Books like 'Thunderstruck'
Readers who enjoyed Thunderstruck by Erik Larson also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery 20th century action / adventure crime true-crime historical-fiction technology suspense industrial-era
-
The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAnother strong, satisfying novel, full of rich storytelling, by the author of the favourite THE TEA ROSE.An epic tale of secret love and hidden passions. It is 1900 and the dangerous streets of East London are no place for a well-bred woman. But India Selwyn Jones is headstrong: she has trained as one of a new breed, a woman doctor, and is determined to practice where the need is greatest...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure -
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Angus Wilson
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 35 ratings'Holmes,' I cried. 'Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?'Missing, presumed dead, for three years, Sherlock Holmes returns triumphantly to his dear companion Dr Watson. And not before time! London has never been in more need of his extraordinary services: a murderous individual with an air gun stalks the city...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure -
The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures by Mike Ashley
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe biggest collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle laid down his pen - nearly 200,000 words of superb fiction featuring the Great Detective by masters of historical crime, including Stephen Baxter, H. R. F. Keating, Michael Moorcock and Amy Myers. Almost all the stories here are specially written; the cases presented in the order in which Holmes solved them...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
Close Combat by W.E.B. Griffin, Dick Hill
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBestselling author W.E.B. Griffin's epic sixth novel in THE CORPS series—a powerful, dramatic tribute to the courageous men and women who braved WWII...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
-
The Forgotten Life of Arthur Pettinger by Suzanne Fortin
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe secrets of the past won't remain hidden forever...Arthur Pettinger's memory isn't what it used to be. He can't always remember the names of his grandchildren, where he lives or which way round his slippers go. He does remember Maryse though, a woman he hasn't seen for decades, but whose face he will never forget...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Every Hour Until Then by Gabrielle Meyer
Rated: 4.71 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsGifted with the ability to time-cross between Victorian-era London and World War II Washington, DC, Kathryn faces two lives fraught with danger. In 1938 amid the looming shadow of war, Kathryn is invited to the London Museum as a guest curator to create a groundbreaking exhibit on Jack the Ripper and his reign of terror...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era victorian suspense romance christian time-travel historical -
Locked Rooms by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are back in Laurie R. King's highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling mystery series. And this time the first couple of detection pair up to unlock the buried memory of a shocking crime with the power to kill again-lost somewhere in Russell's own past...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWith a “knack for romantic tension and page-turning suspense, this one is a winner.” The year 1920 comes in with a roar in this rousing and suspenseful New York Times bestselling novel by Sandra Brown. Prohibition is the new law of the land, but murder, mayhem, lust, and greed are already institutions in the Moonshine Capitol of Texas (Booklist, starred review)...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Nothing More Dangerous by Allen Eskens, Kevin Stillwell
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe summer of 1976 is a turning point for 15-year-old Boady Sanden. He's managed to outrun and outwit the bullying seniors throughout his freshman year at St. Ignatius High; he's working multiple jobs for Wally Schenicker's construction company; and he finally makes a friend his own age--Thomas Elgin, son of the only black family on Boady's side of town...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure amateur-sleuth audiobook -
The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAmelia hopes to rekindle some of the old fire with Emerson in a return journey to Amarna, Egypt where they met 13 years before...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBestselling author Peters brings back 19th-century Egyptologist Amelia Peabody and her entourage in a delicious caper that digs up mystery in the shadow of the pyramids...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Justice Hall by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOnly hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one murky riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door...literally. It's a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
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:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
A Lady Unrivaled by Roseanna M. White
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhite Is Quickly Becoming the Top Name in Edwardian Romance Lady Ella Myerston can always find a reason to smile--even if it's just in hope that tomorrow will be better than today. All her life everyone has tried to protect her from the realities of the world, but Ella knows very well the danger that has haunted her brother and their friend, and she won't wait for it to strike again...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
-
Cometh the Hour by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratings"Cometh the Hour" opens with the reading of a suicide note, which has devastating consequences for Harry and Emma Clifton, Giles Barrington and Lady Virginia.Giles must decide if he should withdraw from politics and try to rescue Karin, the woman he loves, from behind the Iron Curtain...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Sackett by Louis L'Amour
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA drifter by circumstance, William Tell Sackett hungered for a place he couldn’t name but knew he had to find. South of the Tetons, through a keyhole pass, he found it: a lonely yet beautiful valley—with a fortune in gold. Then he found an even greater treasure: Ange Kerry, a courageous and resourceful woman...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
The Game by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt’s only the second day of 1924, but Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, find themselves embroiled in intrigue. It starts with a New Year’s visit from Holmes’s brother Mycroft, who comes bearing a strange package containing the papers of an English spy named Kimball O’Hara—the same Kimball known to the world through Kipling’s famed Kim...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn Laurie R. King’s latest Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mystery, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author delivers a thriller of ingenious surprises and unrelenting suspense—as the famous husband and wife sleuths are pursued by a killer immune from the sting of justice...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure 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:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOctober 1918: the war on the Western Front is all but over. Desperate for one last chance of promotion, the ambitious Lieutenant Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle sends two scouts over the top, and secretly shoots them in the back to incite his men to heroic action once more...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The New Breed by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the blistering jungles of Vietnam to the far-flung battlefields of the African Congo, they faced the turmoil of a new era. It was a different kind of war. But the courage and skill of these young fighting men were an American tradition. Like their fathers before them, they rose up to the ultimate challenge of military valor, holding their own in a storm of clashing cultures...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Mightier Than the Sword by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsA bomb goes off, but how many passengers on the MV Buckingham have lost their lives? You will find out only if you read the opening chapter of Mightier than the Sword...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Pacific Glory by P.T. Deutermann
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA thrilling, multi-layered World War II adventure following two men and an unforgettable woman, from Pearl Harbor through the most dramatic air and sea battles of the war Marsh, Mick, and Tommy were inseparable friends during their naval academy years, each man desperately in love with the beautiful, unattainable Glory Hawthorne...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsOne of Sidney Sheldon's most popular and bestselling titles, repackaged and reissued for a new generation of fans. Kate Blackwell is one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. She is an enigma, a woman surrounded by a thousand unanswered questions. Her father was a diamond prospector who struck it rich beyond his wildest dreams...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
-
The Hippopotamus Pool by Elizabeth Peters
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAmelia, her husband Emerson, their 13-year-old son Ramses, and their beautiful ward Nefret return to Egypt for an exciting excavation. The dig is at an undisturbed Royal Tomb, a true find--and an irresistible temptation for art thieves, jealous colleagues, looters, the press, and the countless evil-doers...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsNew York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history--and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense technology victorian 20th-century 21st-century -
Hollow Out the Dark by James Wade
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAward-winning author James Wade blends atmospheric prose with soul-stirring themes in Hollow Out the Dark, a gothic adventure set against a Depression-era landscape where a whiskey war threatens to decimate a small Texas town.A veteran of the Great War, Jesse Cole is grateful for the quiet life he now leads... -
Todo lo peor by César Pérez Gellida
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSigue la Guerra fría, sigue en pie el muro que divide Alemania en dos partes. Todo lo peor sucederá en estas circunstancias.Un asesino comienza a matar. Sus víctimas son homosexuales y sus crímenes parecen tener un componente religioso... -
City of Schemes by Victoria Thompson
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsElizabeth Miles is preparing for her wedding to Gideon Bates, when a menacing shadow from her past threatens to destroy the life she has built for herself in this all-new Counterfeit Lady Novel from USA Today bestselling author Victoria Thompson.The Great War is over, and Elizabeth and Gideon are busily planning their wedding and welcoming home old friends now discharged from the army...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Knight's Cross by Christine Kling
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsShipwreck hunters Maggie Riley and Cole Thatcher are no strangers to the mysteries hidden beneath the seas. They’ve uncovered artifacts with secrets that powerful interests would do anything to control—and they’re about to do it again. As the newly engaged couple prepares to set sail, Cole suspects they are being followed...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Sins of the Father by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsOn the heels of the international bestseller Only Time Will Tell, Jeffrey Archer picks up the sweeping story of the Clifton Chronicles.Only days before Britain declares war on Germany, Harry Clifton, hoping to escape the consequences of long-buried family secrets, and forced to accept that his desire to marry Emma Barrington will never be fulfilled, has joined the Merchant Navy...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Tregaron's Daughter by Madeleine Brent
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsExcitement, drama and suspense were only part of Cadi Tregaron's new life. It had been a sunny afternoon when she glanced from the cliff where she sat reading and saw below her in the sea a sight that would change her life...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
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...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsAn alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.By the 1860s, the Pilasters are one of the world's greatest banking families, with connections that reach from the City of London to far-afield colonies...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure -
-
The Reluctant Duchess by Roseanna M. White
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLady Rowena Kinnaird may be the heiress to a Highland earldom, but she has never felt good enough—not for her father, not for the man she thought she’d marry, not for God. But after a shocking attack, she’s willing to be forever an outcast if it means escaping Loch Morar and the men who have jeopardized her life...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard by Elmore Leonard
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsNo one is more evocative of the dusty, gutsy hey-day of the American West than Elmore Leonard. And no story about a young writer struggling to launch his career ever matched its subject matter better than the tale behind Leonard's Western oeuvre...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook -
The Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin, Boris Akunin
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn 1882, after six years of foreign travel and adventure, renowned diplomat and detective Erast Fandorin returns to Moscow in the heart of Mother Russia. His Moscow homecoming is anything but peaceful...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
O Jerusalem by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWith her bestselling mystery series featuring Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, Laurie R. King has created "lively adventure in the very best of intellectual company," according to The New York Times Book Review...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 41 ratings'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'In this, the final collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures, the intrepid detective and his faithful companion Dr Watson examine and solve twelve cases that puzzle clients, baffle the police and provide readers with the thrill of the chase...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult -
His Improper Lady by Candace Camp
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSome family secrets were never meant to be disturbed. It’s been a year since Tom Quick became a partner at the detective agency Moreland & Quick, which he operates with his lifelong friend Constantine Moreland. When he catches an intruder breaking in to the agency, obviously looking for something, it’s clear that a new case is afoot...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
The Enemy at Home by Kevin O'Brien
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAs World War II rages overseas, a serial killer preys on women working in Seattle’s factories in this provocative blend of vivid, richly detailed historical fiction and taut suspense.1943, Seattle. While raging war reshapes the landscape of Europe, its impact is felt thousands of miles away too... -
The Million Dollar Wound by Max Allan Collins
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom a foxhole on Guadalcanal (shared with Barney Ross) to the glitzy underworld of Hollywood in the '40s, Nate Heller fights his memories and the Mob.Something happened at the Canal, something Heller's blocking out. What he can't block, though, is the wound he received--the "million-dollar wound," the one that got him home...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Queen of Clubs by Beezy Marsh
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLondon, 1957: After rising up against gangland’s queen, Alice Diamond, formerly downtrodden Nell is living the perfect life of crime. Far from the East End slums where she was raised, she’s now an accomplished professional thief by day—lifting luxury goods from high-end department stores—and a glamorous nightclub owner after dark... -
Stranger at Wildings by Madeleine Brent
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHere is a tale of charm and adventure-set in Europe around the turn of the century-whose colorful action ranges from a touring circus in Hungary to the fox-hunting society of the English countryside to the elegant circles of wealth and fashion in London...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era suspense victorian 20th-century action-adventure book fiction -
-
Daddy by Loup Durand
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWho has the key to a $350 million fortune the Nazis have sent their most brilliant operative to find? Thomas, an 11-year old boy with the mind of a genius, the cunning of a fox, and the chance of a snowball in Hell to escape...unless he is helped by one man. An American who doesn't even know he exists. A man he calls Daddy... -
The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBy the author of The Homesman, now a major motion picture The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a gunfighter at the turn of the twentieth century who must confront the greatest Shootist of all: Death. Most men would end their days in bed or take their own lives, but a gunfighter has a third option, one that Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
An Irish Hostage by Charles Todd
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the uneasy peace following World War I, nurse Bess Crawford runs into trouble and treachery in Ireland—in this twelfth book in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.The Great War has finally come to an end, but tensions remain high throughout Europe. In Ireland, no one has forgotten the bloody 1916 Easter Rising that fought to end British rule in the country...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA sprawling thriller drenched with atmosphere and intrigue that takes a young boy from a chance encounter with Bonnie and Clyde to the trenches of World War II and the oil fields along the Texas-Louisiana coast...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction industrial-era suspense 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
A Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Falcon Flies by Wilbur SmithIn 1860, a man and woman approach the coast of Africa aboard a swift clipper--in the command of an American who knows no law. Robyn Ballantyne and her brother Morris have waited years for this moment: to return to Africa, to search for their missionary father who had disappeared somewhere in the wilderness...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke—an atmospheric, coming-of-age story set in 1952 Texas, as the Korea War rages.On its surface, life in Houston is as you would expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, jukeboxes, teenagers discovering their sexuality...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.