Here are 92 books that The Three Dahlias fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve loved murder mysteries since childhood, and during the pandemic–when reading became a challenge–I returned to my first literary love, binging on one mystery series after another. Eventually, I decided to write one with my friend Elizabeth Renzetti. It’s been the most enjoyable writing experience either of us has had. I’ve written three other published novels, and I have a day job as a therapist (I like to think this helps with realistic characterization, but it also pays the bills). I write humor because I like to have fun at work, and I appreciate a good laugh when I’m reading.
I couldn’t help but root for Miranda Abbott, the hilariously self-absorbed heroine of I Only Read Murder. The formerly famous television star of the Pastor Fran crime-fighting series, Miranda’s path to redemption requires her to solve a real-life murder where all the suspects are members of an amateur theatrical society. I Only Read Murder is ridiculously entertaining, a very fun romp that takes full advantage of the cozy mystery tropes we all love.
“Strap in for a hilarious and satisfying ride.” —Terry Fallis, bestselling author of Operation Angus
A once-famous TV sleuth An amateur theater production An onstage murder A town full of suspects…
Miranda Abbott, once known for the crime-solving, karate-chopping church pastor she played on network television, has hit hard times. She’s facing ruin when a mysterious postcard arrives, summoning her to Happy Rock, a small town in the Pacific Northwest. But when she gets there, nothing is what she expected.
In dire straits, she signs up for an amateur production at the Happy Rock Little Theater. On opening night, one…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I have been known to read a book a day, and I read widely: all the classics, mystery and suspense, science fiction, future fiction, and fantasy. My favorite novels in any genre take me to a place or time far away. My favorite characters are like hobbits; they are caught up in big adventures but fun to have a beer with and don’t take themselves too seriously. And all the protagonists in the novels I have chosen are women, because women my age have spent enough time reading about men who have adventures.
This Agatha Christie doesn’t feature her famous Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. Instead, it introduces a likable young couple, Bobby and Frankie, who fall into adventure by accident.
This book has the best one-line denouement of all mystery novels. It is a line that will give you chills when you read it. (Or re-read it. This mystery is so good that I have reread it many times in my life, and I get chills each time.)
One question ties the whole mystery together. As a mystery writer, I wish I could find that turning point question for each of my novels. But, alas, Agatha Christie was the queen.
When a man plunges down a cliff, two adventurous friends decide to find his killer...
While playing an erratic round of golf, Bobby Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost, but on the rocks below he finds the crumpled body of a dying man. With his final breath the man opens his eyes and says, 'Why didn't they ask Evans?'
Haunted by these words, Bobby and his vivacious companion, Frankie, set out to solve a mystery that will bring them into mortal danger...
I’m a long-time mystery fan. In my teen years, I cut my teeth on short YA mysteries presented as puzzles or brain teasers and later graduated to Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, P. D. James, Martha Grimes, and others. My favorites are mysteries that combine the challenge of the puzzle, a healthy dose of suspense, a chance to bond with interesting characters, and the pull of evocative language, be it plain or poetic.
Agatha Christie isn’t called “the Queen of Crime” for nothing. She invented many of the tropes that have characterized the mystery genre since, plus contributed two of the best-known detectives of all time. But this book features neither of them. Instead, it drops Charles Hayward, fiancé of a murdered millionaire’s granddaughter, into the midst of a family that is happy on the outside and is anything but on the inside.
I put this book at the top of Christie’s many fine works because the mystery has such a chilling resolution. Very few mystery authors, I suspect, would go to the place she did with this work.
A new Agatha Christie thriller, described by her as "one of my best."
The Leonides were one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That was until the head of the household, Aristide, was murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.
Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiance of the late millionare's granddaughter...
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
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.
Detective Renée Ballard is a woman I hate to love. She sleeps during the day in a tent on the beach–who needs a solid roof over your head when you’re working graveyard for the L.A.P.D.–and occasionally shags the lifeguard. She is a loner, super smart, super tough, touchy, relentlessly driven, bitchy. What’s not to like?
This book got pretty scary. I like to be scared, and there are three more in the series.
In this first installment of the Renée Ballard series, #1 bestselling author Michael Connelly introduces a "complicated and driven" young detective fighting to prove herself on the LAPD's toughest beat (The New York Times). Renée Ballard works the midnight shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing few, as each morning she turns everything over to the daytime units. It's a frustrating job for a once up-and-coming detective, but it's no accident. She's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor. But one night Ballard catches two assignments she doesn't want to part…
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.
As with William Kent Krueger, I love all of Sandford’s Prey novels (and there are a lot!). This is the first one I read, and I guess I got hooked because I want to be—if I’m honest—either one of the main characters that persist through his books, and that appear in this one. Virgil Flowers is a lithe, laid-back, really smart guy who has long hair and wears band T-shirts; absolutely not the sort of person you’d associate with the U.S. Marshals Service, yet there he is! (He also has his own series, good for us!). Lucas Davenport is his boss, and Lucas is big, ruthless, and very rich—and loves hunting bad guys. But what I think I’m drawn to most is that he says exactly what he thinks, gets the job done by any means possible, and does not brook fools. At all. And, as I said, I am…
Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers join forces on a deadly maritime case like no other...
An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family when he calls in some suspicious behaviour from a nearby boat. The slick craft has stopped to pick up a surfaced diver, who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean. None of it makes sense, and his hunch is proved right when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed.
They're federal officers killed on the job, which means…
I’ve loved murder mysteries since I first discovered the genre. As a child, I loved watching Morse, Miss Marple,and other detectives as they got to the bottom of whodunit. I was hooked. It wasn’t long before I started to read books starring these detectives. I really love the way that female amateur detectives often have far more ideas of what’s going on and why things have happened than the men who populate the books. What woman can’t resist reading about another woman who just gets to the bottom of it all? I know I can’t, but these books are some of the very best in the genre.
I can’t resist a book that can make me laugh and has a great storyline. This murder mystery has books in bucketfuls. I love the way that humor is woven into the story.
I think that the thing that really makes this story such a great read is the different characters that fill the pages. I fell in love with the main character, Jane, and her love interest, the padre, and I, of course, completely loved her dog, Sexy Beast.
Jane Delaney does things her paying customers can’t do, don’t want to do, don’t want to be seen doing, can’t bring themselves to do, and/or don’t want it to be known they’d paid someone to do. To dead people.
Life gets complicated for Jane and her Death Diva business when she’s hired to liberate a gaudy mermaid brooch from the corpse during a wake—on behalf of the rightful owner, supposedly. Well, a girl’s got to make a living, and this assignment pays better than scattering ashes, placing flowers on graves, or bawling her eyes out as a hired mourner. Unfortunately…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
There’s nothing I love more than a good thriller, especially one with a locked room setting. I’m fascinated by how people react to psychological pressure, and what it would take for any of us to behave in extreme ways. With The Elevator, I wanted to push that locked room scenario to its limits: two characters, trapped together in a tiny space. This might also be the book that’s been gestating inside me for longest – my mum was trapped in a lift when she was pregnant with me! I hope some of the books on this list appeal to you, and that you enjoy them as much as I did.
It’s a claustrophobic thriller with a startling visual image at its heart: an ultra-modern glass cabin in the middle of a deep, dark wood. At night, the light against the glass means you can’t see out – but anyone outside can see right in. I loved the way Ruth Ware turned the rickety old building cliché on its head, turning light from a source of comfort into a threat.
*AUTHOR OF THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 and THE LYING GAME *INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER *SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
An NPR Best Book of the Year * An Entertainment Weekly Summer Books Pick * A Buzzfeed “31 Books to Get Excited About this Summer” Pick * A Publishers Weekly “Top Ten Mysteries and Thrillers” Pick * A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * A BookReporter Summer Reading Pick * A New York Post “Best Novels to Read this Summer” Pick * A Shelf Awareness “Book Expo America 2015…
I love a story filled with interesting characters and a plot that reels me in. I know how challenging it is to construct a plotline and create breadcrumbs (not too many, so the solution isn’t obvious)–all driven by intriguing characters. I am also a sucker for the “good guys” winning but with no guarantees. The characters must have depth, and I want to learn something new about a situation I am unfamiliar with or how a great story is told.
I love realistic heroes who are fallible yet, to their core, have a sense of morals. Throw in the verisimilitude of police procedurals (or military), plus a good mystery, and you’ve got me. Author Michael Connelly has juxtaposed an aging main character, retired LA Detective Harry Bosch, with a younger LA detective, Renée Ballard. In the old-school, patriarchal LAPD, Ballard had quite a challenge conducting the detective work she was passionate about.
I’m impressed with the three-dimensional characters of the two generations, each equally dedicated to getting justice in the cases they’re working on. Connelly's Bosch is far from perfect, and Ballard, the rising next-gen, are two characters I am compelled to follow.
LAPD detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch team up to hunt the brutal killer who is Bosch’s “white whale”—a man responsible for the murder of an entire family.
A year has passed since LAPD detective Renée Ballard quit the force in the face of misogyny, demoralization, and endless red tape. But after the chief of police himself tells her she can write her own ticket within the department, Ballard takes back her badge, leaving “the Late Show” to rebuild and lead the cold case unit at the elite Robbery-Homicide Division.
For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that…
As a suspense thriller author and retired police detective, I’ve seen how ordinary people can hide the darkest secrets. That’s why I love small-town mysteries. They show the endless ways people cover up what they don’t want others to see, and they remind me of the unsettling truth I’ve witnessed firsthand: behind every neat house and familiar smile, there can be lies, betrayal, or danger and nothing is ever as safe as it looks.
I devoured His & Hers because it kept me spinning in circles.
I loved how the story gave me one perspective and then flipped it on me. I never knew who to trust. I was hooked by the twists, the tension, and the way it messed with my head. I couldn’t stop reading, and I didn’t want to.
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF Sometimes I Lie “Stunning. Addictive. This book should not be missed!” ―Samantha Downing “Deliciously dark...will have readers tearing through the pages.” ―Mary Kubica “Gives Gone Girl a run for its money...I couldn't stop reading.” ―Christina Dalcher There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.
When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I’ve always loved peculiar heroes and heroines. Characters with strange gifts and an equal number of challenges. It started with Sherlock Holmes, whose mind fascinated me. As a child, I gravitated to the unnatural protagonist, Tarzan, in the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was never a big fan of Superman, I preferred people who adapted quickly to new surroundings and could think on their feet. Once I began my writing career, I kept those protagonists in my mind. Four novels in, I do my best to capture their spirit and determination to overcome whatever lands in front of them.
I loved this book because Antonia Scott might just be my favorite protagonist of all time.
She’s literally the most intelligent person in the world, with an I.Q. of over 200. She’s plagued by guilt and awkward social skills, but she has more crime-solving abilities than an entire police force. She’s Sherlock Holmes on steroids, with a hyper-intelligent sense of humor!
Now an Amazon Prime Original series, Red Queen is the first in Juan Gomez-Jurado's internationally bestselling thriller series, translated by Nick Caistor. Winner of the Cognac Prize 2022 with more than two million copies sold in Spain alone.
Sunday Times - Best Thriller Books of the Year
'A Spanish spin on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . . . A female Sherlock Holmes' - The Times
You've never met anyone like her . . .
Antonia Scott is special. Very special. She is not a policewoman or a lawyer. She has never wielded a weapon or carried a badge,…
