Here are 27 books that Don't Let the Devil Ride fans have personally recommended if you like
Don't Let the Devil Ride.
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Only through a novel can a long-dead writer convey to a Texas farm boy what it is like to be a great opera singer. As much as I celebrate popular fiction, on rare occasions beautifully constructed prose pulls me to an author like Willa Cather. Like many of her fans, My Ántonia won me over. Song of the Lark paints a portrait of the artist, and it is not always beautiful. Talent drives an artist to perfection. They derive no satisfaction from the merely good. They can be insensitive, exacting and rude because the artist suffers pain from witnessing anything less than greatness. For example, she cannot compliment those whose talent does not match her own because their failure is repugnant. The artist suffers the wrong notes as much as she appreciates the right notes. This quality makes the artist unique. Only during the brief window when she achieves the…
In this powerful portrait of the self-making of an artist, Willa Cather created one of her most extraordinary heroines.
Thea Kronborg, a minister's daughter in a provincial Colorado town, seems destined from childhood for a place in the wider world. But as her path to the world stage leads her ever farther from the humble town she can't forget and from the man she can't afford to love, Thea learns that her exceptional musical talent and fierce ambition are not enough.
It is in the solitude of a tiny rock chamber high in the side of an Arizona cliff--"a cleft…
The first female police detective in Acapulco, Emilia Cruz, dives into an ocean of secrets and lies when she is forced to lead the investigation into her own lieutenant's murder.
Caught between the powerful head of the police union and resentful colleagues, Emilia becomes a pawn in a game of…
We learn more from deconstructing Elmore Leonard’s writing than from his famous top ten rules. He plotted a novel where everyone is in prison, from the inmates to the guard including the warden. Substance abuse, greed, and desire hold them prisoner, yet the protagonist we discover from the start is the only one truly innocent. Recently, I have pondered what the term classic western means. Louis Lamour and Elmer Kelton are certainly classic western authors. Despite Elmore Leonard’s success in crime fiction, his best works are his classic westerns. Novels like Get Shorty and Maximum Bob have a surreal quality to them. Yet, his westerns have a gritty authenticity, which makes them timeless. He also does a great job drawing strong women and Native American characters.
It was supposed to be impossible. No man could break out of the brutal convict labor camp at Five Shadows. Until they locked up Bowen. He was like dynamite--charged to go off, to explode out of that desert hell so he could clear his name. Already the deadly trackers have caught him, dragged him back through the mesquite and rocks, beat him and left him to rot in the punishment cell. But they can't stop Bowen. He's a different breed, a man who will go to any extreme to escape. Any extreme.
I’ve been hooked on crime fiction since I was old enough to heft around the collected adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the older I get, the more I appreciate funny books about the excruciating ways that people interact with each other. I also love a book that does two things well, so a crime novel/comedy of manners is about the best reading experience I can imagine.
I love the opening of this novel: an offhand-feeling anecdote about Chili Palmer, the central character, getting his jacket stolen from a restaurant in Miami Beach. It feels breezy and inconsequential, but it does so much work to set the tone, establish the stakes, and introduce key characters.
I’m also a sucker for a fish-out-of-water comedy, although maybe this book is the opposite of that: tough-guy loan shark Chili Palmer falls in with a group of hapless Hollywood types and ends up thriving through the novel’s sometimes violent, sometimes funny twists and turns.
A thriller filled with Leonard's signatures - scathing wit, crackling dialogue, twisted plot, mad scams - and set in the drug sodden world of Hollywood.
With plot elements inspired by presidential elections in both the US and Mexico, Barracuda Bay follows Acapulco’s first female police detective, Emilia Cruz, as she investigates the murder of the mayor’s sister—only to become a fugitive hunted by killers disguised as cops in Washington, DC. The stakes couldn’t be higher…
The bestselling debut, with over a million copies sold, that launched Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Searcher and "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).
"Required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting." -The New York Times
Now airing as a Starz series.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only…
Growing up on a diet of The Godfather, The Sopranos, thrillers, and gangster novels, and living in New York City with eye-opening trips to Sicily, I became slightly obsessed with the Mafia. I came to see the American Mafia as a quintessentially American fabric, woven of family, power, immigrants, money, history, loyalty, legacy, and, yes, crime.
A history of the early 1960s in America, leading up to the assassination of JFK, seen through the eyes of the mobsters and criminals, crooked cops, spies, and sleazos who power the machines of history.
A comprehensive romp through the underbelly of American crime and politics (and you might, after reading this book, wonder what’s the difference), it’s a novel about characters you don’t like—but they’re vivid and fascinating.
Much more than a gritty gangster novel, it’s a tale about the people in history’s shadows, and, ultimately, history and the “never innocent” America itself.
The first novel in Ellroy's extraordinary Underworld USA Trilogy as featured on BBC Radio 4's A Good Read.
1958. America is about to emerge into a bright new age - an age that will last until the 1000 days of John F Kennedy's presidency.
Three men move beneath the glossy surface of power, men allied to the makers and shakers of the era. Pete Bondurant - Howard Hughes's right-hand man, Jimmy Hoffa's hitman. Kemper Boyd - employed by J Edgar Hoover to infiltrate the Kennedy clan. Ward Littell - a man seeking redemption in Bobby Kennedy's drive against organised crime.
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’m the Edgar and Barry Award nominated author of twenty novels, sixteen in my Joe DeMarco series, three in my Kay Hamilton Series, and my standalone, Redemption. Prior to becoming a writer, I was a senior civilian executive working in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear propulsion program. My books are mostly set in and involve characters in Washington, D.C., because Washington is a target-rich environment for a writer—and now more so than ever.
I’ve always been a Thomas Perry fan going all the way back to The Butcher’s Boy, and thoroughly enjoyed his Jane Whitefield series. His novel, The Old Man, was recently adapted for television, starring Jeff Bridges, who’s perfect as the protagonist. The thing I’ve always appreciated about Perry’s books is his careful plotting and attention to detail, which is particularly noticeable in the Jane Whitefield books. The other thing about his books is the way he can turn a villain —like the Butcher’s Boy—into a likable protagonist.
To all appearances, Dan Chase is a harmless retiree in Vermont with two big dogs and a grown daughter with a life of her own. But most sixty-year-old widowers don't have multiple drivers' licenses, savings stockpiled in banks across the country and two Beretta nanos stashed in the spare bedroom closet. Most have not spent decades on the run.
Now, the toppling of a Middle Eastern government suddenly makes Dan Chase, and the stunt he pulled thirty-five years ago as a young hotshot in army intelligence,…
I have loved mysteries and crime thrillers since I worked at the legendary R.J. Julia Booksellers in high school. A lifelong love of books and movies led me to pursue a career in screenwriting and later in indie publishing. My most popular books, including Seattle On Ice, Chokecherry Canyon, and The Grimwood Trilogy all mix fast-paced action with film references and plenty of humor.
Ace Atkins is a master of the crime genre. It’s no wonder Robert B. Parker’s estate tapped him to carry on the Spenser series. He’s great at capturing places and the internal monologues of weary men. He’s also able to tell stories just seedy enough to keep readers curious, without making them cringe. The first book in Atkins’ Quinn Colson series is on par with Elmore Leonard’s Raylan Givens books. Quinn seems entirely real, the small town he returns to after a years-long absence feels lived in and believable. And the pacing is masterful. Whereas Perry drags readers along for the action, Atkins makes you feel as though you’re sitting in the backseat, riding down the winding roads of Tibbehah County in northeast Mississippi as Quinn uneasily approaches another backcountry crime scene.
Northeast Mississippi is hill country, rugged and notorious for outlaws since the Civil War, where killings are as commonplace as they were in the Old West. To Quinn Colson, just back from a tour of Afghanistan, it's home. But home has changed.
Quinn returns to a place overrun by corruption. His uncle, the county sheriff, is dead - officially it was suicide, but others whisper murder. In the days that follow, it will be up to Colson, now an Army Ranger, to discover the truth - not only about his uncle, but also about his family, friends, hometown and himself.
A New York Times bestseller | Soon to be a major motion picture from Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment
"Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining." -Wall Street Journal
"Don't trust anyone, including the four septuagenarian sleuths in Osman's own laugh-out-loud whodunit." -Parade
Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop with her first big case A brutal murder Welcome to... THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club.
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.
