91 Books like The Physician of Nineveh

The rich history of the Knights Templar, their fall from incredible wealth and power in the fourteenth century, and the mystery behind the undiscovered treasure they supposedly left behind, lay a wondrous landscape upon which Steve Berry sets his first Cotton Malone thriller.

From its opening violent robbery attempt to the twists Malone encounters as he figures out just what the Templars left, and the potentially world-changing impact it could have, the tension perfectly intersects with the history. And it has the three key plot components to a great story in this mixed-genre: intriguing puzzles, huge secrets, and huge stakes.

I consider this the classic in this mixed genre.

The clues are fascinating. The premise and ultimate twists are incredibly powerful. The settings are wonderful. The chases and particularly the escapes are perfectly tense and brilliantly conceived.

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is faced with a series of puzzles, laid before him in part by Da Vinci’s work, that may lead to the Holy Grail. Up against multiple, powerful counterforces, he uncovers a secret that could stagger the world.     

This story is cleverly constructed around a mythical chess set once owned by Charlemagne that is capable, upon complete assembly, of providing its owner with untold power.

Its parallel timelines start in the French Revolution, where an order of nuns is charged with dispersing the pieces to keep them from the wrong hands. In the modern-day story, Catherine Vellis, a computer expert sent to Algeria on an assignment, gets caught up in a chase to reunite them.

The prose is as magical as the story, particularly in its richly detailed look at revolutionary France.

This story plays on actual US history, with protagonist, Beecher White, an archivist, finding a hidden artifact leading him to discover that the Culper Ring, a spy network established to provide intel for George Washington, is still operating.

Besides the usual thriller elements, the search for the truth behind the Culper Ring is fascinating.     

Why not start with the oldest surviving long-form narrative there is. While purporting to account for the late reign of the very real King of the very real Sumerian city-state Uruk, the epic of Gilgamesh—very like the epics that the Greeks would offer some 4 to 14 hundred years later—trots out a world replete with the goddesses, monsters, magical drums, forests, and sacred undersea plants. The flavor of this world is first and most memorably signaled by the deliberate creation of a rival for its protagonist. Sculpted from river clay, then sexually domesticated by a temple maiden, the wild man Enkidu fights his way into a lifelong bromance with Gilgamesh that eventually confronts each with his own mortality. Again, for being the oldest such tale we know of, and for having to be chiseled on tablets, the whole thing holds up as a very living document, wildly entertaining, psychologically… show more.

Beyond its initial purpose to support an exhibition at the British Museum, this book offers an excellent introduction to the Assyrian Empire at the height of its power and to Ashurbanipal, the empire’s last great king. Bereton’s cogent narrative and the volume’s beautiful photographs make for an extraordinarily appealing book. It is also full of accurate, detailed information about the Assyrians, their culture, and the various people they fought and conquered.  

I just love the idea of a time machine that’s driven by music.

We all have strong memories that are sparked by hearing a particular song, and this turns that idea into a surprisingly plausible time travel story. I also love the 80s music themes, and the themes of love and family that are woven throughout.

It’s all very real, except the parts that aren’t, but those are fun. There’s even a bit of martial arts, this book ticks all the boxes. The characters talk and think like real three-dimensional people, and I could relate to them.

And for what it’s worth, the book actually passes the Bechdel test, which you don’t always get in sci-fi. I wish Netflix would turn it into a show or movie!

This clever novel takes the old premise, “What would happen if you went into the past and met yourself?” and magnifies it by multiple degrees.

Returning to the time of the great Chicago fire, the hero ends up meeting several past and/or future versions of himself, each time making his situation more complicated. A quick, enjoyable read.

Setting, setting, setting! Barbara writes such lovely backdrops for her even more lovely characters, and this one takes you way back to the dangerous and politically charged fifteenth century. True to the Highlander kicks off a 4-book series, and each book is as engrossing and detailed as the last. I love when a character has a thing that separates them from the crowd, and that thing for Barbara’s heroine is her beautiful violin playing. Pick this one up, and your heart will be making music too, because this one tugs at the heartstrings.

This book proved what I already knew: that the world of books is real, and there’s an organization keeping the characters and props in good shape. Small details fascinated me. Like, there is only one piano in all of literature, and a team moves it around to whatever piano scene is currently being read.

I never would have known had I not read this book. I identified best with the mad scientist uncle, but that’s me.