

In the book, elusive podcaster Scott King investigates the murder of a teenager at a deserted outward-bound centre on Scarclaw Fell. As the reader you’re put in the shoes of listeners as King digs deeper into the horrifying setting and the group of people who were staying at the centre and live nearby.

This is the first in the series of six atmospheric novels. They’re chilling, unpredictable, and will keep you up at night. Matt’s writing skills blow me away.

This is a very encouraging graphic novel for anyone who thinks that their voice and concerns about Nature's protection aren't being heard.

It just takes one caring person to start a movement and, in time and with effort, to save the natural places that we love. I appreciate how the story starts in the forest, which the protagonist and her friends love, and I enjoyed following their journey and decisions on how to proceed to prevent a parking lot from being built in it instead. 

My husband Tom and I started a movement called Protect the Porkies to prevent a sulfide mine from being built right next door to one of the most beloved State Parks, the Porcupine Mountains, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

In the beginning, it was only the two of us, but now there are hundreds of thousands of people who are working to spread the word to… show more.

Legendary physicist Richard Feynman’s intrigue with the remote Siberian country of Tanaa Tuva was inspired by the country’s triangular postage stamps he collected as a child. As an adult, he asked his friend, Ralph Leighton if he knew anything about the country and when the two men discovered the capital was the “legitimate vowel-less” Kyzyl, they become obsessed with visiting it. Feynman and Leighton spent over ten years trying to reach Tuva, foiled by ridiculous Soviet bureaucracy and ultimately, Feynman’s death from cancer. While the ending is bittersweet, this story of friendship and obsession is a fitting tribute to Feynman’s passion, playfulness, and curiosity.