100 Books Like Jackdaws

There have been too many novels featuring the story of King Arthur to count; this is my favorite. I found it (and the following two books in the series) really captured the idea of who Arthur was, why he was needed, and why he did what he did at the time for me.

It was the first Cornwell novel I read, and he has become my favourite novellist. I think he writes battle scenes better than anyone–he puts you in the middle of the action and makes you feel the visceral nature of combat (especially in his Arthurian and medieval books). If anyone is looking for a place to start with Arthurian fiction but doesn’t know where to begin, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book and series. 

C. J. Sansom, a historian, died just recently, but he’s left a legacy of historical crime novels based around the time of Henry VIII. The main character is a charismatic, hunchbacked lawyer called Matthew Shardlake.

If, like me, you like books with strong characters, then, together with Sansom’s skill at weaving in the sights, sounds, smells, political shenanigans, and countless characters of Tudor England, Tombland is a fantastic read. It’s a long book (800 pages), so take your time on it, but I think this is historical crime fiction at its best. 

This was the first fantasy book that made me afraid for its characters and helped me understand that fantasy is allowed to feel realistic.

Up until this point, the types of books I was reading were very paint-by-numbers, but here the stakes felt real because no one was safe... not even the ones who seemed typical fantasy rules were untouchable.

What stuck with me wasn’t the true-to-form fantasy bits (dragons/battles), but how human the characters felt. In this world, loyalty is a death sentence... love is dangerous, and power always comes with a price.

This book by Robert Heinlein is an action-packed space adventure featuring creepy insect foes in an interstellar battle with Earth. It follows Trooper Johnny Rico in an epic war story set on distant worlds.

The book features a number of combat engagements with gigantic insect-like “Arachnids” and other bug-like creatures. Meanwhile, several love affairs arise and crumble in the face of Rico’s commitment to the warrior life. While the book has been criticized as preachy and moralizing, these are foibles that I tolerated well, knowing that another action sequence would not be long in coming.

I like books from guys who’ve traveled and been around a while before sitting down to write them. I suppose I’m one, but Graham Greene remains a hero of mine even though he died over twenty years ago. In this book, Greene masterfully creates the atmosphere of dark, damp, smoky post-war side streets in post-war Vienna.   

That the criminal element involves a crime syndicate selling diluted penicillin also appeals to me, as I’ve written three novels about fraud and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.  

Green’s book led to a series of films, and this book's signature tune still resonates with me. 

Each book in this series is about the illusions we create and live with, depicted through a team of rejected British spies.

When a M15 spy screws up an assignment they are transfer to the Slough House to waste away until they retire. That’s the premise, but it’s led by a master spy, who is entrenched in the highest levels of the spy world. You don’t know what is real or what is an illusion, as situations evolve.

It’s at times insane, the characters are unusual, and the situations are full of twists and turns, from the illogical to the unheard of. I loved every minute of each book.

This is the spy thriller that started it all! I was a huge fan of the Matt Damon trilogy and had always been an avid reader, so naturally, I gravitated toward the original novel, which was far better than the film.

Popular action thrillers tend to suffer from one of two diseases: “soldier syndrome,”—meaning the author knows what he or she is writing about but isn’t a master of the language—or from “poser-itis,” which is when the writer is good with a pen but would be too scared to use it to gauge out an eye if he or she had to.

So it’s a rare wordsmith who can understand the deepest, most primal parts of the human psyche and then put it into a literary form that delights the eyes and ears. Ludlum is one such writer.

My fifth book is not a novel but a true story about modern politics and warfare. 

This book is about Doctor David Kelly, a biologist like me. Kelly led the search for biological weapons in Iraq before the Iraq war. Unfortunately, he didn’t find enough evidence to suit the government of the day, but they still went ahead by issuing a now famous ‘dodgy’ and ‘sexed-up’ dossier that was the excuse to invade Iraq. Shortly afterward, on a July afternoon in a quiet part of Oxfordshire, England, Kelly went for a walk and never returned. He was found dead, slumped against a tree. 

Kelly’s death and the unanswered questions it left behind still bother me, but if you want to understand a quiet, sensitive man and the machinations of a government desperate to find a reason to declare war, then this book is a good start.

I never fail to read Kate Mosse's books, and when I saw she had written about the French Resistance, I was hopeful she had done the subject justice. I should not have doubted her; it is a wonderful novel full of intrigue and tension, yet one from which I learned about how the Resistance formed.

Her all-female network is fictional, yet she sets the events during a period of extreme change and events that had a real effect on ordinary people. Women's experiences during the period were long under-represented in the story of the Resistance, and this breathtaking book does them proud.

Sebastian Faulks' trilogy of books set in wartime France prompted me to become a historian of the Nazi Occupation of France. Not only is Faulks' prose always utterly engaging, but he is also a master storyteller. The historical detail in it is worn lightly, yet it all feeds into the building of a world that feels real and beautiful, yet terrifying. 

I love historical fiction, and this novel helped me understand a time and place that fascinated me. It presents choices that ordinary people had to make in extraordinary times not that long ago. I felt I was shoulder to shoulder with the main character, and the book made me wonder what I would have done. What would my choices have been, and would I have been so brave?