Here are 100 books that The Postman Always Rings Twice fans have personally recommended if you like
The Postman Always Rings Twice.
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I like fiction which makes a character confront what the poet Thom Gunn called ‘the blackmail of his circumstances’: where you are born, the expectations of you. I like to think I am very much a self-created individual, but I can never escape what I was born into; the self is a prison that the will is trying to break out of. I like literature which reflects that challenge.
I could have chosen any Raymond Chandler novel for this list; he is such a brilliant stylist, one of the best in the language.
His lugubrious, heavy-drinking, first-person detective Philip Marlowe is my kind of fictional hero, a genre-defining character, perpetually alone though he yearns for the glamorous women he meets.
Raymond Chandler's first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction.
The Big Sleep, Chandler's first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder.
In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women.
In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself…
San Diego Private Investigator, Brig Ellis, is hired by a wealthy industrialist to help him acquire the final horse in a set of twelve palomino miniatures that once belonged to the last Emperor of China. What begins as a seemingly reasonable assignment quickly morphs into something much more malevolent.
Among other things, I'm an existentialist. A well-constructed mystery novel is an existential puzzle given to the reader to solve at his/her leisure, and the noir sub-genre has the further subtext that the protagonist—and the reader—are doomed in some way even if the solution is nailed. Romance novels are drivel and have no basis in reality, but noir and other types of mystery fiction reflect the way that the world works: you may solve this puzzle problem, but then you are left to a vast world that is rife with puzzles but without a coherent plot. The detective trudges on, achieves a kind of satisfaction, and then is thrust into the next crisis.
A treasure trove of noir short fiction, an impressive anthology of American greed, crime, and comeuppance by some of the genre’s greatest authors including Mickey Spillane, Evan Hunter, Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lehane, Cornell Woolrich, and editor Ellroy. The 39 selected stories are a feast of excellence, a wide-ranging buffet of tasty tales from 1923 to 2007—makes me drool just thinking about a re-read.
A magisterial anthology of American noir writing in the 20th century by the best-selling author of the LA Quartet: The Black Dahlia. The Big Nowhere , LA Confidential and White Jazz. In his intoduction to The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, "noir is the most scrutinised offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction. It's the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It's the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad." Offering…
I studied history in college and, after a few misspent years in broadcasting, worked in marketing and public relations for several companies. In my free time I wrote articles and books on historical events and people. A dozen years ago, on a trip to San Francisco and Alcatraz, I conceived of an idea for a novel. True to my background, it was based on a real historical event – the 1962 escape of three men in a raft from the prison. It wasn't until my mid-sixties when I felt ready to step out of my non-fiction comfort zone and write my first novel. Can't wait to start the next one.
It would be obscene to read this on a Kindle. This early Dashiell Hammett novel has to be read in paperback, the older a copy you can find, the better.
It has everything a great pulp novel should have; murder, crooked cops, gangs, and a rumpled too-honest-for-his-own-good hero. What I love about this book is how Hammett uses his own experience working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency (who were basically hired thugs) and a real historical event (a labor dispute in Montana that resulted in several deaths) to weave a solid crime novel.
Detective-story master Dashiell Hammett gives us yet another unforgettable read in Red Harvest: When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.
San Diego Private Investigator, Brig Ellis, is hired by a wealthy industrialist to help him acquire the final horse in a set of twelve palomino miniatures that once belonged to the last Emperor of China. What begins as a seemingly reasonable assignment quickly morphs into something much more malevolent.
Among other things, I'm an existentialist. A well-constructed mystery novel is an existential puzzle given to the reader to solve at his/her leisure, and the noir sub-genre has the further subtext that the protagonist—and the reader—are doomed in some way even if the solution is nailed. Romance novels are drivel and have no basis in reality, but noir and other types of mystery fiction reflect the way that the world works: you may solve this puzzle problem, but then you are left to a vast world that is rife with puzzles but without a coherent plot. The detective trudges on, achieves a kind of satisfaction, and then is thrust into the next crisis.
Detective
Turner is serious, author Bellem is not. Eleven short stories in 8-page comic
format from the monthly pulp magazine Hollywood Detective; humorist
S.J. Perelman describes Dan Turner as "the apotheosis of all private
detectives"; the Dan Turner stories are the flip side of Chandler and Hammett,
with delightful use of real and imagined slang: guns are 'roscoes,' a woman is
a 'doll,' 'cutie, 'frail,' or ‘dame.'
Included in most issues of "Hollywood Detective" pulp magazine was an eight-page Dan Turner comic. Eleven of those comics are reprinted in this "Best of" trade paperback (comic book sized pages).
A lover of fiction since my teens, I only really took an interest in history in my 20s. I’m fascinated with WWII and the 1950s due to family histories and having visited key sites, like Bletchley Park and the Command Bunker in Uxbridge, near where I grew up. I’m not especially patriotic, but I am proud of what Britain had to do in 1940, as well as the toll the war took and the years of recovery. But it’s also the time, albeit decreasingly so, when people still alive today can look back at their youth, and we can all have a nostalgia for that time in our lives.
I remember reading this in my student bedsit and being transfixed. I was studying art but had just decided that I wanted to be a novelist. As such, I loved the opening lines: “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
It is a simple yet beautiful book about love, belief, and betrayal. I’m not religious, but the testing of someone’s faith and how it may make them act stuck with me. Also, the facade of the ‘stiff upper lip,’ but underneath, the vulnerability.
The love affair between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah, flourishing in the turbulent times of the London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off. After a chance meeting rekindles his love and jealousy two years later, Bendrix hires a private detective to follow Sarah, and slowly his love for her turns into an obsession.
I have a close girlfriend who was once involved with a man she wanted to marry. The trouble was, the guy was always hanging out with this other woman who he’d known since childhood. Just friends, he said. Nothing going on. Ha! The shenanigans they got up to were unbelievable, and extremely upsetting to my girlfriend, who eventually broke up with the cad. Her unlucky experience got me interested in the psychology of the love triangle, and why some people remain mired in these dead-end relationships. My reading jam is anything twisty and suspenseful, and what’s more fraught than a three-way competition for someone’s affections.
Beware the replacement wife! Those folks we envy because they appear to have it all (flawless family/home/career, etc…) are often frantically treading water, desperate to keep that facade of perfection afloat. I know because I’ve been there, in a seemingly idyllic marriage where underneath the trappings of material success was, well, crap.
In this novel, the second wife thinks she’s got it goin’ on with the first wife’s ex, but things are not as they seem (are they ever in domestic thrillers, or real life??) I got a vicarious kick out of the two wives’ scheming and revenge-lust, and the dry humor laced throughout the story had me snickering with snarky delight!
There is no limit to the lies, suspicion, and secrets that can poison the perfect marriage in this twisting novel of suspense by USA Today bestselling author Kaira Rouda.
Kate Nelson had it all. A flourishing company founded with her husband, John; a happy marriage; and a daughter, Ashlyn. The picture-perfect family. Until John left for another woman. Tish is half his age. Ambitious. She's cultivated a friendship with Ashlyn. Tish believes she's won.
She's wrong.
Tish Nelson has it all. Youth, influence, a life of luxury, and a new husband. But the truth is, there's…
Growing up on a small farm in southern Ohio, I was the first generation of my family to attend both high school and college. Literature, reading it, talking about it, studying it, was my entry into a world of larger possibilities than my family’s somewhat straitened circumstances had allowed me. Faulkner attracted me because the rural enclave in which we lived, and my neighbors, resembled locales and characters in his fiction. Shakespeare attracted me for many reasons, most notably the beauty of his language and the ability of his plays to reveal new meanings as my life experiences changed.
Is Henry James an American or a British author? Perhaps both. Born and raised in New York City, member of a well-to-do family, James spent his adult years in Great Britain. Yet his central theme, the collision of American “innocence” with European sophistication, is inherently trans-oceanic.
Nowhere is that theme more brilliantly explored than in The Portrait of a Lady. Isabel Archer, young, wealthy, unattached, free, it seems, to make of her life what she will, nonetheless marries a fortune-hunting expatriate, and her gradual discovery of the magnitude of her mistake makes the novel a great, heart-wrenching tragedy.
'One ought to choose something very deliberately, and be faithful to that.'
Isabel Archer is a young, intelligent, and spirited American girl, determined to relish her first experience of Europe. She rejects two eligible suitors in her fervent commitment to liberty and independence, declaring that she will never marry. Thanks to the generosity of her devoted cousin Ralph, she is free to make her own choice about her destiny. Yet in the intoxicating worlds of Paris, Florence, and Rome, her fond illusions of self-reliance are twisted by the machinations of her friends and apparent allies. What had seemed to be…
Many readers pick up books to escape reality, but I am passionate about reading stories where hope and healing can be found among the pages. I love depth and transparency. I love learning about history. As an author who ensures my books contain accurate biblical themes, I am always searching for books that are saturated with truth. Stories that will take me on an adventure and help me grow along with the characters. This list contains books that cover heavy topics, but they also infuse hope. I know that I have found encouragement through them!
A slow-burn story is great, but one mixed with regret and hope? Sign me up! I couldn’t imagine living through the trials and expectations that young ladies had to bear during the Regency era, but Julie gave me a pretty good glimpse through this English countryside window.
I felt compassion for some of these characters and anger toward others. The pain and betrayal felt so tangible that my own heart hurt. I feared for the life of more than one throughout the entire book, and I successfully cost a friend a good night’s sleep after recommending this one to her. I believe that the love and hope found in these pages can be found in real life, too.
Julie Klassen Is the Gold Standard for Inspirational Regency Fiction
Sophie Dupont, daughter of a portrait painter, assists her father in his studio, keeping her own artwork out of sight. She often walks the cliffside path along the north Devon coast, popular with artists and poets. It's where she met the handsome Wesley Overtree, the first man to tell her she's beautiful.
Captain Stephen Overtree is accustomed to taking on his brother's neglected duties. Home on leave, he's sent to find Wesley. Knowing his brother rented a cottage from a fellow painter, he travels to Devonshire and meets Miss Dupont,…
I absolutely adore fantasy! I love leaving our world and being transported to another. I love that characters might have magic or crazy heritages. I love the creatures that come with the genre. I adore everything about fantasy. Throwing romantic elements into the story just makes it all that much sweeter. Having a hero with a weakness for a heroine is so comforting to read. Giving the characters someone else to fight for is also a heart-warming, sometimes gut-wrenching, affair. But in the end, having romance in a fantasy just gives it a little extra push to the readers.
This was an unexpected read on a few levels. First, that ending! Oh, that ending was rude! It definitely left me on a cliffhanger, which I both love and hate. Let’s be real, I do it in my own writing. It keeps the reader guessing and leaves the reader wanting more. But I also found it to be fast-paced, which isn’t the usual for a romantic fantasy. It had all the elements I love: morally gray heroine, lovers to enemies, love triangle, all the tropes that just go deliciously in a fantasy.
From New York Times best-selling author Lexi Ryan, Cruel Prince meets A Court of Thorns and Roses in this sexy, action-packed fantasy about a girl who is caught between two treacherous faerie courts and their dangerously seductive princes. Brie hates the Fae and refuses to have anything to do with them, even if that means starving on the street. But when her sister is sold to the sadistic king of the Unseelie court to pay a debt, she'll do whatever it takes to get her back - including making a deal with the king himself to steal three magical relics…
I’m always inspired by nature. I’m sure that’s because my parents always took us to beautiful places on our summer vacations. I enjoyed snorkeling in Florida, hiking in the Rockies, exploring at Yellowstone National Park, to name a few places. I’ve never forgotten how in awe I was at seeing such beauty, and when I started writing romantic suspense novels, it seemed natural to look for a setting that not only inspired me to write but would lend to the suspense and tension aspect of my novels as well as provide an exciting adventure. Even now, when we travel and explore, it’s always setting that inspires me with new story ideas.
This book 2 in the Scottish Lowlands series is set in, well, the Scottish Lowlands. This book transported me to beautiful Scotland. I adore the author’s writing and appreciate the meticulous research she conducted to inform her story.
Before reading this, I knew it was based on the Biblical Jacob, Rachel and Leah’s story, but I was especially curious how the author could possibly depict this tale and transport these characters to Scotland in the late 1700’s.
Fair is the Rose is filled with passion, romance, betrayal, hope, and redemption. Everything a reader could want. I was completely captivated by the story. Fair is the Rose pulled on all my heartstrings. Of course, the stunning setting of Scotland deepened the experience for me.
Ayear has come and gone since Jamie McKie fled for his life, arriving at Auchengray in search of sanctuary and a bonny wife. Young Rose McBride, as fair a lass as any in Scotland, dearly loves her handsome cousin—but so does her older sister, Leana.
Determined to have Jamie all to herself, Rose puts in motion one desperate plan after another, enlisting the aid of Lillias Brown, a wise woman—a wutch, some say—still keen on the old ways. Impetuous Rose ignores the cruel whispers that travel up and down the parish hills, never dreaming of…
