Here are 93 books that Strangers and Brothers fans have personally recommended if you like
Strangers and Brothers.
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I am an author, attorney, artist, and entrepreneur. My experience as a litigator for over forty years, as well as my experience as a painter and an investor, has inspired and influenced me to write the Chance Cormac legal thrillers series.
Connelly is the GOAT of the legal thriller genre. He is the creator of Mickey Haller and Hieronymus Bosch.
The Lincoln Lawyer introduces Mickey Haller, the LA lawyer whose office is his Lincoln Town Car. A criminal defense lawyer, Haller agrees to defend a prominent real estate agent who claims he is being framed for assault and attempted murder.
In Connelly’s novels, things are never what they seem. Connelly understands the challenges facing attorneys in investigating and trying difficult cases for difficult clients.
They're called Lincoln Lawyers: the bottom of the legal food chain, the criminal defence attorneys who operate out of the back of a Lincoln car, travelling between the courthouses of Los Angeles county to take whatever cases the system throws in their path.
Mickey Haller has been in the business a long time, and he knows just how to work it, how to grease the right wheels and palms, to keep the engine of justice working in his favour. When a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested for brutally beating a woman, Haller has his first high-paying client in years.…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve wanted to travel the world since I could look out a window. It’s been an honor to spend my life exploring this planet, despite some of its inhabitants. I knew I’d write books about it, even before I could write my own name. It’s a joy to realize such a deep and early dream. My books are love letters to places I’ve lived and people I’ve met, plus some joking around in order not to scream or weep at some of what’s out there. I’ve been a teacher, film editor, comedian, librarian, and now writer. Wherever you are, on whatever path: happy trails to you.
I always enjoy Bill Bryson’s stories, wherever he travels. He’s like my favorite funny uncle, and I never tire of hearing from him.
After a couple of decades as a Yank in the UK, he was going to move back home. First, he takes us on one last meandering trip all around the nation, to pay homage, to enjoy good memories, and to get amusingly grumpy about inconveniences. His sense of humor is self-effacing, silly, bungling, and very entertaining.
I love his keen nose for the absurd differences between the two cultures, his collections of comedy place names, and the British slang phrases he never understood. I grew up in the USA but spent all my adult life in the UK, and this had me laughing out loud, frequently.
In 1995, before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire to move back to the States for a few years with his family, Bill Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of the nation's public face and private parts (as it were), and to analyse what precisely it was he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite; a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named…
I’m a reader and writer of thrillers, especially espionage, but I also love literary fiction, including contemporary writers like Kazuo Ishiguro, Mohsin Hamid, and Amor Towles. And I enjoy reading classic writers including Gogol, Dostoyevsky, and Kafka. So, when it comes to reading thrillers, I gravitate towards those that are very well written, with precise prose and evocative imagery. This is my crossover list of the best five spy thrillers for readers of literary fiction. If you’re a literary reader interested in dabbling in a bit of espionage, these five books would be a great place to start.
Silva’s novels about Gabriel Allon—a reluctant Israeli secret agent posing as an Italian art restorer—are my current favorite read and a serious contender for the best spy thrillers by a contemporary writer.
Each of the novels in the series works as a separate episode; in this case, Allon is lured into action to track down a Palestinian assassin.
But Allon is brought to life by recurring themes across the series, including the fact that his traumatized wife is permanently assigned to a psychiatric hospital by the car bomb that killed their son.
Silva’s meticulous writing and ingenious mixing of historical fact and fiction will appeal to literary readers.
Wily old Israeli intelligence chief recalls former agents in order to eliminate top Palestinian terrorist. One agent is now an art restorer, the other a fashion model. Ten years before on a mission to destroy the Arab Black September group they were briefly lovers. Now their pasts and their enemies come back to haunt them, as the terrorist murders ambassadors in Paris and Holland. Will the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks be his next target? And what motivates the terrorist? Is it politics, or is it possibly personal? Set mainly in London, but with forays into Paris, Amsterdam, the Middle East and…
Mia Lark is running out of options. There is only one way to change the score: the fantasy planet Revivium.
Armed with the powerful magic in the helm and the friendly AI, Hex that goes with it, Mia throws caution out the window. It’s time to find the main guildhall…
Like a caricature, satire lets you see reality better by exaggerating it. When satire is done right, every element, from the overall plot to the characters to paragraph-level details, is there to cast an exposing light on some part of our real world. They are books that exist on many levels, expose hubris and essential misunderstandings, and generally speak truth to power. They should leave the reader reassessing core assumptions about how the world works. I’ve written a best-selling nonfiction book about machine learning in the past, and I probably could have taken that approach again, but AI and American politics are both ripe for satire.
I was blown away by the sheer scope and precision of the observation in this book. No part of New York life in the 1980s or the then-iconic finance industry is left unexposed. From the pretensions of the plutocrats to the dishonesty of the activists, this book mercilessly skewers it all.
It’s like being in a pleasantly dimly lit room when someone turns on a bright floodlight, and suddenly, you see all the ugliness and tawdriness of the people and things in it. Not for the weak of heart.
An exhilarating satire of Eighties excess that captures the effervescent spirit of New York, from one of the greatest writers of modern American prose
Sherman McCoy is a WASP, bond trader and self-appointed 'Master of the Universe'. He has a fashionable wife, a Park Avenue apartment and a Southern mistress. His spectacular fall begins the moment he is involved in a hit-and-run accident in the Bronx. Prosecutors, newspaper hacks, politicians and clergy close in on him, determined to bring him down.
Exuberant, scandalous and exceptionally discerning, The Bonfire of the Vanities was Tom Wolfe's first venture into fiction and cemented…
I was born in a dormitory town in Kent that serves London, but was brought up in the Midland city of Birmingham. I was an avid reader from my early days and much enjoyed espionage novels of that period, as depicted by Geoffrey Household and Eric Ambler. I was in the insurance industry for 35 years, and have woven stories around insurance investigators who became involved in situations by virtue of a routine investigation that inadvertently uncovered criminal or international activities.
This is a departure from the chase aspect; in this case, the book deals with the investigation of a murder, which turns out to have international terror connotations.
The investigator is Connelly’s Harry Bosch, which as far as I’m concerned, makes it worth reading. It’s discovered there is a terrorist aspect with a time limit, which increases the suspense.
The suspense is a feature of its own, but I also liked the interactions between the characters.
An execution on the overlook above the Mulholland Dam entangles Bosch with FBI Agent Rachel Walling and Homeland Security. The brilliant thirteenth Harry Bosch novel from the award-winning No. 1 bestselling author.
When a physicist is murdered in LA, it seems the killer has no fear of publicity, leaving the body on the Mulholland overlook, a site with a stunning view over the city. And when it's discovered that the victim turned over a quantity of a lethal chemical to his killer before he died, Harry knows he has more than just a single death to worry about.
I’ve always been a voracious reader, and from an early age I was drawn to military, political, and science fiction thrillers because they explored a world of black operations, ruthless cabals, and clandestine government programmes. Later, I discovered that such a world exists, one where the military-industrial complex exerts enormous power and influence, a world of secretive global agendas, of dark actors controlling corrupt politicians, and cold-blooded military contractors, their allegiances no longer tied to any national flag but to mega-wealth cabals, offshore accounts, and vast pension funds. A world of shadows, where the light rarely shines, and the truth remains hidden. A truth often stranger than fiction.
The first of a two-book series by accomplished historian Richard Dolan, this volume explores a bizarre and mystifying phenomenon that has fascinated me since I was a young boy, and later inspired me to write my own sci-fi thriller. In his book, Dolan proves beyond doubt that the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the USAF held a far deeper interest in the subject than publicly stated, an interest that often bordered on fear when mysterious, intelligently controlled aircraft violated US-restricted airspace at will. And continue to do so. Well-researched and meticulously referenced, Dolan’s series should be enough to convince the die-hard sceptics that whatever is travelling across our skies, it is beyond our current understanding.
Richard M. Dolan is a gifted historian whose study of U.S. Cold War strategy led him to the broader context of increased security measures and secrecy since World War II. One aspect of such government policies that has continued to hold the public's imagination for over half a century is the question of unidentified flying objects.
UFOs and the National Security State is the first volume of a two-part detailed chronological narrative of the national security dimensions of the UFO phenomenon from 1941 to the present. Working from hundreds of declassified records and other primary and secondary sources, Dolan centers…
Winner of the 2024 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award.
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer…
My fascination with intelligence studies is tied to my previous experience as a practitioner. While serving as a military officer and CIA officer, I became curious about how two organizations with a shared history could be so different. Exploring the “why” of the CIA/DoD differences led me to the broader interplay of organizational cultures, individuals, and missions in influencing the evolution of intelligence, its purpose, and its role. These five books will provide the reader a broader appreciation of how intelligence was used to help policymakers understand reality and how intelligence organizations have been used to try to change reality. You will not merely learn something about intelligence but will be entertained and engaged while doing so.
The decade between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the Global War of Terrorism was a decade of uncertainty for the U.S. intelligence community and an important part of intelligence history. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the reduction in national security budgets raised numerous questions about the purpose, focus, and funding of intelligence organizations during the 1990s. Loch Johnson’s book is an excellent and essential read to understand this period. One of the foremost intelligence scholars, Johnson also served on the Aspin-Brown Commission that considered the future of U.S. intelligence after the Cold War (he also previously served on the 1975 Church and Pike Commission). A commission covered extensively in this book.
The Aspin-Brown Commission of 1995-1996, led by former U.S. Defense Secretaries Les Aspin and Harold Brown, was a landmark inquiry into the activities of America's secret agencies. The purpose of the commission was to help the Central Intelligence Agency and other organizations in the U.S. intelligence community adapt to the quite different world that had emerged after the end of the Cold War in 1991.
In The Threat on the Horizon, eminent national security scholar Loch K. Johnson, who served as Aspin's assistant, offers a comprehensive insider's account of this inquiry. Based on a close sifting of government documents and…
I write spy fiction because I’ve lived close to the seams of power—working and traveling across the U.S., Europe, and China—and I’m obsessed with how ideas turn into decisions. I read philosophy for clarity, history for humility, and intelligence studies for the uncomfortable truth that good intentions aren’t enough.
My novel, A Spy Inside the Castle, grew from years of research and the harder work of translating it into human stakes. I’m passionate about books that illuminate secrecy and strategy without losing sight of people. These five shaped my thinking and, more importantly, kept me honest on the page.
I read The Mission because it opened my eyes to the real story behind the headlines.
Weiner takes you inside CIA missions from the 21st century and shows what was happening behind the curtain while the public only saw the surface.
I was struck by how different the secret history looks compared to the official version. He makes you feel like you’re finally getting the account that no one saw at the time. For me, that transparency is incredibly powerful.
'No one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win him a second Pulitzer' JOHN SIMPSON, GUARDIAN
The epic successor to Tim Weiner's National Book Award-winning classic, Legacy of Ashes: a gripping and revelatory history of the CIA in the 21st century, reaching from 9/11 through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to today's battles with Russia and China - and with the President of the United States.
At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the…
I take great pride in having somehow turned a passion for visiting presidential libraries into an academic career. I’ve now conducted extensive research at eight of them, and have future projects lined up to get me to the rest. This experience means I can and frequently do ruin family gatherings by challenging distant relations to quizzes about obscure details involving presidential pets. But it has also left me well-placed to write a number of articles and books exploring how domestic politics shapes the development and execution of U.S. foreign policy. I’ve done this while affiliated with the University of Oxford and, more recently, at City, University of London.
If you want to go a little deeper, you can’t do much better than this outstanding study of how Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower sought to sustain public support for the Korean War.
Written by a historian who knows his sources like the back of his hands, this book is jam-packed with evidence of the ways in which presidents try to control the narrative about an ongoing war. And beyond its impressive use of archival materials, it also challenges the conventional wisdom about a president’s ability to lead public opinion using the “bully pulpit.”
Presidents can and do try to do that. But the Korean case illuminates the unique challenges of selling a limited war, in which the administration struggled to calibrate its mobilization campaign with the complex politics of waging war.
How presidents spark and sustain support for wars remains an enduring and significant problem. Korea was the first limited war the U.S. experienced in the contemporary period - the first recent war fought for something less than total victory. In Selling the Korean War, Steven Casey explores how President Truman and then Eisenhower tried to sell it to the American public.
Based on a massive array of primary sources, Casey subtly explores the government's selling activities from all angles. He looks at the halting and sometimes chaotic efforts of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster…
Ramon Ramirez’s Dog is a collection of essays written over the years about the adventures and misadventures, mostly outside but occasionally inside the diplomatic career of a U.S. ambassador. Common threads weaving the stories together are a desire for a life well-lived, balancing career with family and friends, keeping physically…
I practised risk, resilience, and protection of infrastructure systems for 35 years. Mid-career, I became frustrated that we could deliver highly successful projects yet didn't deliver their ultimate purpose. This difference is particularly pronounced in war zones and the developing world, where most of my work has been. My research at the University challenged what I knew: it was as if someone had taken my heuristic understanding and cast the components like a pack of cards into the wind. I have shared some highlights in my journey to gather the cards. I hope you like them.
More than any other writer, Flynn explained the value and need for resilient critical infrastructure. He distinguished between foreseeable and unforeseeable threats, and made clear that we can reduce the risk and impact of both. Since 9/11, anything purporting to discuss protection/security and resilience was skewed to terrrorism, giving scant consideration to more fundamental changes in our world. Flynn brought this broader perspective to the fore, and I would like to believe he influenced political and academic thinking. I fear he was the Cassandra to the business community, who are only now starting to understand the risks they face. I made this book core reading for all the infrastructure courses I teach. It is clear, simple, and sets each concept in context with an unambiguous call to action.
Why do we remain unprepared for the next terrorist attack or natural disaster? Where are we most vulnerable? How have we allowed our government to be so negligent? Who will keep you and your family safe? Is America living on borrowed time? How can we become a more resilient nation?
Americans are in denial when it comes to facing up to how vulnerable our nation is to disaster, be it terrorist attack or act of God. We have learned little from the cataclysms of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to catastrophe, America is living on borrowed time–and…
