Here are 100 books that Killers Of A Certain Age fans have personally recommended if you like
Killers Of A Certain Age.
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I consider myself a disruptor of sorts, both in my life and in the art I make (I’m an actor, too). So I am by nature drawn to novels that bend and reshape (and sometimes ignore altogether) the rules and conventions that are supposed to govern the novelist’s craft and lead me to experience the world—and often the art of writing fiction itself—in ways I have never experienced either before. The novels on my list do just that.
Not exactly literary fiction, I know. And it breaks none of the rules governing the novelist’s craft. And we all read it back when it came out, didn't we? Or saw the movie, there've been a couple of versions...
So why is it on my list, you ask?
The Day of the Jackal is quite simply the greatest thriller ever written, and should be read by anyone who writes fiction, literary or otherwise—and by the rest of us as well.
Think for a moment: We follow The Jackal’s relentless quest to corner and kill French President Charles DeGaulle for 380 pages, waiting with breath bated to see whether he will succeed even though we know before we ever open the cover of the book (if we know even the slightest bit of history) that DeGaulle was never assassinated—ever!—not by The Jackal and not by anyone in…
The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.
It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General De Gaulle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.
Known only as The Jackal, this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?
Mood swings and insomnia are one thing, hot flash-induced psychic visions are quite another. When Olivia Wilde realizes the visions she’s experiencing in the midst of hot flashes are actually premonitions, she must learn to understand and trust what she sees in order to help a friend, preserve a piece…
Assassins are always compelling characters. They fit within that archetype of the gunslinger and the private eye and the ronin samurai, highly-skilled characters with a strict moral code who take the law into their own hands to deliver justice in an unjust world. But more than that, they’re fantastic vehicles for exploring the moral gray areas of the world. As a concept, it’s pretty straightforward: kill someone and collect a paycheck. But I’m always looking for books that do something new and special with the genre.
Angoe didn’t just write a ripping thriller; she offered another unique look at the genre by centering the story around Aninyeh, a woman born in a village in Ghana who was captured and sold into captivity as a teen.
She’s adopted and trained by the Tribe, a business group uniting various African countries into a strong economic force. Assassin stories tend to be US-centric, but these types of characters flourish on an international stage. Moreover, it’s a deeply affecting story about the reclamation of power and identity.
A smash debut novel from rising star Yasmin Angoe, Her Name Is Knight features an elite assassin heroine on a mission to topple a human trafficking ring and avenge her family.
Stolen from her Ghanaian village as a child, Nena Knight has plenty of motives to kill. Now an elite assassin for a powerful business syndicate called the Tribe, she gets plenty of chances.
But while on assignment in Miami, Nena ends up saving a life, not taking one. She emerges from the experience a changed woman, finally hopeful for a life beyond rage and revenge. Tasked with killing a…
Assassins are always compelling characters. They fit within that archetype of the gunslinger and the private eye and the ronin samurai, highly-skilled characters with a strict moral code who take the law into their own hands to deliver justice in an unjust world. But more than that, they’re fantastic vehicles for exploring the moral gray areas of the world. As a concept, it’s pretty straightforward: kill someone and collect a paycheck. But I’m always looking for books that do something new and special with the genre.
Michael Hendricks is a hitman with a very particular skillset—if you can afford him, he’ll kill the person who is trying to kill you.
Holm’s book is riddled with pulse-pounding action and excellent character work, but at the core of it is an incredibly engaging protagonist…who happens to be sparring with a deliciously evil antagonist.
Mood swings and insomnia are one thing, hot flash-induced psychic visions are quite another. When Olivia Wilde realizes the visions she’s experiencing in the midst of hot flashes are actually premonitions, she must learn to understand and trust what she sees in order to help a friend, preserve a piece…
Assassins are always compelling characters. They fit within that archetype of the gunslinger and the private eye and the ronin samurai, highly-skilled characters with a strict moral code who take the law into their own hands to deliver justice in an unjust world. But more than that, they’re fantastic vehicles for exploring the moral gray areas of the world. As a concept, it’s pretty straightforward: kill someone and collect a paycheck. But I’m always looking for books that do something new and special with the genre.
This book doesn’t just give us one assassin—it gives us a diverse and deadly cast of killers. It’s a locked-room mystery with a ton of double-crosses and loaded with jet-black humor.
And it all moves just as fast as the train the story is set on. Sure, it was recently a movie starring Brad Pitt, but as is usually the case… the book is better.
Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller that fizzes with incredible energy through a series of double-crosses and twists. "Fueled by a seductively explosive premise, it's fast, deadly, and loads of fun." (NPR's Fresh Air)
An international bestseller and the basis for the major motion picture starring Brad Pitt.
Kimura’s young son is in a coma thanks to the Prince, and Kimura has tracked him onto a bullet train heading from Tokyo to Morioka to exact his revenge. But Kimura soon discovers that they are not the only dangerous passengers on board.
Satoshi—the Prince—looks like an innocent schoolboy but…
In the hands of a skilled horror author, there is something powerful about a slow-burn romance. When two characters are drawn to each other against the backdrop of dread and danger, the stakes are raised. Every moment the two have together is hard-won, special. The romance doesn’t soften the horror; it sharpens it. It gives readers something to invest in and hope for. That intense emotional investment creates tension. Survival isn’t just about escaping the supernatural threat or a human monster; it’s about what might be lost if they don’t. In horror, love is a luxury because it’s risky and a vulnerability. It's a favorite element of good horror.
This book weaves a slow-burning romance between two rough-around-the-edges characters drawn together by their investment in a crumbling, haunted mansion and the weight of all its secrets. The tension between them simmers beneath every interaction, and I found it undeniably magnetic.
Harrow balances a ghost story, survival in the face of financial insecurity, and unchecked capitalism in a small Kentucky town. I enjoyed the blending of gothic atmosphere in a modern setting and crafting a love story that grows slowly over time instead of an insta-romance.
'Alix E. Harrow is an exceptional, undeniable talent' - Olivie Blake, author of The Atlas Six
Step into Starling House - if you dare . . . Alix E. Harrow reimagines Beauty and the Beast in this gorgeously modern Gothic fantasy, perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab and Naomi Novik.
Nobody in Eden remembers when Starling House was built. But the town agrees it's best to let this ill-omened mansion - and its last lonely heir - go to hell. Stories of the house's bad luck, like good china, have been passed down the…
I am a multi-award-winning African Australian writer, and have a deep passion for stories by people of colour, stories that engage with difference. I write across genres and forms, and my award-winning works are mostly Afrocentric. I am especially curious about unique voices in black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, writing the other, and betwixt.
Wole Talabi’s debut fantasy novel is a love story, an adventure story, and a spirit world story, rivetted with non-human protagonists.
Shigidi is an Afrocentric novel that spans across London, Nigeria, Singapore, Ethiopia, and everywhere else, and traversing centuries in vacillation. This multi-hued narrative is fast-paced and a riveting read.
A Washington Post top 10 best science fiction and fantasy book of 2023
"A heist caper with sex, violence, and superpowers popping off every technicolor page." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Defiantly ambitious...an action-packed thrill ride." -The Washington Post
A mythic tale of disgruntled gods, revenge, and a heist across two worlds, perfect for fans of Nnedi Okorafor, Neil Gaiman, Marlon James, and Karen Lord
Shigidi is a disgruntled and demotivated nightmare god in the Orisha spirit company, reluctantly answering prayers of his few remaining believers to maintain his existence long enough to find his next drink. When he meets Nneoma,…
In writing character-driven space fantasy, heavily influenced by my training as an electromechanical engineer, I’ve realized a love for stories with a heavy emphasis on moral dilemmas and shifts in thinking. How does a character change direction after realizing much of what they always believed was a lie? When well-trained instincts pull them backward instead of propelling them forward? I love these stories, mirroring my own messy self-discovery journey through life. The settings and stakes are more fantastical, but that makes them more appealing. A way to confront my own trials without becoming burdened by them. If the characters can do it, so can I.
I enjoy a good redemption arc, particularly ones that show more messy mistakes. In this book, Samantha Mills crafts a tight narrative detailing Zenya's fall and redemption as she navigates the complicated choices of her life. The story is told in parallels, each alternate chapter unfolding details of her present or past in complementary ways, revealing Zenya’s character in a way that emphasizes how both have led to her current situation.
It also pulls no punches. Zenya’s relationships are colored by various forms of emotional abuse, ranging from the neglect of her father to the manipulative grooming of her mother figure, in ways that struck home personally. It’s a difficult path, portrayed here with compassion and brutal honesty.
In this gripping debut novel from acclaimed Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus Award-winning author Samantha Mills, a disgraced soldier fights to make sense of her world and the gods who abandoned it. The Wings Upon Her Back is an action-packed, devastating exploration of the brutal costs of zealous loyalty.
Zenya was a teenager when she ran away to join the mechanically-modified warrior sect. She was determined to earn mechanized wings and protect the people…
This recommendation list is a celebration of these authors’ creativity! Like every reader I love a good story, and this list highlights five books that not only weave entertainment within their respective genres—but also tell their stories in unique visual ways by being fearless with formatting. I love being into a story and seeing there’s a journal entry or letter coming up—it’s like an intimate view into the characters’ world and experiences, and I want to eat it up! If you’re interested in finding more authors who do this, Googling “epistolary novels” will help.
I loved Maame not only because it is the perfect concoction of tender and funny, but because the Google searches formatted within the story were like the perfect cherry on top of the perfectly assembled turtle sundae.
I found myself looking forward to every time the main character Google-searched her next new-adulthood obstacle—like friendship, grief, dating, and caregiving.
It was visually stimulating, and hilarious, and a fun edition to the story.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! • A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick • A February 2023 Indie Next Pick
"Sparkling." ―The New York Times
"An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys―and the guilt―of trying to find your own way in life." ―Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts
"Lively, funny, poignant . . . Prepare to fall in love with Maddie. I did!" ―Bonnie Garmus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman.
I’ve always been drawn to stories about daughters coming home to complicated mothers and the unfinished versions of themselves they left behind. As an immigrant who moved from India to the U.S. at thirteen, and now as a physician and mother, I live in that in-between space where past and present, duty and desire constantly collide. Reading great novels that explored these tensions was the spark that pushed me to start writing my own. I gravitate toward books where family love is real but messy, home is both refuge and trigger, and women are allowed to be imperfect, angry, tender, and still deeply human.
This novel dives headfirst into the most uncomfortable corners of a mother–daughter relationship.
I love how Doshi refuses to make either woman simply "good" or "bad" and instead sits in the murky space of resentment, obligation, and love. It's a book that made me feel complicit, unsettled, and oddly seen—as both a daughter and a mother.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar is a searing literary debut novel set in India about mothers and daughters, obsession, and betrayal.
NPR Best Book of 2020
A Pen America Literary Award Finalist
“I would be lying if I say my mother's misery has never given me pleasure,” says Antara, Tara's now-adult daughter.
In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her marriage to join an ashram, and while Tara is busy as a partner to the ashram's spiritual leader, Baba, little Antara is cared for by an older devotee, Kali Mata, an American who came…
After 37 years of being undiagnosed with ADHD, I was so grateful to get my diagnosis! Once I had an inkling that I had ADHD, I began devouring books about it :-) The books in this list are five of many that have helped me understand myself and my brain, and I want to help others have access to them and to the inspiring, affirming, and empowering self-knowledge they provide! These books will help you figure out if you might have an ADHD brain and then, from there, help you work with and celebrate that brain.
This book is a fun way to get inside the head of a teen girl with ADHD! I love reading books with characters with ADHD, and I love reading romance, so this book is my happy place. :-) Mazey Eddings does an awesome job of portraying the mental loops an ADHD brain can get into and how to overcome them through connecting with the right others and working towards becoming one's authentic self.
Tilly in Technicolor is Mazey Eddings's sparkling YA debut about two neurodivergent teens who form a connection over the course of a summer.
Tilly Twomley is desperate for change. White-knuckling her way through high school with flawed executive functioning has left her burnt out and ready to start fresh. Working as an intern for her perfect older sister’s start up isn’t exactly how Tilly wants to spend her summer, but the required travel around Europe promises a much-needed change of scenery as she plans for her future. The problem is, Tilly has no idea what she wants.
