Here are 38 books that Shattered fans have personally recommended if you like
Shattered.
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Iâm a multi-genre writer who loves hearing the charactersâ voices and getting their stories out there in the world. A lot of my characters are shaped by their gifts, whether they have supernatural ones or not. The things that happen to them shape who they are and how they react to future events. I exist on sarcasm, sass, and hot tea, so many of my characters do too.
Itâs been a while since I read this book, but I remember thinking every place described felt real. It hits all the right notes of thriller with a fallible yet strong heroine who gets the job done, sometimes at great personal cost. Michael is as close to a shapeshifter as normal humans can be. She can become anybody. (Content warning â contains strong language)
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa storiesâall reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argueâŠ
Iâm a multi-genre writer who loves hearing the charactersâ voices and getting their stories out there in the world. A lot of my characters are shaped by their gifts, whether they have supernatural ones or not. The things that happen to them shape who they are and how they react to future events. I exist on sarcasm, sass, and hot tea, so many of my characters do too.
I heard this one on audiobook first. The first book is amazing.
What drew me to this one was the character of Cal James. Sheâs got an unenviable gift of being able to see recent ghosts and interact with them. Her personal lifeâs a hot mess, but she has a heart of gold, and doesnât mind punching ghosts.
In Red River, the Wild West is alive and well. When Calamity James reluctantly returns to her hometown for a funeral, she wants answers that no one will give her. Soon, the local sheriff blackmails Cal into helping him solve a missing persons case. Though no one knows it, Cal is uniquely qualified to find homicide victimsâshe can see the dead. Of course, the dead donât always cooperate. As the mystery unfolds, Cal falls deeper into her troublesome past, navigates burdensome family matters, and digs up new mischief with old rivals, both dead and alive.
Iâm a multi-genre writer who loves hearing the charactersâ voices and getting their stories out there in the world. A lot of my characters are shaped by their gifts, whether they have supernatural ones or not. The things that happen to them shape who they are and how they react to future events. I exist on sarcasm, sass, and hot tea, so many of my characters do too.
Ireland Craneâs under a curse. If she doesnât sort it quickly, sheâll be doomed to become the Headless Horseman.Â
Ha. Maybe I just have a type. This womanâs personal life is also a bit of a mess. The stakes couldnât be higher. If she fails, sheâs doomed to become a monster.
The Horseman is unending, his presence shanât lessen. If you break the curse, you become the legend.
Washington Irving and Rip Van Winkle had no choice but to cover up the deadly truth behind Ichabod Craneâs disappearance. Centuries later, a Crane returns to Sleepy Hollow awakening macabre secrets once believed to be buried deep.
What if the monster that spawned the legend lived within you?
Now, Ireland Crane, reeling from a break-up and seeking a fresh start, must rely on the newly awakened Rip Van Winkle to discover the key to channeling the darkness swirling within her. Bodies are pilingâŠ
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extortsâŠ
Iâm a multi-genre writer who loves hearing the charactersâ voices and getting their stories out there in the world. A lot of my characters are shaped by their gifts, whether they have supernatural ones or not. The things that happen to them shape who they are and how they react to future events. I exist on sarcasm, sass, and hot tea, so many of my characters do too.
This story featured a cop just trying to get her job done. Sheâs not a saint, but she busts her backside to solve the mystery while wading through office politics.
Kateâs not perfect. She makes mistakes, but sheâs got an admirable sense of determination to see justice done.
I think thereâs a killer fight scene at the end of the book.
What would you do if someone murdered your daughter?
Jasmine, a lovely, teenage kid with a bright future was brutally murdered and thrown away like a rag doll.
It was Lt. Kate Gazzaraâs first case as lead detective. For eight years she played Dr. Watson to Sergeant Harry Starkeâs Sherlock Holmes, and then he was gone. Jasmine changed her life.
Who killed the poor kid? Why did she have to die? What could she have done to deserve such a fate?
It was her parentâs worst nightmare. Itâs every parentâs worst nightmare, and it begs the question: What would youâŠ
I have been researching, curating, and writing womenâs history for 30 years. I curated the suffragette exhibition Purple, White, and Green at the Museum of London. I wrote The Suffragettes in Pictures; Love and Dirt: The Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick; Elsie and Mairi Go To War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front; The Criminal Conversation of Mrs Norton, and Rise Up, Women! The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes.
I am a public historian, devoted to sharing my research and writing with all. I am a keen podcaster, Youtuber, and guest on television and radio. You could say Iâm a heroine addict.
I hope you love my recommendations.
It is the best true crime book I have read in recent years. It is a gripping murder story and tragic romance, and a terrific biography of a thoroughly modern woman trapped between the freedoms earned on the one hand by womenâs critical participation in two world wars, and the suffocating conservatism of the 1920s and 1920s. For challenging the status quo Alma Rattenbury paid the heaviest price. On a broader note, this book offers a fascinating slice of womenâs lives in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War.
'A case study in human frailty, jealousy and desire ... fascinating.' The Times, Best Books of 2019
'Meticulously researched...superbly evocative and gripping...a narrative that builds with the intensity of an approaching thunderstorm.' The Spectator
'Sean O'Connor can't resist striking a theatrical note in this "biography of murder".' Sunday Times
Adultery, alcoholism, drugs and murder on the suburban streets of Bournemouth.
The Rattenbury case of 1935 was one of the great tabloid sensations of the interwar period. The glamorous femme fatale at the heart of the story dominated the front pages for months, somewhere between the rise of Hitler andâŠ
Iâm an author, reader, and cinephile with a real appetite for all things crime. If itâs a mystery, if itâs a detective story, if there are questionable morals at play in a story with no easy answers and no clear way out, then count me in. Iâm also fascinated by the WWII era and was spellbound by the stories my maternal grandfather told me about his time as an infantry soldier in Italy during the war. These passions moved me to write my own novels and continue to inspire me in my embrace of art. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I do!
Winner of the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Novel, James Kestrelâs Five Decembers tells a gripping story of survival that spans the entirety of World War II.
Itâs got it all, man, and it is a helluvafantastic read. The story begins in Honolulu, Hawaii, and follows detective Joe McGrady on the trail of a murder that takes him far from home and far from the woman he loves.
Before he knows it, heâs in the middle of the war, in Japan, no less, and nothing for him will ever be the same.
Donât walk for this one, run, and keep a copy on your shelf. Youâre sure to reread it a few times and the coverâs a true beaut.
"War, imprisonment, torture, romance...The novel has an almost operatic symmetry, and Kestrel turns a beautiful phrase." -New York Times
Five Decembers is a gripping thriller, a staggering portrait of war, and a heartbreaking love story, as unforgettable as All the Light We Cannot See.
NOMINATED FOR BEST THRILLER IN THE 2022 BARRY AWARDS
FINALIST FOR THE HAMMETT PRIZE 2021
"Read this book for its palpitating story, its perfect emotional and physical detailing and, most of all, for its unforgettable conjuring of a steamy quicksilver world that will be new to almostâŠ
Big Ideas... For Small Businesses
by
John Lamerton,
Big Ideas⊠for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,âŠ
I come from a rather strange background: southern Italian and Eastern European Jewish. As a child, I heard both Italian (Neapolitan dialect) and Yiddish. I later learned that my maternal grandmotherâs brother was the well-known Yiddish poet and playwright, Jacob Adler, creator of Yente (who wrote under the name B. Kovner to avoid confusion with the great actor by that name). I have been involved with what some call the âoccult,â âparanormal,â or âsupernaturalâ for many years, and these appear in much of my recent writing. Moreover, The Ibburâs Taledraws on various elements drawn from the history of my motherâs family, including the fate of some during the Holocaust.Â
Zimlerâs earlier novel,The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, presented masterful prose in the genres of historical fiction, mystery, and thriller.
The Warsaw Anagrams continued in this vein: a murder mystery set amidst the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto. For me, it was a âcanât-put-it-downâ novel, and I was absolutely captivated by the authorâs design. He has the ibburâ in this case, the late Dr. Erik Cohen â tell the story to Heniek Corben, and what a profound tale it is!Â
 To the best of my knowledge, The Warsaw Anagrams was the first novel to present an ibbur, and it prompted my own efforts. I hope that my novella will in turn encourage other authors to consider using this material from the Jewish shtetlach of a lost era.Â
Autumn 1940. The Nazis seal 400,000 Jews inside a small area of the Polish capital, creating an urban island cut off from the outside world. Erik Cohen, an elderly psychiatrist, is forced to move into a tiny apartment with his niece and his beloved nine-year-old nephew, Adam.
One bitterly cold winter's day, Adam goes missing. The next morning, his body is discovered in the barbed wire surrounding the ghetto. The boy's leg has been cut off, and a tiny piece of string has been left in his mouth.
Soon, another body turns up - this time a girl's, and oneâŠ
My love of British crime fiction began when, as a young teen, I discovered Agatha Christie on the shelves of my local library. With Scottish grandparents, I was already well indoctrinated in the âeverything British is bestâ theory, but it was as a student at St. Clareâs College, Oxford, that I fell totally under the spell of the British Isles. No surprise, then, that my Kate Hamilton Mystery series is set in the UK and features an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. I love to read the classic mysteries of the Golden Age as well as authors today who follow that tradition.
For my last pick, Iâve chosen a novel published near the end of the Golden Age (roughly the 1920s through the 1950s). Author and solicitor Michael Gilbert set his novel in the chambers of Horniman, Birley, and Craine. After the death of the firmâs senior partner, a hermetically sealed deed box is opened, revealing the corpse of Marcus Smallbone, a co-trustee with the late Mr. Horniman of the valuable Ichbod Trust. With the help of newly qualified solicitor Henry Bohun, Chief Inspector Hazelrigg sorts through a maze of lies and misdirection to uncover the surprising perpetrator and motive. Martin Edwards, in the foreword to the Poisoned Pen Press edition, said, âThe book blends in masterly fashion, an authentic setting, pleasingly differentiated characters, smoothly readable prose, and a clever puzzle.âÂ
Discover the captivating treasures buried in the British Library's archives. Largely inaccessible to the public until now, these enduring classics were written in the golden age of detective fiction.
"A first-rate job"âNew York Times
"A classic of the genre"âGuardian
Horniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients drawn from the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm's reputationâespecially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep aâŠ
At twenty-six I was living in Wuhan. I had been in China for a couple of years and was looking for a change. Not ready to go back home to New Zealand, I made my way across Europe, through the USA, and on to Argentina. Since that visit, Iâve followed Argentina's economic crises and scoured its newspapers for quirky crime stories. I started to send out true crime articles to various magazines. Eventually, I had enough material to write a novel. For years Iâve wanted to find a literary yet straightforward crime novel set in Argentina. The search goes on, but below are the best Iâve come across so far.
An Agatha Christie-style mystery set in Buenos Aires. At two in the morning, Pancho Soler returns drunk to his apartment building on Santa Fe Avenue. He presses the button for the lift, and it arrives with a surprise inside: a beautiful blonde woman, sitting upright, but dead. Many of the suspects who live in the building are recent immigrants from Europe and, as the novel is set in the 1950s, their memories and secrets from WW2 are still fresh. Boris, a Bulgarian chemist who worked for the Nazis, is the most entertaining of the lot. There are the usual red herrings and revelations in the search for the murderer. The young Argentinian detective is a little flat by Christie's standards, but this is a satisfying whodunnit.  Â
Frida Eidinger is young, beautiful and lying dead in the lift of a luxury Buenos Aires apartment block.
It looks like suicide, and yet none of the building's residents can be trusted; the man who discovered her is a womanising drunk; her husband is behaving strangely; and upstairs, a photographer and his sister appear to be hiding something sinister. When Inspector Ericourt and his colleague Blasi are set on the trail of some missing photographs, a disturbing secret past begins to unravel...
One of Argentina's greatest detective stories, Death Going Down is a postwar tale of survival and extortion, obsessionâŠ
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicitâŠ
I am a storyteller and I conceived The Life of Crime as the âlife storyâ of a fascinating and truly diverse genre. Iâve always been intrigued by the ups and downs of literary lives, and the book explores the rollercoaster careers of writers from across the world. The chapter endnotes contain masses of trivia and information, as well as some original research, that I hope readers will find enjoyable as well as interesting. But The Life ofCrimeisnât an academic text. Itâs a love letter to a genre that Iâve adored for as long as I can remember.
Haycraft was an American commentator and this survey of the history of crime writing up to the Second World War is soundly written and sympathetic. Interestingly, he believed that the locked room puzzle was played out and that authors should avoid it, whereas this type of mystery has enjoyed a significant revival in recent years. Predicting how crime writing will evolve in the future is fraught with danger! Inevitably, Haycraftâs focus was mainly on American and British crime fiction. The limited number of translated mysteries in those days meant that the global reach of crime writing, and the achievements of authors whose first language is not English, has long been under-estimated. Only now is this problem being addressed.  Â
"Genuinely fascinating reading."âThe New York Times Book Review "Diverting and patently authoritative."âThe New Yorker "Grand and fascinating ⊠a history, a compendium and a critical study all in one, and all first rate."âRex Stout "A landmark ⊠a brilliant study written with charm and authority."âEllery Queen "This book is of permanent value. It should be on the shelf of every reader of detective stories."âErle Stanley Gardner Author Howard Haycraft, an expert in detective fiction, traces the genre's development from the 1840s through the 1940s. Along the way, he charts the innovations of Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur ConanâŠ
