Books like 'Country Dark'
Readers who enjoyed Country Dark by Chris Offutt & Nick Sullivan also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery thriller historical-fiction noir gothic southern-gothic literary-fiction crime rural
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The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
crime dark drama gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic suspense -
![Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles]()
Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLibrarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found hereThe endgame is at hand for Penn Cage, his family, and the enemies bent on destroying them in this revelatory volume in the epic trilogy set in modern-day Natchez, Mississippi—Greg Iles’s epic tale of love and honor, hatred and revenge that explores how the sins of the past continue to haunt the present...Categorized as:
crime drama family gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic suspense -
![Goodnight Lady by Martina Cole]()
Goodnight Lady by Martina Cole
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA tour-de-force thriller of corruption and violence.In the sixties, Briony Cavanagh ran a string of the most notorious brothels in London. Only Briony knew what went on behind those doors, and she never opened her mouth - unless she stood to benefit. Only Briony knew the painful road she'd travelled to get there... -
![The Moonflowers by Abigail Rose-Marie]()
The Moonflowers by Abigail Rose-Marie
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn a powerful and poignant novel, an artist unravels her mysterious family history and its generations of women who depended on each other to survive.Tig Costello has arrived in Darren, Kentucky, commissioned to paint a portrait honoring her grandfather Benjamin. His contributions to the rural Appalachian town and his unimpeachable war service have made him a local hero... -
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![Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett]()
Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsComplete in one volume, the five books that created the modern American crime novelIn a few years of extraordinary creative energy, Dashiell Hammett invented the modern American crime novel... -
![The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson]()
The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratings‘My father had spelt it out to me. Choice was a luxury I couldn’t afford. This is your story, Red. You must tell it well . . .’A girl known only as Red, the daughter of a Cornish fortune-teller, travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient method: the Square of Sevens. When her father suddenly dies, Red becomes the ward of a gentleman scholar... -
![Whatever Happened to Betsy Blake? by David B. Lyons]()
Whatever Happened to Betsy Blake? by David B. Lyons
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIf your daughter went missing, how many years would it take for you to admit she’s never coming home? Betsy Blake was only four years old when she vanished outside her family home in Dublin. Her father – wracked with guilt for the past seventeen years – still can’t bring himself to admit the search is over, despite the fact his wife has moved on and police have closed off the investigation... -
![The Mobster's Lament by Ray Celestin]()
The Mobster's Lament by Ray Celestin
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLike every other mobster, the longer he stayed in the life, the closer he got to a shallow grave . . . New York, 1947. Mob fixer Gabriel Leveson needs to leave this city behind. But his plans to flee are upset when he’s given a job by the boss of all bosses, Frank Costello. A job he can’t turn down . . . Meanwhile, a killing spree in a Harlem flophouse has left an innocent black man on Death Row... -
![Cometh the Hour by Jeffrey Archer]()
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 family historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century -
![The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger]()
The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by the murder of its most powerful citizen, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of This Tender Land... -
![The God of the Woods by Liz Moore]()
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River, an immersive, propulsive novel about a missing child whose disappearance sends equal shockwaves through three very different worlds—an opulent Adirondack summer estate, the rustic teen summer camp that operates in its shadow, and the blue-collar community that serves them both...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller family mystery fiction historical -
![Venom by Colin Falconer]()
Venom by Colin Falconer
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom Saigon to Paris, from Bangkok to the Ganges, this thriller is the story of Michel Christian. Abandoned on the streets of Saigon when he is only a child, he grows up with a fatal attraction for women and an insatiable desire for revenge...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense action-adventure adult book -
![Mightier Than the Sword by Jeffrey Archer]()
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 family historical-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
![Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories by Ron Rash]()
Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories by Ron Rash
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Serena and The Cove, thirty-four of his finest short stories, collected in one volumeNo one captures the complexities of Appalachia—a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty—as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, two O...Categorized as:
crime gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction rural southern-gothic adult anthologies -
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![Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson]()
Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the brothels and gin-shops of Covent Garden to the elegant townhouses of Mayfair, Laura Shepherd-Robinson's Daughters of Night follows Caroline Corsham, as she seeks justice for a murdered woman whom London society would rather forget . . .Lucia’s fingers found her own. She gazed at Caro as if from a distance. Her lips parted, her words a whisper: ‘He knows.’London, 1782... -
![The Caretakers by Eliza Maxwell]()
The Caretakers by Eliza Maxwell
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the isolated estate she’s found the perfect getaway. But there’s no escaping the past in this chilling novel from the bestselling author of The Unremembered Girl. Filmmaker Tessa Shepherd helped free a man she believed was wrongly imprisoned for murder. When he kills again, Tessa’s life is upended.She’s reeling with guilt, her reputation destroyed... -
![The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock]()
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSet in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrificial blood he pours on his “prayer log... -
![The Maiden by Kate Foster]()
The Maiden by Kate Foster
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsInspired by a real-life case and winner of the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect Award, Kate Foster's The Maiden is a remarkable story with a feminist revisionist twist, giving a voice to women otherwise silenced by history."In the end, it did not matter what I said at my trial. No one believed me."Edinburgh, October 1679... -
![Evil Unveiled by Robert McCammon]()
Evil Unveiled by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"New York Times" bestselling author Robert McCammon continues his triumphant return with the conclusion of an epic tale of suspense that reinstates him as one of the great storytellers of our time....The Carolinas, 1699: After hearing damning testimony from the townspeople of Fount Royal, magistrate Isaac Woodward sentences the accused witch, Rachel Howarth, to death by burning... -
![The Spinster's Fortune by Mary Kendall]()
The Spinster's Fortune by Mary Kendall
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMoonlit alleys, shadowy tunnels, and buried secrets…Summer of 1929.Of supposed unsound mind without a penny to her name, Blanche Magruder lies alone in a home for the aged and infirm.Meanwhile, her house, a crumbled ruin in the heart of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., is pillaged nightly by thieves looking for treasure rumored to be hidden there... -
![The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch]()
The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOxmoon, the rambling old mansion on a sprawling estate in Wales, has been for generations, the dream, the downfall, and the destiny of the wealthy Godwin family... -
![The Orphan House by Ann Bennett]()
The Orphan House by Ann Bennett
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTwo women uncover the secrets of the past in this emotional and poignant story that’s perfect for fans of Lisa Wingate and Kristina McMorris. 1934: Connie Burroughs loves living in the orphanage that her father runs in the English countryside... -
![Gangster by Lorenzo Carcaterra]()
Gangster by Lorenzo Carcaterra
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLove. Violence. Destiny. These powerful themes ricochet through Lorenzo Carcaterra's new novel like bullets from a machine gun. In Gangster, he surpasses even his bestselling Sleepers to create a brutal and brilliant American saga of murder, forgiveness, and redemption... -
![The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale]()
The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLove and vengeance at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom from Joe Lansdale, "a true American original" (Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box). Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old... -
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![Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood]()
Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCamden, NJ, 1948. When 11 year-old Sally Horner steals a notebook from the local Woolworth's, she has no way of knowing that 52 year-old Frank LaSalle, fresh out of prison, is watching her, preparing to make his move. Accosting her outside the store, Frank convinces Sally that he's an FBI agent who can have her arrested in a minute--unless she does as he says... -
![One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash]()
One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWill Alexander is the sheriff in a small town in southern Appalachia, and he knows that the local thug Holland Winchester has been murdered. The only thing is the sheriff can find neither the body nor someone to attest to the killing... -
![The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins]()
The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the national bestselling and highly acclaimed author of The Outside Boy comes the deeply moving story of two mothers—witty, self-deprecating Majella, who is shocked by her entry into motherhood in modern-day New York, and her ancestor, tough and terrified Ginny Doyle, whose battles are more fundamental: she must keep her young family alive during Ireland’s Great Famine... -
![Cemetery Road by Greg Iles]()
Cemetery Road by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMarshall McEwan is one of the most successful journalists in Washington, DC. But his father is terminally ill, and he must return to his childhood home - a place he vowed he would never go back to.Bienville, Mississippi, is no longer the city Marshall remembers...Categorized as:
crime drama family gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic suspense -
![The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck]()
The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe Pecan Man is a work of Southern fiction whose first chapter was the First Place winner of the 2006 CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition in the Unpublished Novel category.In the summer of 1976, recently widowed and childless, Ora Lee Beckworth hires a homeless old black man to mow her lawn...Categorized as:
crime drama family gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic suspense -
![Storytellers by Bjørn Larssen]()
Storytellers by Bjørn Larssen
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn March 1920 Icelandic days are short and cold, but the nights are long. For most, on those nights, funny, sad, and dramatic stories are told around the fire. But there is nothing dramatic about Gunnar, a hermit blacksmith who barely manages to make ends meet. He knows nobody will remember his existence – they already don’t... -
![Surgeons’ Hall by E.S. Thomson]()
Surgeons’ Hall by E.S. Thomson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhat secret grips Corvus Hall?Visiting the Great Exhibition to view the wax anatomical models of the famous but reclusive Dr Silas Strangeway, Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain find a severed hand, perfectly dissected and laid out amongst the exhibits... -
![The House at Helygen by Victoria Hawthorne]()
The House at Helygen by Victoria Hawthorne
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings'DARK, DISTURBING AND UTTERLY COMPELLING' LIZ FENWICKAn atmospheric historical suspense novel rich with familial secrets. The House at Helygen is a twisted tale of dark pasts, murderous presents and uncertain futures.2019 When Henry Fox is found dead in his ancestral home in Cornwall, the police rule it a suicide, but his pregnant wife, Josie, believes it was murder... -
![Homecoming by Kate Morton]()
Homecoming by Kate Morton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAdelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959: At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek on the grounds of the grand and mysterious mansion, a local delivery man makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia... -
![The Rule of Knowledge by Scott Baker]()
The Rule of Knowledge by Scott Baker
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFaith, history, science and love collide in this fast-paced action adventure.High school teacher Shaun Strickland is shocked when he receives a last-minute invitation from Cambridge University to deliver a paper on the relationship between space and time, something he has been studying for years. This could be the break he s been longing for... -
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![With Song by Dorothy Garlock]()
With Song by Dorothy Garlock
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMolly barely noticed the sedan that pulled up in front of her family's store. Minutes later, a hail of bullets rained down on her parents. Hod Dolan, the federal agent knows she can identify the gunmen, and soon proposes a trap that uses Molly as bait... -
![Queen of Clubs by Beezy Marsh]()
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... -
![West on 66 by James H. Cobb]()
West on 66 by James H. Cobb
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsA classic noir mystery in the tradition of Elmore Leonard. The location is Route 66 in 1958, where a young L.A. deputy sheriff becomes involved with a mysterious woman, mobsters, and a lost fortune...Categorized as:
crime hard-boiled historical-fiction thriller mystery historical action-adventure military -
![Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce]()
Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratings"An impressive novel . . . the most brutal and authentic account of a road gang that we have had." —New York TimesOut of his experiences working on a chain gang, Donn Pearce created Cool Hand Luke, the larger-than-life war hero—Good Guy Number One—turned drunkard, vandal, and convict. A blasphemer and "pretty evil feller" who "could work the hardest, eat the mostest, and tell the biggest lies...Categorized as:
crime drama gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic action-adventure adult -
![Cockfighter by Charles Willeford, Jesse Pearson]()
Cockfighter by Charles Willeford, Jesse Pearson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe sport is cockfighting, and Frank Mansfield is the Cockfighter--a silent and fiercely contrary man whose obsession with winning will cost him almost everything. In this haunting, ribald, and percussively violent work, the author of the Hoke Mosely detective novels yields a floodlit vision of the cockpits and criminal underbelly of the rural South... -
![Candlemoth by R.J. Ellory]()
Candlemoth by R.J. Ellory
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDaniel Ford has 30 days to live. Accused of the horrific murder of his best friend Nathan 12 years before, he has exhausted all appeals and now faces the long walk to the electric chair. All he can do is make peace with his God. Father John Rousseau is the man to whom the last month of Daniel's life has been entrusted...Categorized as:
crime suspense historical-fiction literary-fiction thriller fiction mystery historical -
![The Long Home by William Gay]()
The Long Home by William Gay
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine - until he learns of it first-hand... -
![Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin]()
Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn 1897, an aspiring politician is mysteriously murdered in the rural area of Alabama known as Mitcham Beat. His outraged friends -- mostly poor cotton farmers -- form a secret society, Hell-at-the-Breech, to punish the townspeople they believe responsible. The hooded members wage a bloody year-long campaign of terror that culminates in a massacre where the innocent suffer alongside the guilty... -
![A Fine Dark Line by Joe R. Lansdale]()
A Fine Dark Line by Joe R. Lansdale
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is the summer of 1958 in Dewmont, Texas, a town the great American postwar boom passed by. The kids listen idly to rockabilly on the radio and waste their weekends at the Dairy Queen. And an undetected menace simmers under the heat that clings to the skin like molasses.. -
![The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes]()
The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratings“It was surprising what old experiences remembered could do to a presumably educated, civilized man.” And Hugh Denismore, a young doctor driving his mother’s Cadillac from Los Angeles to Phoenix, is eminently educated and civilized. He is privileged, would seem to have the world at his feet, even... -
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![Next of Kin by John Boyne]()
Next of Kin by John Boyne
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJohn Boyne has been heralded as "one of the most imaginative and adventurous of the young Irish novelists working today" by the Irish Independent. He achieved bestseller status and won numerous awards worldwide for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas... -
![A Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith]()
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 family historical-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock]()
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama... -
![The Given Day by Dennis Lehane]()
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSet in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times best-selling author Dennis Lehane's long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future... -
![Río Muerto by Ricardo Silva Romero]()
Río Muerto by Ricardo Silva Romero
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOn the outskirts of Belén del Chamí, a town that has yet to appear on any map of Colombia, the mute Salomón Palacios is murdered a few steps away from his home. His widow, the courageous and foul-mouthed Hipólita Arenas, completely loses her sanity and confronts the paramilitaries and local politicians, challenging them to also kill her and her two fatherless sons... -
![Wish You Well by David Baldacci]()
Wish You Well by David Baldacci
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsPrecocious twelve-year-old Louisa Mae Cardinal lives in the hectic New York City of 1940 with her family. Then tragedy strikes -- and Lou and her younger brother, Oz, must go with their invalid mother to live on their great-grandmother's farm in the Virginia mountains...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction rural suspense thriller action-adventure
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