Here are 89 books that When You See Me fans have personally recommended if you like
When You See Me.
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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…
He’s riddled with guilt. She’s annoyed with the status quo.
The death of a crime boss’s daughter forces Detective Neil Caldera to leave NYC. He seeks refuge in the tranquil embrace of a small town, where he finds himself entangled in the labyrinth of a teenage girl’s murder. Tess Fleishman’s…
The greatest mystery I face in life is, how is it that when I've just packed the dishwasher, I have to pack it yet again? But I love stories. There’s nothing more healing than a well-told story with characters and jokes and twists and turns. Each of these books contains some form of fictionalized domestic world where murders happen, but marriages and babies and falling in love do, too.We live in a time when the world is hard to navigate. All of these writers bring a mystery, the best of company, and the idea that even in the darkest of times, everything can turn out quite spiffingly.
When I was a kid, my Mum loved Upstairs Downstairs—a TV show about a household in Victorian England and the lives of the gentry upstairs and the servants downstairs. Nobody was allowed to even whisper when it was on.
Well, the Mrs Jeffries Mysteries would have blown her mind. Because the servants in Detective Witherspoon’s household not only do regular servanting but also solve murders on the fly.
There are loads of great characters: Mrs Goodge, the surly cook, Smythe, the fierce-looking coachman with a heart of gold, and of course Mrs Jeffries herself, who’s like a sherry-guzzling Sherlock Holmes who can tidy.
Mrs. Jeffries and Inspector Witherspoon should be checking off their Christmas present lists but instead they’re listing murder suspects in this latest entry of the beloved Victorian Mystery series.
TIS THE SEASON FOR MURDER
Harriet Andover was a smart businesswoman who did not suffer fools gladly, yet somehow her house was full of them. With a husband who has no head for money and two grown stepchildren who would rather do anything than an honest day’s work, Harriet had every intention of righting the ship and putting her family back on the path to respectability. But she soon discovers…
I am a British crime writer with a love of American crime fiction, particularly books with dark plots and quirky, unique characters. I am the author of the Sunday Times bestselling, multiple award-winning, Washington Poe series and the new Ben Koenig series but am first a reader—I read over a hundred books a year. I love discovering a new-to-me series that has a back catalogue for me to work through, and I appreciate recommendations. I’ve been a full-time author since 2015 and, as I suspected, it’s my dream job.
Stephen King introduced the innocent, unfiltered but extremely observant Holly Gibney in the phenomenal Mr. Mercedes.
King himself says, “...she more or less stole the book, and she stole my heart.” I completely agree, so much so she was a massive influence on Tilly Bradshaw, the super-sheltered, super-intelligent nerdy sidekick from my own Washington Poe series. She’s the first of three sidekicks in this list who will go on to get a book of their own.
Holly is out September 2023 and it’s the book I’m most looking forward to this year.
When an eleven-year-old boy is found murdered in a town park, reliable eyewitnesses undeniably point to the town's popular Little League coach, Terry Maitland, as the culprit. DNA evidence and fingerprints confirm the crime was committed by this well-loved family man.
Horrified by the brutal killing, Detective Ralph Anderson, whose own son was once coached by Maitland, orders the suspect to be arrested in a public spectacle. But Maitland has an alibi. And further research confirms he was indeed out of town that day.
As Anderson and the District Attorney trace the clues, the investigation expands from Ohio to Texas.…
Rusty Allen is an Iraqi War veteran with PTSD. He moves to his grandfather's cabin in the mountains to find some peace and go back to wilderness training.
He gets wrapped up in a kidnapping first, as a suspect and then as a guide. He tolerates the sheriff's deputy with…
I grew up on a steady diet of Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown. Then, in a plot twist that surprised exactly no one, I became an English teacher, a librarian (did you know you can recommend books for a LIVING???), and an author. I love books where the sleuth must not only solve the case at hand, but also wrestle with some sort of ongoing personal problem–bonus points if they can simultaneously pull the curtain back on societal issues and make me feel like I’m getting to experience life in a place where I don’t actually live (I’m looking at you, London and L.A.).
I enjoyed being along for this wacky ride as Finlay accidentally gets herself hired as a contract killer, disposes of a body, and navigates the criminal underworld–all while raising her two small children and dealing with her infuriating ex-husband. There’s a love triangle in this book, but the relationship I enjoyed most was the friendship that develops between Finlay and Vero, her former nanny turned partner in crime.
This story is completely absurd, laugh-out-loud funny, and very suspenseful.
"Getting the job done" for one single mom takes on a whole new meaning in Finlay Donovan is Killing It.
One of Suspense Magazine's "Best Thrillers of 2021" One of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2021 Nominated for the Left Coast Crime 2022 Lefty Award for the Best Humorous Mystery
“Funny and smart, twisty and surprising.”—Megan Miranda
Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny…
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 am an old movie fan and a novelist who has been writing historical fiction about show business since 2010. As a stickler for detail, I use oodles of old Hollywood biographies and other research sources to learn everything I can about my subjects and weave as accurate a tale as I can. My Forgotten Actresses series is up to four books, with plenty more under construction.
Los Angeles, 1937. Lillian Frost has traded dreams of stardom for security as a department store salesgirl . . . until she discovers she's a suspect in the murder of her former roommate, Ruby Carroll. Party girl Ruby died wearing a gown she stole from the wardrobe department at Paramount Pictures, domain of Edith Head.
Edith has yet to win the first of her eight Academy Awards; right now she's barely hanging on to her job, and a scandal is the last thing she needs. To clear Lillian's name and save Edith's career, the two women join forces.
Let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in Dublin, and being the daughter of a diplomat afforded me to experience different cultures. Since childhood my fascination with the unknown caused me to gravitate towards stories related to hauntings. I shared this interest with my maternal grandparents, who contributed to my education by telling me ghost stories (some true whilst others are fictional). Tales of haunted castles were my favorite, which is reflected in my book. In later life, my own experiences with the paranormal cemented the notion of the unexplained and the thin veil between us and those departed.
What I loved about this book (which was also adapted into a film starring Elisabeth Taylor) was my first exposure to a female murderer. I liked the backstory of what motivated this woman to kill a seemingly innocent person at a party. Being a psychiatrist myself, my fascination with women who kill has inspired me to create a fictional serial killer in some of my own works.
Furthermore, the importance of a woman’s innate desire to become a mother when robbed of such happiness added to my interest in women’s psychopathology on how horrific memories of the past leave an imprint that can haunt us forever.
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...
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…
I like to write about everyday people who—whether by overconfidence or desperation—are motivated to solve crimes that hit close to home. My first novel Girl, 11 is about a true crime podcaster investigating a serial killer who terrorized her town decades earlier, and my newest book Lay Your Body Downis about an ex-fundamentalist Christian who returns to her insular community to expose the church’s secrets and uncover the truth of who killed the man she once loved. Normal people can and do solve mysteries before police—and even when detectives are involved, they rely on members of the community. Those are the stories I love to tell.
I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this book, and I am blown away at how Jesse Sutanto continues to smash both her novel concepts and character voices out of the park!
Vera Wong herself is the ultimate amateur sleuth, but she is not reluctant whatsoever. When a dead body turns up in her tea shop, Vera Wong—the most wonderfully grandmotherly non-grandmother—decides the police aren’t up to the task of realizing the young man was murdered, obviously, and so she decides to hunt down the suspects and interview them herself.
Vera is at turns heartwarming and hilarious, infuriating, and delightful. Told through the perspective of Vera and all her murder suspects, this book will keep you guessing until the end—and might just charm your socks off.
A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
