Here are 100 books that Street of the Five Moons fans have personally recommended if you like
Street of the Five Moons.
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From when I first got lost in a book—I think it was Herman Wouk’s Winds of War—I discovered I really loved stories which thrust me into their world. From favorites like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which I read to my kids, to Peter Benchley’s Jaws, I loved getting lost in the snowy world of Narnia or out in the water in the small boat with Brody. When I read any new author, I notice how well they paint the scene and how skillfully they describe the what and where of their tale. Does the story capture the details, idiosyncrasies, and nuances of this place and time? If it does, I’m in.
I love listening to Evanovich’s hilarious tales of Stephanie Plum’s misadventures as a wannabe bail/bondsman. These books are my wife’s and my favorite distraction on long road trips. While her mysteries may be thin, her characters are so real and her stories so crazy, I didn’t miss the whodunit. I included her in this August list because she captures the seedy side of Trenton, New Jersey, with amazing clarity, even while laughing at the place.
I picture myself riding in one of her cars—which she destroys regularly—along with her friend, the former ho, LuLu, hair flowing in the stinky wind blowing off deserted warehouses, sleezy girl joints and questionable car repair shops. This is the first in a series that is now at 31.
Stephanie Plum is down on her luck. She's lost her job, her car's on the brink of repossession, and her apartment is fast becoming furniture-free.
Enter Cousin Vinnie, a low-life who runs a bail-bond company. If Stephanie can bring in vice cop turned outlaw Joe Morelli, she stands to pick up $10,000. But tracking down a cop wanted for murder isn't easy . . .
And when Benito Ramirez, a prize-fighter with more menace than mentality, wants to be her friend Stephanie soon knows what it's like to be pursued. Unfortunately the best person to protect her just happens to…
In ancient Rome, sensible women don’t investigate murders, but Livia Aemilia’s father is dead, and her innocent brother has been accused of the crime. What’s a girl to do? Find the criminal herself, obviously.
Livia and her spunky maidservant pound the ancient Roman pavements in search of the killer, with…
Cozy mysteries tend to exist in a simpler world, one without extreme violence and heavy swearing. They are often set in bucolic settings, but they deal with murder! I love many of the cozy tropes—tea, cats, dogs or other pets, family shenanigans, food. I think it’s family nuances that draw me the most to cozies. Whether it’s a romantic comedy or just one full of capers and laughter, cozies are my favorite genre.
This is soccer mom meets the film True Lies, with monkeys thrown in for good measure. This caper has laughs, fun, romance, and pacing that had me finishing it in one sitting. Barbara Marr’s mid-life crisis doesn’t end in divorce and finding new love—no, this is more clever.
And after book one, Barb and her friends continue finding dead bodies and household crisis’ that anyone over forty can appreciate. The whole neighborhood is often involved in Barbara Marr capers, each one a tangled mess of clues, mishaps, and criminals.
Film lover Barbara Marr is a typical suburban mom living the typical suburban life in her sleepy little town of Rustic Woods, Virginia. Typical, that is until she sets out to find the missing link between a bizarre monkey sighting in her yard and the bone chilling middle-of-the-night fright fest at the strangely vacant house next door. When Barb talks her two friends into some seemingly innocent Charlie's Angels-like sleuthing, they stumble upon way more than they bargained for and uncover a piece of neighborhood history that certain people would kill to keep on the cutting room floor.Enter sexy PI…
Cozy mysteries tend to exist in a simpler world, one without extreme violence and heavy swearing. They are often set in bucolic settings, but they deal with murder! I love many of the cozy tropes—tea, cats, dogs or other pets, family shenanigans, food. I think it’s family nuances that draw me the most to cozies. Whether it’s a romantic comedy or just one full of capers and laughter, cozies are my favorite genre.
Julie Moffett won my heart with geeks and gadgets. I love a main who can invent her way out of a bad situation especially if she requires the help of more geeks!
These books tend a bit more toward young adult than my other picks, but they are just as crazy when it comes to adventure. Lexi is a techno-geek working for a government agency. She’s a reformed hacker, a gamer, and an unbelievable klutz. She’s stubborn and determined to solve cases and prove herself, even if she has to rewire a vacuum cleaner to do it—Zany, good, cozy, fun.
Me and the legendary Zimmerman twins--it's a friendship made in geek heaven. And it all started back when I worked for the NSA...
My best friend Basia dragged me to the beach for her idea of a vacation. All those annoying people, sand in embarrassing places--not exactly R & R for a girl who doesn't like the sun, the ocean or bathing suits. I couldn't wait to get back to work.
But things started looking up when I ran into Elvis and Xavier Zimmerman. We discovered we had a lot in common: gaming, anchovies, hacking. After that, the vacation was…
Four sisters. Four buildings. Four visions of what women can—and need—to be, do, and have.
Jezebel is the youngest of the Bailey sisters. Yes, that Bailey of Barnum &— fame. Heiresses to multimillions of their father’s nouveau riche wealth, the four have been raised in direct antithesis to the fainting…
Cozy mysteries tend to exist in a simpler world, one without extreme violence and heavy swearing. They are often set in bucolic settings, but they deal with murder! I love many of the cozy tropes—tea, cats, dogs or other pets, family shenanigans, food. I think it’s family nuances that draw me the most to cozies. Whether it’s a romantic comedy or just one full of capers and laughter, cozies are my favorite genre.
This is an old-fashioned comedy read. Working for politicians who give you a get-out-of-jail-free card is stupidly dangerous. For two-bit thief Meehan, it’s his only chance to get out of jail and remain free. Maybe not alive, but free. It has a romantic side, small town tropes and a lot of bad luck for Meehan.
This is my very favorite Donald Westlake novel. A well-plotted caper from the thief point of view. This book should be made into a movie. It’s that good.
In this uproariously funny novel from "a national literary treasure," a career criminal is offered a new life outside of prison -- if he can steal a compromising video of the president (Booklist). Meehan, a career thief staring at life without parole, is awaiting sentencing at the Manhattan Correctional Center when he is called to a meeting by someone masquerading as his lawyer. The man, it turns out, represents the presidential re-election campaign committee -- now finding itself in need of a little professional help. So they "outsource" Meehan in return for a walk from all pending criminal charges. All…
I’m an undying, relentless, optimistic champion of right winning over wrong, of justice prevailing over injustice, and of good people and animals (especially horses) being protected, championed, and loved. And I know from experience that all of this is seldom easy when the stakes are high. Couple that with my love of horses, especially Thoroughbreds, and you might understand that I admire main characters who are committed to protecting the innocent and bringing the bad guys to justice, whether that’s in the human or the equine world. And I love learning almost as much as I love people with character, heart, and courage. These books, I think, check all these boxes.
We are back in the world of horses, but this time western horses, not Thoroughbred racehorses. Laura Crum has created a series with a female equine veterinarian—Gail McCarthy—as her main character. I’m drawn to Gail because she’s incredibly competent as a vet, but also wicked smart at sniffing out the bad guys and has the courage to go against the boys very often to do just that. I’m always rooting for strong characters, men or women, and I love it that we women are now catching up in fiction as well as in real life!
This is the first in Crum’s series, but I’ve enjoyed all of them I’ve read. I love the rural setting, and I can almost smell the sweet scent of hay and hear the horses rustling gently in their stalls (which always does my heart good) as I read this book. In it, a dead horse…
While investigating the death of cutting-horse trainer Casey Brooks, supposedly killed in a fall, veterinarian Gail McCarthy uncovers evidence of murder, as well as a hostile girlfriend, an angry former client, and a long-standing feud
For me, games have always been a way of playing mathematics. Every game has a hidden piece of mathematics behind it, and if you can understand that mathematics, I’ve found that it gives you a real edge in playing the game. I travel a lot for my work as a mathematician, and I love to ask about the games they play when I visit a new country. Games tell me a lot about the culture and people I am visiting. My book is my way of sharing my passion for games and mathematics with my readers.
I love chess, and even though I’m not brilliant at it, I really enjoy books where the characters play chess. The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig is probably the most famous, but I really enjoyed this murder mystery with a game of chess at its heart, which beautifully mirrors the plot as it unfolds.
The game is featured mid-game in a Flemish fifteenth-century painting. The modern protagonists analyze it forward and backward to understand the past and future. I loved the fact that the book includes illustrations of the game as it proceeds for the reader to analyze. There are also some interesting allusions to Douglas Hofstadter’s idea of strange loops, which is another one of my obsessions.
The clue to a murder in the art world of contemporary Madrid lies hidden in a medieval painting of a game of chess.
In a 15th-century Flemish painting two noblemen are pictured playing chess. Yet two years before he could sit for the portrait, one of them was murdered. In 20th-century Madrid, Julia, a picture restorer preparing the painting for auction, uncovers a hidden inscription in Latin that points to the crime: Quis necavit equitem? Who killed the knight? But as she teams up with a brilliant chess theoretician to retrace the moves, she discovers the deadly game is not…
I love to read about strong, independent, imperfect women who are capable of getting themselves out of their own messes. That's why my female protagonists are strong, independent, imperfect women who don't need a man to save them.
Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta M.D. is a divorced, workaholic, hard ass who drinks and smokes too much–my kind of gal.
I found the depth of detail of the forensic technology used at the crime scene and autopsies–there are a number of those–fascinating. Kay gets into lots of tight places. I scream, “Don't go in there.” Kay is clearly not listening to me or anybody else, but I love the way she gets herself out of her own messes.
A bonus is homicide Detective Pete Marino, a rough diamond who dogs Kay's tracks. Happy to know there are 26 more in the Kay Scarpetta series.
The second book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.
'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times
A reclusive writer is dead. And her final manuscript has disappeared . . .
Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone-calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West - but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer in . . .
Thus begins for Dr Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as convoluted as it…
I started reading classical books at a very young age. Granted, I did not understand a lot of things then. Rereading the same books again after years made me realize that more than what the author was trying to convey, my maturity made a world of difference when reading a book. It was the same text but with entirely different contexts and perspectives. I love old books. Books that take me back a century or more. It gives me an insight into how people lived, thought, and felt back then. It helps me connect with people across centuries.
The perfect crime? Actually not! It was so imperfect that it turned into the perfect crime by just pure luck. No clues were left behind. In fact, there was nothing to trace the murder back to the murderer except his own guilt.
His guilt turned out to be his biggest punishment. When he finally surrenders, he feels at peace–the long-eluded peace.
Hailed by Washington Post Book World as “the best [translation] currently available" when it was first published, this second edition has been updated in honor of the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth.
With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's astounding pyschological thriller, newly revised for his bicentenniel.
When Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that is…
Whenever in Oxford, I feel I’ve come “home.” It’s a magical city steeped in beauty, history, literature, culture, and fascinating people. I’ve been blessed to have taken graduate courses at the University, participated in numerous conferences, brought tour groups, lived “in college,” and conducted walking tours of the town. My familiarity with the city enabled me to write the original chapter on Oxford for Rick Steves’ England guidebook, and it’s where I set my fictional series, The Oxford Chronicles. When I can’t be there in person, I love to visit vicariously through good books. I hope these novels will enable you to experience some of the magic of Oxford too.
I love watching British mystery series and am a big fan of the entire Inspector Morse series, including Lewis and Endeavor.
However, before there were these brilliant films, there was Colin Dexter’s even more brilliant writing. Oxford is itself a character in all three series, and it’s particularly fun for me to recognize familiar locations in Oxford where the scenes are filmed, just as it’s fun for me to follow along in the novel with Dexter’s characters as they walk the streets of Oxford.
The Jewel That was Ours, renamed The Wolvercote Tongue in the Inspector Morse series, proves the old adage that the book is better than the film. The novel delves deeper into the psyches of its memorable characters with their complex stories and alibis, and the plot takes many more twists and turns before it reaches its satisfying denouement.
The Jewel That Was Ours is the ninth novel in the Oxford-set detective series from Colin Dexter, the winner of the CWA Silver Dagger Award.
He looked overweight around the midriff, though nowhere else, and she wondered whether perhaps he drank too much. He looked weary, as if he had been up most of the night conducting his investigations . . .
For Oxford, the arrival of twenty-seven American tourists is nothing out of the ordinary . . . until one of their number is found dead in Room 310 at the Randolph Hotel.
I am an economics professor who believes my profession has important things to contribute to society but has done a poor job. My colleagues spend much of their time writing esoteric articles that 6 other academics will read, and one in a million will actually improve the lives of people. I consider myself a “blue-collar academic”; I am basically a farm kid (still live on a small farm) with a bunch of degrees attempting to bring good economic insights to more people so those ideas can be applied and used by real people living real lives so I am always on the search for others who are doing just that.
I like mysteries, and I have read all of the greats. This is not Sherlock Holmes quality, but it is good and another fun read. It presents ideas and their practical application in a fun and familiar format.
I love this book for the story. The hero is an economics professor, and it has a sense of humor. Co-written by two award-winning economists who invented a nom-de-plume and gave it a very funny backstory about being a cocoa bean investor, that sort of fun comes through in the book as well. Plus, it is set where so many great adventures are: in the Caribbean. Murder, the tropics, and economics—what’s not to love?
Cinnamon Bay Plantation was the ideal Caribbean island getaway--or so it seemed. But for distinguished Harvard economist Henry Spearman it offered diversion of a decidedly different sort and one he'd hardly anticipated: murder. While the island police force is mired in an investigation that leads everywhere and nowhere, the diminutive, balding Spearman, who likes nothing better than to train his curiosity on human behavior, conducts an investigation of his own, one governed by rather different laws--those of economics. Theorizing and hypothesizing, Spearman sets himself on the killer's trail as it twists from the postcard-perfect beaches and manicured lawns of a…
