Books like 'Legs'
Readers who enjoyed Legs by William Kennedy also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery 20th century historical-fiction crime literary-fiction organized-crime classics hard-boiled true-crime
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The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsOstap Bender is an unemployed con artist living by his wits in postrevolutionary Soviet Russia. He joins forces with Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, a former nobleman who has returned to his hometown to find a cache of missing jewels which were hidden in some chairs that have been appropriated by the Soviet authorities...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure -
![Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep / Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window by Raymond Chandler]()
Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep / Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn Raymond Chandler’s hands, the pulp crime story became a haunting mystery of power and corruption, set against a modern cityscape both lyrical and violent. Now Chandler joins the authoritative Library of America series in a comprehensive two-volume set displaying all the facets of his brilliant talent... -
![Life With Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Life With Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is old Bertie Wooster's habit to land in the soup from time to time. To get into a spot of bother. Circumstances, aided and abetted by Aunt Agatha, Aunt Dahlia, Bingo Little, Tuppy, Sippy and others, seem to conspire against him, and a frightful muddle ensues.Enter Jeeves, the source of all solace. Jeeves of the infinite sagacity...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies comedy -
![Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback / Double Indemnity (screenplay) / Selected Essays and Letters by Raymond Chandler]()
Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback / Double Indemnity (screenplay) / Selected Essays and Letters by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWith humor, along with an unerring sense of dialogue and the telling details of dress and behavior, Raymond Chandler created a distinctive fictional universe out of the dark side of sunlit Los Angeles. In the process, he transformed both crime writing and the American language.Written during the war, The Lady in the Lake (1943) takes Philip Marlowe out of the seamy L.A... -
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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...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled literary-fiction noir 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Illustrated Short Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle]()
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Illustrated Short Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThey're among the most influential, enduring, and popular short stories in the English language; marvelous mysteries that feature the "most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has ever seen." Here are all 56 Sherlock Holmes tales in one very handsome collection, accompanied by the original artwork in facsimile reproduction...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Flashman in the Great Game by George MacDonald Fraser]()
Flashman in the Great Game by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsOne of literature's most delightful rakes is back in another tale of rollicking adventure and tantalizing seduction. The plucky Flashman's latest escapades are sure to entertain devotees as well as attract new aficionados...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure -
![Collected Stories by Raymond Chandler]()
Collected Stories by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratings(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)The only complete edition of stories by the undisputed master of detective literature, collected here for the first time in one volume, including some stories that have been unavailable for decades...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled literary-fiction noir 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett]()
The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratings(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)The three classic novels published here in one volume are rich with the crisp prose, subtle characters, and intricate plots that made Dashiell Hammett one of the most admired writers of the twentieth century. A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel... -
![Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute]()
Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA novel tells the story of a man who leads an ordinary, uneventful life, until overnight he becomes the trustee of his 10-year-old niece, and involved in the search for some missing money...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![American Tabloid by James Ellroy]()
American Tabloid by James Ellroy
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWe are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination—in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C....Where the CIA, the Mob, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Cuban political exiles, and various loose cannons conspire in a covert anarchy..Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled historical-fiction literary-fiction noir organized-crime true-crime -
![The Big Knockover: Selected Stories and Short Novels by Dashiell Hammett]()
The Big Knockover: Selected Stories and Short Novels by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHammett's continental op - tough, tired, intelligent, a snap-brimmed Sir Galahad with a Browning - was the prototype for a whole new tradition of private eye thrillers.Here are ten of his classic suspense stories from the twenties and thirties - selected and introduced by Lillian Hellman... -
![Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Bertie and Jeeves classic, featuring the Junior Ganymede, a Market Snodsbury election, and the Observer crossword puzzle.Jeeves, who has saved Bertie Wooster so often in the past, may finally prove to be the unwitting cause of this young master's undoing in Jeeves and the Tie that Binds... -
![Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen Bertie Wooster goes to stay with his Aunt Dahlia at Brinkley Court and finds himself engaged to the imperious Lady Florence Craye, disaster threatens from all sides...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
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![The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett]()
The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDashiell Hammett is the true inventor of modern detective fiction and the creator of the private eye, the isolated hero in a world where treachery is the norm... -
![Fish Preferred by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Fish Preferred by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHugh Carmody loved Millicent, Lord Emsworth niece, but he was very good friends with Sue Brown - an attachment which Millicent, perhaps, could hardly be expected to enthuse over. Ronnie Fish loved Sue, and entertained feelings o unrestrained ferocity towards Pilbeam, a blister of the first water, who was pestering her with flowers...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Crime Wave at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse]()
The Crime Wave at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOne of P.G. Wodehouse's most gloriously funny stories, this is the tale of bumbling Lord Emsworth, whose quiet life reading "The Care Of The Pig" and pottering among the flowers at Blandings Castle is shattered by an outbreak of lawlessness involving his niece Jane (the third prettiest girl in Shropshire), an airgun - and the trouser seat of the abominable Baxter... -
![Todo lo peor by César Pérez Gellida]()
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... -
![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 Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb]()
The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsInspired by serial killer Harry Powers, "The Bluebeard of Quiet Dell," who was hung in 1932 for his murders of two widows and three children. This best-selling novel, first published in 1953 to wide acclaim by author Grubb, (who like Powers lived in Clarksburg, West Virginia), served as the basis for Charles Laughton's noir classic...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction literary-fiction noir organized-crime true-crime 20th-century -
![A Family Affair by Rex Stout]()
A Family Affair by Rex Stout
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen a bomb kills his favorite waiter from his favorite restaurant, sedentary sleuth and gourmand Nero Wolfe is determined to go to any length to find the killer... -
![Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze]()
Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShe had the face of a madonna and a heart made of dollar bills.She was sitting on the floor, naked, in a skitter of green bills. Beyond her was the custodian, still simpering in death. She was scooping up handfuls of the green money and dropping it on top of her head so that it came sliding down along the cream-colored hair, slipping down along her shoulders and body...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled humor literary-fiction noir 20th-century action-adventure -
![And Be a Villain by Rex Stout]()
And Be a Villain by Rex Stout
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRadio talk show host Madeline Fraser's worst nightmare comes true when one of her on-air guests collapses at the mike after drinking a glass of the sponsor's beverage... -
![Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler]()
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsMarlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled historical-fiction humor literary-fiction noir 20th-century -
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![Storm in the Village & Fairacre Festival by Miss Read]()
Storm in the Village & Fairacre Festival by Miss Read
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsStorm in the Village, Miss Read, Headmistress of Fairacre School, learns of a proposed new housing development that soon has the citizens of Fairacre up in arms.In The Fairacre Festival, after a storm damages the church roof, the villagers must raise money for repairs...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics humor literary-fiction fiction historical cozy audiobook -
![The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre]()
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... -
![The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories by Otto Penzler]()
The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories by Otto Penzler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn unstoppable anthology of crime stories culled from Black Mask magazine the legendary publication that turned a pulp phenomenon into literary mainstream. Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared... -
![Selected Novels and Short Stories by Patricia Highsmith]()
Selected Novels and Short Stories by Patricia Highsmith
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPatricia Highsmith's dark talents, obsessive interest in love and murder, and macabre sensibility produced some of the most influential and deeply unsettling fiction of the twentieth century. For the reader uninitiated in the deadly world of her canon, this collection offers the first serious introduction to her remarkable range and psychological insight... -
![The Million Dollar Wound by Max Allan Collins]()
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 hard-boiled historical-fiction noir 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![Todo lo mejor by César Pérez Gellida]()
Todo lo mejor by César Pérez Gellida
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsUna ciudad separada por un muro y unida por un sanguinario asesino. Dos investigadores que descubrirán que la crueldad no tiene límites.Una historia negra para iniciarse en el género Gellida.Viktor Lavrov es un joven talento perteneciente al KGB destinado en Berlín durante el periodo más crudo de la Guerra Fría... -
![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... -
![Quick Service by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Quick Service by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen imperious American widow Beatice Chavender eats a forkful of inferior ham at her sister's country home near London, it affects the lives of everyone around her--her sister, her brother-in-law, her sister's butler, her sister's poor relation Sally, Sally's fiance Lord Holbeton, and, most of all, Mrs. Chavender's own one-time fiance, "Ham King" J.B... -
![The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven]()
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA CULT MASTERPIECE—THE ADVENTURE NOVEL THAT INSPIRED JOHN HUSTON'S CLASSIC FILM, BY THE ELUSIVE AUTHOR WHO WAS A MODEL FOR THE HERO OF ROBERTO BOLAÑO'S 2666 Little is known for certain about B. Traven. Evidence suggests that he was born Otto Feige in Schlewsig-Holstein and that he escaped a death sentence for his involvement with the anarchist underground in Bavaria...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction literary-fiction noir 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Three at Wolfe's Door by Rex Stout, Michael Prichard]()
Three at Wolfe's Door by Rex Stout, Michael Prichard
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDeath comes a-calling not once but three times in this murderous collection of cases from the files of the world's greatest detective. First there is the exclusive dinner party where the guests are gourmets, arsenic is the appetizer, and the suspects are five of the most gorgeous gals in New York. Next, a wandering cab pulls up to Wolfe's door, containing a lady driver who doesn't belong.. -
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![Bright Orange for the Shroud by John D. MacDonald]()
Bright Orange for the Shroud by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTravis McGee is looking forward to a "slob summer," spending his days as far away from danger as possible. But trouble has a way of finding him, no matter where he hides. An old friend, conned out of his life savings by his ex-wife, has tracked him down and is desperate for help... -
![The Galton Case by Ross Macdonald]()
The Galton Case by Ross Macdonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAlmost twenty years have passed since Anthony Galton disappeared, along with a suspiciously streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of his family's fortune. Now Anthony's mother wants him back and has hired Lew Archer to find him. What turns up is a headless skeleton, a boy who claims to be Galton's son, and a con game whose stakes are so high that someone is still willing to kill for them...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled historical-fiction humor literary-fiction noir 20th-century -
![The Rubber Band by Rex Stout]()
The Rubber Band by Rex Stout
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhat do a Wild West lynching and a respected English nobleman have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. But when a young woman hires his services, it becomes Nero Wolfe’s job to look deeper and find the connection... -
![The Chill by Ross Macdonald]()
The Chill by Ross Macdonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn The Chill a distraught young man hires Archer to track down his runaway bride. But no sooner has he found Dolly Kincaid than Archer finds himself entangled in two murders, one twenty years old, the other so recent that the blood is still wet... -
![Too Many Women by Rex Stout]()
Too Many Women by Rex Stout
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCelebrated sleuth Nero Wolfe is renowned for cracking tough cases -- and never leaving his New York apartment, where he quaffs beer and cultivates orchids. For legwork, Wolfe employs a fast-talking, wisecracking assistant named Archie, who also serves as our narrator.In Too Many Women, Wolfe and Archie are charged with investigating the mysterious goings-on at a big engineering supply company... -
![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... -
![Over My Dead Body by Rex Stout]()
Over My Dead Body by Rex Stout
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen a Balkan beauty gets in trouble over some missing diamonds, whom else can she turn to but the world-famous Nero Wolfe? Especially since she claims to be Wolfe's long lost daughter! The stakes are suddenly raised when a student at this woman's fencing school ends up dead after a pointed lesson... -
![How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse]()
How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Bertie and Jeeves classic, featuring a cow-creamer, the redheaded Miss Wickham, and the formidable schoolmaster Aubrey Upjohn. Jeeves is infallible. Jeeves is indispensable. Unfortunately, in How Right You Are, Jeeves, he is also in absentia. In this wonderful slice of Woosterian mayhem, Bertie has sent that prince among gentlemen's gentlemen off on his annual vacation...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Village School by Miss Read]()
Village School by Miss Read
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe first novel in the beloved Fairacre series, Village School introduces the remarkable schoolmistress Miss Read and her lovable group of children, who, with a mixture of skinned knees and smiles, are just as likely to lose themselves as their mittens...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson]()
Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsNick Corey is a terrible sheriff on purpose. He doesn't solve problems, enforce rules or arrest criminals. He knows that nobody in tiny Potts County actually wants to follow the law and he is perfectly content lazing about, eating five meals a day, and sleeping with all the eligible women.Still, Nick has some very complex problems to deal with... -
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![The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy]()
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings1950s Los Angeles: The City of Angels has become the city of the Angel of Death. Communist witch-hunts and insanely violent killings are terrorising the community. Three men are plunged into a maelstrom of violence and deceit when their lives become inextricably linked as each one confronts his own personal darkness...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled historical-fiction literary-fiction noir true-crime 20th-century -
![Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOne thing that constantly disrupts the peace of life at Blandings is the constant incursion of impostors. Blandings has impostors like other houses have mice. Now there are two of them – both intent on a dangerous enterprise...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler]()
The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA beautiful, historically accurate edition of the modern classic first published in 1943 reproduces the original and offers an alternative for those who love great old books and want to relive Philip Marlowe's strange and puzzling search for the missing woman...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled historical-fiction literary-fiction noir 20th-century action-adventure -
![Tales from Two Pockets by Karel Čapek]()
Tales from Two Pockets by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsCapek wrote 48 stories that deconstruct the mystery story by breaking one rule here, three rules there, and yet also make for wonderful reading. His unique approaches to the mysteries of justice and truth are full of the ordinary and the extraordinary, humor and humanism... -
![The Big Blowdown by George P. Pelecanos]()
The Big Blowdown by George P. Pelecanos
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWashington DC, 1946. For two local young men, Pete Karras and Joey Recevo, the easiest way to find work after the war is by providing a little muscle for a local boss who runs a protection racket with the Mafia. The trouble with Pete Karras is that he is just too soft on his fellow immigrants, and the last thing the boss wants is for his mob to get soft... -
![Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake]()
Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen John Dortmunder sets out to rob a bank, he really means it. He steals the whole thing. With the help of his usual crew, as well as a sophomoric ex-FBI man and a militant safecracker, Dortmunder puts a set of wheels under a trailer that just happens to be the temporary site of the Capitalists' & Immigrants' Trust Corp...
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