100 Books Like In the Woods

I find Tom Ripley such a wonderful character—a con man who commits crimes under the guise of someone else, a male protagonist written by a lesbian.

I love the levels of deception the reader is pulled in, so is on the side of the criminal throughout, hoping for him not to get caught in his awful, amoral behaviour.

It is a masterful use of the narrative voice in crime fiction at its best.

This book has haunted me for decades. 

So much so that I’ve read it several times since I first encountered it as a teenager. (Plus watched both movie versions, twice each.)

The first line, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again," drew me in and refused to let go. I wanted to return to Manderley. I wanted to find out what dark secrets would be revealed there. The unnamed, naive young heroine is haunted by the all-pervading presence of her husband’s first wife, Rebecca… and so was I.

And although some of the social attitudes are jarring to a 21st-century reader, and although I know the plot by heart now… I will still return to it.

I’m not a fan of novels that are paced like greased rockets, as if the author’s afraid you’ll suddenly throw the book across the room, turn on Netflix, and order a pizza. Which is a key reason I love this book. Precious Ramotswe is a “traditionally built” woman who solves crimes in a superbly witty yet unhurried fashion and with deep compassion that stops short of sentimentality.

Her heart (huge) and brain (gently incisive) work in perfect tandem in this book. The plot is simple, which will frustrate readers who prefer intricate puzzles in their crime fiction. But for me, the pleasure lies in leisurely getting to know this wise, ingenious detective and her humble neighborhood in Botswana’s capital city.

About halfway into Red Dragon, you meet Francis Dolarhyde, and from then on, the book is all his. Forget the FBI who are looking for him, the only person you care about is Dolarhyde, the serial killer who’s been brutally murdering entire families.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s the hero. Hannibal Lecter isn’t Thomas Harris’ best villain. It’s Dolarhyde. He’s everything Lecter isn’t. He’s awkward, shy, hates his body, hates himself and spends all his time stewing on his inadequacies. If I’ve got to pick between the Virgin Dolarhyde and the Chad Lecter, it’s Dolarhyde every time.

Deep down, he just wants to be loved, but the way he goes about it is almost comically misguided. Dolardhyde is on an impossible, bloody mission to fix himself, and no matter how many bodies he drops trying to do it, I’m always rooting for him to make it out the… show more.

In interviews, Paul Howarth has discussed the ways in which colonial Australia was essentially a second Wild West, albeit one scarcely explored in fiction. Only Killers and Thieves leans into that understanding and in doing so creates a vivid, blood-soaked, Biblical saga about revenge, redemption, and the lies upon which nations are built, full of unforgettable characters and passages of writing that will make your breath catch. That it is followed by an even better sequel is the icing on a magnificent cake.

When novelist Paul Sheldon suffers a terrible car accident, he finds himself in the care of Annie Wilkes, a woman who claims to be his biggest fan and wants to nurse him back to health. But Annie isn’t pleased with the way Paul has brought his beloved series featuring Misery Chastain to a close. 

I love that we get a front-row seat to this unhinged author-fan encounter. Despite the horror that’s inflicted, readers—especially ones who are also writers—may take a perverse pleasure in seeing a fan have such strong feelings about a fictional character. 

Another component I adore is the way an author’s ego often causes them to overlook warning signs that would set off alarm bells in others who have a clearer picture of what’s really going on.

The Black House is a Scottish-based mystery featuring the remote Hebridean island of Lewis. I loved how May captures the essence of this island in this trilogy and uses actual historical and cultural events to weave the plot. Each of the Scottish Isles has its own unique culture, and I love how May explores this through the interactions between the characters from Lewis and mainland Scotland. 

I also really enjoyed the character arc and the prodigal-son-esque storyline of jaded detective Fin Macleod returning home. As he solves the murders, he has to face his own dark past.  

If Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade served as the model for most private detective protagonists in American books (and movies), Raymond Chandler’s private detective Philip Marlowe offered a fascinating, inside-out variation. Marlowe—especially in this book, which I love as Chandler’s best—seems more analytical than Spade, more passionate than Spade, but just not quite as cool by today’s standards. 

That little loss doesn’t hurt him or this classic, however, which provides the best plot with the most expressive prose of this top 5 private detective novels. Marlowe’s war-torn pal disappears, the guy’s oversexed wife gets murdered, and Marlowe naturally becomes police suspect number one. 

In between the developments, Marlowe makes light: “Mostly I just kill time, and it dies hard.” That’s a clever way to say so long to involvement, but the longest goodbye, the real and permanent one to which the book’s title refers and we sometimes call death—that’s the… show more.

The books I love the most are those that deliver on the promise of a big “hook” but also delve deeper in unexpected ways, making me feel excited and satisfied.

Penner’s book is a perfect example. The promise of the complex mystery surrounding the “apothecary murders” is delicious, but how I felt about the characters emotionally was unexpected and kept me turning the pages.

This was the book that set me off on a decade-long journey of reading (and re-reading) Murakami. Along with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, another favorite, I've re-read it at least twice.

So why is it about thinking differently? Because the book is written so differently! If you've read any recent speculative fiction, the author likely owes a debt to Murakami and his wondrous approach to narrative storytelling. You'll get lost in a bizarre, beautiful quest that takes on all sorts of twists and turns.