Here are 91 books that One Good Deed fans have personally recommended if you like
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I lived vicariously through Nancy Drew when I was young. I was naturally observant and curious, and my mom was known to tail a car through our neighborhood if she thought the driver looked suspicious. So, it’s not surprising that I developed a love for all things thrilling. While working in the oil and gas industry for fifteen years, I spent some time focused on a foreign deal that served as inspiration for my first novel. I worked with people seeking power; negotiations bordered on nefarious; the workplace became toxic. If you ever ponder the moral implications behind the pursuit of power, you’ll enjoy the books on this list!
The 6:20 Man is reminiscent of Girl on a Train, only with far more likeable characters and a plot that involves the high-tech, high-risk finance world of investment banking. I didn’t have to suspend belief with the premise of this thriller. The crimes feel real, the investigation(s) make sense, and information is provided with great timing and clarity.
I kept flipping pages because I became invested in Travis Devine’s life. He’s incredibly likeable which is probably why this one is being made into a series.
A cryptic murder pulls a former soldier turned financial analyst deep into the corruption and menace that prowl beneath the opulent world of finance, in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller from David Baldacci.
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the…
Little does attorney Hiram Garbuncle know the danger he’s getting into when he reluctantly defends an immigrant brutally beaten by two policemen during a traffic stop and charged with resisting arrest.
Plot twists and turns take the reader on a suspense-filled roller coaster ride as the attorney’s negligence causes a…
I wrote my first thriller at age 8 about a girl who ran away and joined the circus. For later works, I, a pediatric physician, did opt to follow my English teachers’ guidance to write about what you know, including science, medicine, psychology, journalism, and my twin home countries of America and Greece. As YS Pascal, I wrote the Zygan Emprise Trilogy, which blended ancient Greek history, mythology, and literature. As Linda Reid, I co-authored the award-winning Sammy Greene thriller series with Dr. Deborah Shlian and was eager to fly investigative reporter Sammy and her ex-cop friend Gus Pappajohn to the shores of modern Athens to solve an ancient and modern mystery.
In Book 11, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis, fresh from Athens to the picturesque Greek island, must find the perpetrators of a gruesome murder of a young woman found dead in a rural church. Siger, via his blunt investigator Kaldis, is an expert in sprinkling the beautiful Greek landscape with notes of suspense and mystery, and, like the earlier entries in this attractive series, Murder in Mykonos does not disappoint.
One woman dead, another missing-and time is running out Politically incorrect detective Andreas Kaldis, promoted out of Athens to serve as police chief for Mykonos, is certain his homicide investigation days are over. Murders don't happen in Greece's tourist heaven. At least that's what he's thinking as he stares at the remains of a young woman, ritually bound and buried on a pile of human bones inside a remote mountain church. Teamed with the nearly-retired local homicide chief, Andreas must find the killer before the world-wide media attention can destroy the Greek island's fabled reputation with rumors of a mystery…
I could easily expand this list beyond the five books listed below, but these novels are top-of-mind from authors I genuinely admire. My novel also gives a wink and a nod to each one. Whether the protagonist is a sworn officer, amateur sleuth, or private detective…each one herein is honorable, competent, and memorable. I hope you like these stories as much as I do.
Any book with this author’s Detectives Bosch and/or Ballard is a tour de force in police procedurals. He can make reading a murder file or a newspaper article informative, stimulating, and evocative. In this story, Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit are thrust into the spotlight with a breakthrough DNA match linking a recent arrestee to a notorious serial rapist and murderer who vanished two decades ago. The twist? The suspect is only twenty-four, pointing to a familial connection: his father, the infamous Pillowcase Rapist, who terrorized Los Angeles for five years.
As Ballard and her team close in, they unravel a complex web of secrets and legal challenges that test their procedural prowess. The narrative is complex, satisfying, and brimming with skillful twists that showcase the author’s expertise in crafting compelling procedurals.
'Michael Connelly is a powerhouse, an unstoppable force in crime fiction. The Waiting is proof he is at the top of his game." MICK HERRON, #1 bestselling author of SLOW HORSES
****
IN COLD CASES, IT'S NOT THE HOPE THAT KILLS YOU. IT'S THE WAITING.
LAPD Detective Renee Ballard gets a DNA hit in a case that has gone unsolved for twenty years. A recently arrested man is genetically related to a serial rapist who terrorised the city of angels.
But when the relative is revealed, it is the last person you want to accuse unless the evidence is watertight...
Why: Earth 2278 is a passionate book about enduring human emotional limits. A futuristic thriller with compassion, gallows humor, a love story, high-stakes battles, and a tight bond of camaraderie. In this futuristic adventure, it blends a creative science of a new world-building, set upon a tyrannical leader who runs…
I am an old movie fan and a novelist who has been writing historical fiction about show business since 2010. As a stickler for detail, I use oodles of old Hollywood biographies and other research sources to learn everything I can about my subjects and weave as accurate a tale as I can. My Forgotten Actresses series is up to four books, with plenty more under construction.
Los Angeles, 1937. Lillian Frost has traded dreams of stardom for security as a department store salesgirl . . . until she discovers she's a suspect in the murder of her former roommate, Ruby Carroll. Party girl Ruby died wearing a gown she stole from the wardrobe department at Paramount Pictures, domain of Edith Head.
Edith has yet to win the first of her eight Academy Awards; right now she's barely hanging on to her job, and a scandal is the last thing she needs. To clear Lillian's name and save Edith's career, the two women join forces.
As a suspense thriller author and retired police detective, I’ve seen how ordinary people can hide the darkest secrets. That’s why I love small-town mysteries. They show the endless ways people cover up what they don’t want others to see, and they remind me of the unsettling truth I’ve witnessed firsthand: behind every neat house and familiar smile, there can be lies, betrayal, or danger and nothing is ever as safe as it looks.
I devoured His & Hers because it kept me spinning in circles.
I loved how the story gave me one perspective and then flipped it on me. I never knew who to trust. I was hooked by the twists, the tension, and the way it messed with my head. I couldn’t stop reading, and I didn’t want to.
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF Sometimes I Lie “Stunning. Addictive. This book should not be missed!” ―Samantha Downing “Deliciously dark...will have readers tearing through the pages.” ―Mary Kubica “Gives Gone Girl a run for its money...I couldn't stop reading.” ―Christina Dalcher There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.
When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in…
I’m a multi-award-winning film and television producer; before that, I was a theatre director. I’ve spent my life telling stories, whether through theatre plays or television dramas. It doesn’t matter if you’re watching a TV drama or reading a book; the same rules apply to creating a great story. It needs compelling characters, an intriguing plot, and a strong sense of place. I love the murder/mystery genre, and nearly all the books I read fall into this category, so it’s no surprise that the first book I’ve written is a cosy crime.
I laughed out loud at some of the lines in this book. If you’re looking for something to brighten up your day, then this is the book for you. It’s masterfully clever and intricately woven in a rich tapestry of humour and fun.
Think Murder On The Orient Express but set in Australia with a train whose passengers are all crime writers, including Ernest Cunningham, a “lowly debut author” with writer’s block, who Stevenson uses as the narrator. Ernest hilariously explains the rules of writing a murder mystery novel while at the same time guiding us through the plot, unravelling a complex set of clues that eventually lead to the unveiling of the killer.
From the bestselling author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, a fiendishly fun locked room (train) murder mystery that "offers a tip of the hat to the great Agatha Christie novel while at the same time being a modern reinvention of it" (Nita Prose) -- perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz
When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each…
Palmer Lind, recovering from the sudden death of her husband, embarks on a bird-watching trek to the Gulf Coast of Florida. One hot day on Leffis Key, she comes upon—not the life bird she was hoping for—but a floating corpse. The handsome beach bum who appears on the scene at…
I like to write about everyday people who—whether by overconfidence or desperation—are motivated to solve crimes that hit close to home. My first novel Girl, 11 is about a true crime podcaster investigating a serial killer who terrorized her town decades earlier, and my newest book Lay Your Body Downis about an ex-fundamentalist Christian who returns to her insular community to expose the church’s secrets and uncover the truth of who killed the man she once loved. Normal people can and do solve mysteries before police—and even when detectives are involved, they rely on members of the community. Those are the stories I love to tell.
I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this book, and I am blown away at how Jesse Sutanto continues to smash both her novel concepts and character voices out of the park!
Vera Wong herself is the ultimate amateur sleuth, but she is not reluctant whatsoever. When a dead body turns up in her tea shop, Vera Wong—the most wonderfully grandmotherly non-grandmother—decides the police aren’t up to the task of realizing the young man was murdered, obviously, and so she decides to hunt down the suspects and interview them herself.
Vera is at turns heartwarming and hilarious, infuriating, and delightful. Told through the perspective of Vera and all her murder suspects, this book will keep you guessing until the end—and might just charm your socks off.
A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
What I look for in a book is something that triggers my serious side. So be it if that removes a whole range of fantasy books or those that merely titillate. Because I’ve traveled a lot, ‘feasible fiction’ is what I write and what I look for in other books. A story might be entirely fictitious, but as long as it’s not far-fetched, has a cast of realistic characters, an international or historic location, and keeps me on my toes to the very end, that’s great. If it’s got some politics and science thrown in, that’s even better. I hope my list lives up to expectations.
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.
Tudor England is brought vividly to life in Tombland, the seventh novel in C. J. Sansom's number one bestselling Shardlake series, for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory.
'When it comes to intriguing Tudor-based narratives, Hilary Mantel has a serious rival' - Sunday Times 'Sansom has the trick of writing an enthralling narrative. Like Hilary Mantel, he produces densely textured historical novels that absorb their readers in another time' - Andrew Taylor, Spectator
The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller
England, 1549: Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos . . .
The greatest mystery I face in life is, how is it that when I've just packed the dishwasher, I have to pack it yet again? But I love stories. There’s nothing more healing than a well-told story with characters and jokes and twists and turns. Each of these books contains some form of fictionalized domestic world where murders happen, but marriages and babies and falling in love do, too.We live in a time when the world is hard to navigate. All of these writers bring a mystery, the best of company, and the idea that even in the darkest of times, everything can turn out quite spiffingly.
When I was a kid, my Mum loved Upstairs Downstairs—a TV show about a household in Victorian England and the lives of the gentry upstairs and the servants downstairs. Nobody was allowed to even whisper when it was on.
Well, the Mrs Jeffries Mysteries would have blown her mind. Because the servants in Detective Witherspoon’s household not only do regular servanting but also solve murders on the fly.
There are loads of great characters: Mrs Goodge, the surly cook, Smythe, the fierce-looking coachman with a heart of gold, and of course Mrs Jeffries herself, who’s like a sherry-guzzling Sherlock Holmes who can tidy.
Mrs. Jeffries and Inspector Witherspoon should be checking off their Christmas present lists but instead they’re listing murder suspects in this latest entry of the beloved Victorian Mystery series.
TIS THE SEASON FOR MURDER
Harriet Andover was a smart businesswoman who did not suffer fools gladly, yet somehow her house was full of them. With a husband who has no head for money and two grown stepchildren who would rather do anything than an honest day’s work, Harriet had every intention of righting the ship and putting her family back on the path to respectability. But she soon discovers…
Two small-time journalists take on an international cartel who try a hostile takeover of a Canadian mining company.
Lucas, a veteran journalist, sees a big story brewing within a strike at a local mining company when explosions rip through the plant, but he gets bumped by Jamie, a junior reporter.…
Let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in Dublin, and being the daughter of a diplomat afforded me to experience different cultures. Since childhood my fascination with the unknown caused me to gravitate towards stories related to hauntings. I shared this interest with my maternal grandparents, who contributed to my education by telling me ghost stories (some true whilst others are fictional). Tales of haunted castles were my favorite, which is reflected in my book. In later life, my own experiences with the paranormal cemented the notion of the unexplained and the thin veil between us and those departed.
What I loved about this book (which was also adapted into a film starring Elisabeth Taylor) was my first exposure to a female murderer. I liked the backstory of what motivated this woman to kill a seemingly innocent person at a party. Being a psychiatrist myself, my fascination with women who kill has inspired me to create a fictional serial killer in some of my own works.
Furthermore, the importance of a woman’s innate desire to become a mother when robbed of such happiness added to my interest in women’s psychopathology on how horrific memories of the past leave an imprint that can haunt us forever.
