Books like 'Tree of Smoke'
Readers who enjoyed Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century mystery military, war & conflict war historical-fiction literary-fiction classics suspense military
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Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsBased on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours. Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered...Categorized as:
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Winter of the World by Ken Follett
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsWinter of the World picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs...Categorized as:
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A Fire Sparkling by Julianne MacLean
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFrom the USA Today bestselling author of A Curve in the Road comes a spellbinding novel about one woman’s love, loss, and courage during wartime.After a crushing betrayal by the man she loves, Gillian Gibbons flees to her family home for a much-needed escape, but when she finds an old photograph of her grandmother in the arms of a Nazi officer, Gillian’s life gets even more complicated...Categorized as:
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The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, Фредерик Форсайт
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsLibrarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man.One man with a rifle who can change the course of history...Categorized as:
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The One Man by Andrew Gross
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratings1944. Physics professor Alfred Mendl is separated from his family and sent to the men’s camp, where all of his belongings are tossed on a roaring fire. His books, his papers, his life’s work. The Nazis have no idea what they have just destroyed. And without that physical record, Alfred is one of only two people in the world with his particular knowledge...Categorized as:
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Mila 18 by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt was a time of crisis, a time of tragedy and a time of transcendent courage and determination. Leon Uris's novel is set in the midst of the ghetto uprising that defied Nazi tyranny, as the Jews of Warsaw boldly met Wehrmacht tanks with homemade weapons and bare fists...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction military politics war 20th-century -
Charm School by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsRead by James NaughtonSomething very strange -- and sinister -- is going on in the Russian woods at Borodino. In a place called Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, young KGB agents are being taught by American POW's how to be model citizens of the USA. The Soviet goal -- to infiltrate the United States undetected...Categorized as:
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Final Mission: Zion - A World War 2 Thriller by Chuck Driskell
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratings**2018 NEW RELEASE** In 1938, as the Third Reich is just beginning its reign of terror, hundreds of Jewish orphans are hidden away in Austria, in the midst of their underground escape to Palestine. The only man who knows their location is killed, leaving the children with precious little time to survive. The dead man leaves a single set of instructions: Find U.S... -
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLogan Gonzago Mountstuart, writer, was born in 1906, and died of a heart attack on October 5, 1991, aged 85. William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome chronicling "my personal rollercoaster"--or rather, "not so much a rollercoaster", but a yo-yo, "a jerking spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child...Categorized as:
classics drama espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue war 20th-century -
Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsOne enemy spy knows the secret to the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin -- code name: "The Needle" -- who holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory. Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is beginning to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life...Categorized as:
classics dark drama espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense -
Retreat, Hell! by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is the fall of 1950. The Marines have made a pivotal breakthrough at Inchon, but a roller coaster awaits them. While Douglas MacArthur chomps at the bit, intent on surging across the 38th parallel, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering works desperately to mediate the escalating battle between MacArthur and President Harry Truman...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century action-adventure -
Counterattack by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to America's first bold counterstrike against the Japanese on the beaches of Guadalcanal, this compelling novel takes readers to the front lines of victory and defeat...Categorized as:
classics espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century -
Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsHere is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that has become Louis L’Amour’s hallmark. It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness... -
Black Cross by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is January 1944 — and as Allied troops prepare for D-day, Nazi scientists develop a toxic nerve gas that will repel and wipe out any invasion force. To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects...Categorized as:
drama espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century -
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The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"In wartime," Winston Churchill wrote, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."For Britain's counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable-a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue politics suspense war 20th-century -
The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the depths of war, she would defy the odds to help liberate a nation...a gripping historical novel based on a remarkable true story from the bestselling author of Hemingway's GirlFrance, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn't like the other young society women back home in Baltimore--she never wanted the debutante ball or silk gloves...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century adult -
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 58 ratings"Allah!"With that shrill cry, three Muslim terrorists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, creating a critical oil shortage that threatens the stability of the USSR...Categorized as:
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Conspiracy of Lies by Kathryn Gauci
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the author of The Embroiderer comes a powerful account of one woman's struggle to balance her duty to her country and a love she knows will ultimately end in tragedy. 1940. With the Germans about to enter Paris, Claire Bouchard flees France for England. Two years later she is recruited by the Special Operations Executive and sent back into occupied France to work alongside the Resistance...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century adult -
Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille, Brian Murray
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHe is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity--and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction military political-intrigue politics suspense war 20th-century -
The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins, Maria Luisa Bocchino
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn November of 1943, an elite team of Nazi paratroopers descends on British soil with a diabolical goal: to abduct Winston Churchill and cripple the Allied war effort. The mission, ordered by Hitler himself and planned by Heinrich Himmler, is led by ace agent Kurt Steiner and aided on the ground by IRA gunman Liam Devlin...Categorized as:
classics espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue politics suspense war -
King Rat by James Clavell
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike... -
The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution...Categorized as:
classics drama espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue politics suspense -
Victory and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe spectacular new book in New York Times-bestselling author W.E.B. Griffin's Honor Bound saga of World War II espionage. Wars come to an end. But then new ones begin. Just weeks after Hitler's suicide, Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS find themselves up to their necks in battles every bit as fierce as the ones just ended...Categorized as:
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Empire and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOctober 1945: The Germans and Japanese have surrendered. For Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS, it should be time to pack up—but they have far more important things to do.Chief among them is the protection of their assets, especially the human ones. In the closing months of the war, the United States made a secret deal with the head of German intelligence’s Soviet section...Categorized as:
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Blood and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIf you enjoyed W. E. B. Griffin's Honor Bound, you should segue with pleasure into this involving sequel. Set in Buenos Aires in 1943, it follows the adventures of three American soldiers as they think and fight their way through a complex story about Nazi sympathizers, dedicated supporters of the Allied cause, and other people just trying to stay alive...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century action-adventure -
Secret Honor by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe crackling new novel in the bestselling Honor Bound series, by the master of the military thriller. As with his other enormously popular series, the first two novels in W. E .B. Griffin’s saga of World War II espionage in Germany and Argentina – Honor Bound and Blood and Honor – became immediate bestsellers and were hailed as “immensely entertaining adventures” (Kirkus Reviews)...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century action-adventure -
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Young Lions is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction military politics war 20th-century -
The Girl from Vichy by Andie Newton
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShe's done running. Now she fights. 1942, occupied France.With the war raging in Europe, Adèle Ambeh dreams of a France that is free from the clutches of the Nazis. As the date of her marriage to a ruthless man draws closer, she only has one choice: she must run.Adèle flees to Lyon and seeks refuge at the Sisters of Notre Dame de la Compassion...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue war 20th-century adult book -
Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSomething has gone wrong. A group of American bombers armed with nuclear weapons is streaking past the fail-safe point, beyond recall, and no one knows why. Their destination—Moscow.In a bomb shelter beneath the White House, the calm young president turns to his Russian translator and says, "I think we are ready to talk to Premier Kruschchev...Categorized as:
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Run Silent Run Deep by Edward L. Beach
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCommander Edward Richardson and his exec, Jim Bledsoe, are bound together by wartime duty, divided by jealousy, pride and love for one beautiful woman. Their home is the USS Walrus, part of the "silent service" engaged in a crucial drive to destroy the Japanese navy in the dark days of WW II...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction military suspense war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Fields of Fire by James Webb
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOriginally published in 1978, Webb's classic novel of the Vietnam War follows three soldiers from different worlds who are plunged into a white-hot murderous realm of jungle warfare as it was fought by one Marine platoon in the An Hoa Basin in 1969.'They each had their reasons for being a soldier. They each had their illusions. Goodrich came from Harvard...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Black Swan of Paris by Karen Robards
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA captivating story of estranged sisters reunited by a devastating war and the race to save their mother’s lifeParis, 1944Celebrated singer Genevieve Dumont is both a star and a smoke screen. An unwilling darling to the Nazis, the chanteuse’s position of privilege also has its advantages—such as going undetected as an ally to undercover British officer Captain Max Ryan as part of the resistance...Categorized as:
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The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn entire navy had tried to silence the guns of Navarone and failed. Full-scale attacks had been driven back. Now they were sending in just five men, each one a specialist in dealing death...Categorized as:
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White Rose, Black Forest by Eoin Dempsey
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn the shadows of World War II, trust becomes the greatest risk of all for two strangers.December 1943. In the years before the rise of Hitler, the Gerber family’s summer cottage was filled with laughter. Now, as deep drifts of snow blanket the Black Forest, German dissenter Franka Gerber is alone and hopeless...Categorized as:
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Qb VII by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn Queen’s Bench Courtroom Number Seven, famous author Abraham Cady stands trial. In his book The Holocaust—born of the terrible revelation that the Jadwiga Concentration Camp was the site of his family’s extermination—Cady shook the consciousness of the human race. He also named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of Jadwiga’s most sadistic inmate/doctors...Categorized as:
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Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsMGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken...Categorized as:
dark drama espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction military political-intrigue politics -
The Time in Between by María Dueñas, Carlos Romão
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe Time In Between is a word-of-mouth phenomenon that catapulted María Dueñas, a debut author, to the top of Spain's bestseller lists.This sweeping novel, which combines the storytelling power of The Shadow of the Wind with the irresistible romance of Casablanca, moves at an unstoppable pace. Suddenly left abandoned and penniless in Morocco by her lover, Sira Quiroga forges a new identity...Categorized as:
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The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIn this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction...Categorized as:
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Invitation to Valhalla by Mike Whicker
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsErika Lehmann. She is the Nazis' top spy. Code-named Lorelei, she is the English speaking daughter of Hitler's old comrade and a member of the Fuhrer's inner circle. She is beautiful, athletic, and clever--the epitome of Aryan womanhood. She'll stop at nothing to accomplish her mission, including masquerading as a Jew. Joe Mayer...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war 20th-century adult -
The Cryptographer’s Dilemma (Heroines of WWII) by Johnnie Alexander
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Code Developer Uncovers a Japanese Spy RingFBI cryptographer Eloise Marshall is grieving the death of her brother, who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor, when she is assigned to investigate a seemingly innocent letter about dolls. Agent Phillip Clayton is ready to enlist and head oversees when asked to work one more FBI job...Categorized as:
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In Satan's Shadow by John Anthony Miller
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBerlin, 1943. British agent Michael York is sent to Berlin to solve the mystery of his predecessor’s death. A member of the Berlin String Quartet, four talented musicians, had offered the British Intelligence officer valuable information. But another member had betrayed him, and turned him in to the Gestapo...Categorized as:
historical-fiction espionage suspense literary-fiction war military political-intrigue fiction -
Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsForbidding peaks, resourceful commandos, beautiful spies, nonstop action, and neck-snapping plot twists make this the classic adventure thriller—the kind of page-turner that readers actually will find impossible to put down...Categorized as:
classics drama espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue suspense war -
Thief of Glory: A Novel by Sigmund Brouwer
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“Brouwer makes you live it....sharing each moment of an exotic and terrifying time and place in a gripping, personal way.” —Bodie and Brock Thoene, authors of Take this Cup A boy coming of age in a time of war… the love that inspires him to survive... -
While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEnglish girl Sheila Matthews’ innocent holiday to Poland becomes a nightmare when the German Army invade in the summer of 1939. Working for the Polish underground as a double-agent, she plays a dangerous game, and is soon suspected by the Germans. Forced to flee to the forest and hunted by a ruthless German officer, she must rely on the dashing Captain Adam Wisniewski to help her home...Categorized as:
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The Guardian of Lies by Kate Furnivall
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1953, the South of France. The fragile peace between the West and Soviet Russia hangs on a knife edge. And one family has been torn apart by secrets and conflicting allegiances. Eloïse Caussade is a courageous young Frenchwoman, raised on a bull farm near Arles in the Camargue...Categorized as:
military historical-fiction espionage war political-intrigue romance historical fiction -
World's End by Upton Sinclair
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWorld's End is the first novel in Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series. First published in 1940, the story covers the period from 1913 to 1919. This is the beginning of a monumental 7,340 page novel, the story of Lanny Budd, a young American, beginning in Europe in 1913. It is also an intimate record of a great world which fell victim to its own civilization. A new world was about to be born...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics politics war literary-fiction fiction historical 20th-century -
Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel, Charles W. Bailey II
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Gentleman Jim" Scott was a brilliant magnetic general. Like a lot of people, he believed the President was ruining the country. Unlike anyone else, he had the power to do something about it, something unprecedented and terrifying. Colonel "Jiggs" Casey was the Marine who accidentally stumbled onto the plot...Categorized as:
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The Tailor's Girl by Fiona McIntosh
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA humble soldier, known only as 'Jones', wakes in hospital with no recollection of his past. The few fleeting fragments of memory he glimpses are horrifying moments from the battlefield at Ypres. His very identity becomes a puzzle he must solve... -
Golden Earrings by Belinda Alexandra
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA powerful saga of family, love, honour and betrayal You who judge me: come! Let me tell you a story … Paloma Batton is the granddaughter of Spanish refugees who fled Barcelona after the Civil War... -
The Soldier Spies by W.E.B. Griffin, Stephen Lang
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn November 1942, war is raging in Europe. The invasion of North Africa has begun. In Washington, OSS Chief William J. Donovan finds himself fighting a rear-guard battle against an unexpected enemy: the rival intelligence chiefs back home...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction military political-intrigue war 20th-century action-adventure adult
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