Books like 'Gantenbein'
Readers who enjoyed Gantenbein by Max Frisch also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century mystery classics literary-fiction crime
-
The Flaw by Antonis Samarakis
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA man is seized from his afternoon drink at the Café Sport by two agents of the Regime - though what exactly he is suspected of we do not know, and neither, apparently, does he.What follows is a journey by car toward Special Branch headquarters, and the interrogation that undoubtedly awaits him there... -
![Cianură pentru un surâs by Rodica Ojog-Braşoveanu]()
Cianură pentru un surâs by Rodica Ojog-Braşoveanu
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsÎntr-un imobil oarecare din strada Crăiței, cu ocazia unei inundații, cinci locatari dau peste două tablouri de o valoare inestimabilă. Cei cinci fac planuri pentru a se îmbogăți, dar, unul câte unul, încep să moară otrăviți. De fiecare dată, cei rămași trebuie să ascundă cadavrele și să fenteze Miliția, ducând mai departe, în paralel, planul pentru a vinde tablourile peste hotare... -
![The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies]()
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThe complete volume of Robertson Davies's acclaimed trilogy, featuring Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders, with a new foreword by Kelly Link Fifth Business Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and...Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies contemporary -
![I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay]()
I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWilliam Gay established himself as "the big new name to include in the storied annals of Southern Lit" (Esquire) with his debut novel, The Long Home, and his highly acclaimed follow-up, Provinces of Night. Like Faulkner's Mississippi and Cormac McCarthy's American West, Gay's Tennessee is redolent of broken souls... -
-
![Pulp Fiction: A Quentin Tarantino Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, Manohla Dargis]()
Pulp Fiction: A Quentin Tarantino Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, Manohla Dargis
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsQuentin Tarantino - director of "Reservoir Dogs" and writer of "True Romance" - won the Palme d'Or for best film at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival for "Pulp Fiction, " his unique vision of the underworld, starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Samuel Jackson, and Harvey Keitel... -
![Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges]()
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsHere is a handsome edition of one of Borges' "ficciones," in a translation first published in "Labyrinths" in 1962. It's an important story in the Borges' canon, incorporating most of the author's philosophical and esthetic preoccupations in a typically brief compass...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book contemporary fiction -
![The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño]()
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFirst published in Spanish in 1998, The Savage Detectives was immediately hailed as a critical success, wining the Herralde Prize and the Romulo Gallegos Prize. But with the 2007 English-language translation the book became more than a bestseller -- it began the global sensation of Bolanomania. New Year's Eve 1975, Mexico City... -
![The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler]()
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsDown-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to the only friend he can trust: private investigator Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is willing to help a man down on his luck, but later Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty... -
![Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb]()
Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA major classic of 1930s literature, Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight (Utas és Holdvilág) is the fantastically moving and darkly funny story of a bourgeois businessman torn between duty and desire.'On the train, everything seemed fine. The trouble began in Venice ...'Mihály has dreamt of Italy all his life...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book contemporary -
![Night in Question by Tobias Wolff]()
Night in Question by Tobias Wolff
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAuthor most recently of a stunningly clear-eyed memoir, This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff's new collection of short stories maintains a similar steady gaze on his fictional creations. The author steels himself with a fine sense of irony and an awareness of moral ambiguity against the unjust suffering that is part of life...Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
![Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler]()
Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsEbullient and perverse, thrice married, Barney Panofsky has always clung to two cherished beliefs: life is absurd and nobody truly ever understands anybody else. But when his sworn enemy publicly states that Barney is a wife abuser, an intellectual fraud and probably a murderer, he is driven to write his own memoirs... -
![Write to Kill by Daniel Pennac]()
Write to Kill by Daniel Pennac
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsBenjamin Malaussene is a downtrodden publisher at Vendetta Press. Treated as a scapegoat by Queen Zabo, the redoubtable doyenne of publishing, he has finally had enough. After one row too many with her, he resigns, only to have Zabo offer him a starring role. All he has to do is impersonate the world's best-loved but hitherto anonymous author, J.L.B... -
![Beetle in the Anthill by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
Beetle in the Anthill by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsMaxim Kammerer is given a high-priority assignment as a security officer: track down Lev Abalkin, whose unorthodox, individualistic way of living threatens the status quo... -
![Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThe American poet John Shade is dead. His last poem, 'Pale Fire', is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote... -
-
![The Lime Works: A Novel (Vintage International) by Thomas Bernhard]()
The Lime Works: A Novel (Vintage International) by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFor five years, Konrad has imprisoned himself and his crippled wife in an abandoned lime works where he’s conducted odd auditory experiments and prepared to write his masterwork, The Sense of Hearing. As the story begins, he’s just blown the head off his wife with the Mannlicher carbine she kept strapped to her wheelchair... -
![Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates]()
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe sixties and seventies witnessed the emergence of Joyce Carol Oates as one of America's foremost writers of the short story. In 1962, 'The Fine White Mist of Winter, ' composed when the author was 19 years old, appeared in The Literary Review and was selected for both the O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories of that year...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies coming-of-age contemporary dark -
![Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell]()
Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn its first two years of production, Dario Fo's controversial farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama... -
![The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia]()
The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is the first appearance in English of a Mexican novelist of enormous talent. His brilliant novel is based on fact: the discovery in the yard of a small-town brothel of the corpses of six prostitutes... -
![Monsieur Malaussène by Daniel Pennac]()
Monsieur Malaussène by Daniel Pennac
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsParisian scapegoat Benjamin Malaussène, along with his family of half sisters and brothers, are once again the target for a series of increasingly catastrophic mishaps that culminate in Malaussène’s imprisonment on 21 counts of murder. Meanwhile, the real serial killer remains at large... -
![What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe]()
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIf Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie had ever managed to collaborate, they might have produced this shamelessly entertaining novel, which introduces readers to what may be the most powerful family in England--and is certainly the vilest. A tour de force of menace, malicious comedy, and torrential social bile, this book marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer... -
![Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami]()
Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsIn this propulsive novel by the author of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and The Elephant Vanishes, one of the most idiosyncratically brilliant writers at work in any language fuses science fiction, the hard-boiled thriller and white-hot satire into a new element of the literary periodic table... -
![Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas by Arthur Schnitzler, John Simon]()
Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas by Arthur Schnitzler, John Simon
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThese artful new translations of nine of Schnitzler's most important stories and novellas reinforce the Viennese author's remarkable achievement... -
![The Hustler by Walter Tevis]()
The Hustler by Walter Tevis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe legendary novel from the bestselling author of The Queen's Gambit about an ambitious pool shark who discovers what it takes to make the big time. The basis for the acclaimed film starring Paul Newman. To the strangers he plays in darkened pool halls, at first "Fast" Eddie Felson seems like a sloppy pool player with bright eyes and an extraordinary grin... -
-
![I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch]()
I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsArrested and imprisoned in a small Swiss town, a prisoner begins this book with an exclamation: "I'm not Stiller!" He claims that his name is Jim White, that he has been jailed under false charges and under the wrong identity...Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book contemporary -
![In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George]()
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA theatrical producer shoots himself on the night of his greatest triumph. A young woman camping on the Derbyshire moors is bludgeoned to death. A motorcyclist is found stabbed to death in the center of an ancient henge. Is there a connection? Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley is on the case, but recently demoted Constable Barbara Havers isn't about to let him go it alone... -
![Hotel by Arthur Hailey]()
Hotel by Arthur Hailey
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDuring five days in the midst of a hot, steamy Louisiana summer, the lives of a colorful cast of characters intertwine in a series of public, private, and personal dramas at the famed St. Gregory luxury hotel... -
![Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer]()
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe conned: an Oxford don, a revered society physician, a chic French art dealer, and a charming English lord. They have one thing in common. Overnight, each novice investor lost his life's fortune to one man. The con: Harvey Metcalfe!!A brilliant, self-made guru of deceit. A very dangerous individual. And now, a hunted man... -
![The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies]()
The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsHailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The Cornish Trilogy comes to a brilliant conclusion in the bestselling Lyre of Orpheus.There is an important decision to be made... -
![Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote]()
Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsAt the centre of Music for Chameleons is Handcarved Coffins, a ‘nonfiction novel’ based on the brutal crimes of a real-life murderer. Taking place in a small Midwestern town in America, it offers chilling insights into the mind of a killer and the obsession of the man bringing him to justice... -
![Marathon Man by William Goldman]()
Marathon Man by William Goldman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsTom "Babe" Levy is a runner in every sense: racing tirelessly toward his goals of athletic and academic excellence--and endlessly away from the specter of his famous father's scandal-driven suicide. But an unexpected visit from his beloved older brother will set in motion a chain of events that plunge Babe into a vortex of terror, treachery, and murder--and force him into a race for his life . .Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult assassinations book -
![The Scapegoat by Daniel Pennac]()
The Scapegoat by Daniel Pennac
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPathetic, contrite and hapless, Benjamin is nonetheless the scapegoat at The Store: there is nothing for which he cannot be blamed. While his blunders remain minor, most of his unwitting victims can find it in their hearts to forgive him, but when violent explosions begin to follow him around, he inevitably becomes the prime suspect... -
![A Heart So White by Javier Marías]()
A Heart So White by Javier Marías
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn alternate cover of this ISBN can be found here.Javier Marías's A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know...Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book contemporary -
![A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews]()
A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the acclaimed author of such novels as "Blood and Grits" and "Childhood" comes a wildly weird and breathtakingly original visit to the rural South that reveals the exotic subculture that erupts in all its glory at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Mystic, Georgia. "No number of adjectives in the thesaurus can do full justice to the dazzlingly bizarre nature of Crews' creations"... -
-
![Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz]()
Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA dark, quasi-detective novel, Cosmos follows the classic noir motif to explore the arbitrariness of language, the joke of human freedom, and man’s attempt to bring order out of chaos in his psychological life.Published in 1965, Cosmos is the last novel by Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969) and his most somber and multifaceted work... -
![Duel by Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury]()
Duel by Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe late Richard Matheson's classic tale of highway terror.He was heading west, en route to San Francisco. It was Thursday and unseasonably hot for April. He had his suitcoat off, his tie removed and shirt collar opened, his sleeve cuffs folded back. There was sunlight on his left arm and on part of his lap...Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
![Nightwork by Irwin Shaw]()
Nightwork by Irwin Shaw
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA dead man’s briefcase presents a down-on-his-luck pilot with the chance of a lifetime.Pilot Douglas Grimes’s best days are long behind him. Grounded due to a medical condition, Douglas has resigned himself to menial work as a desk clerk at a seedy hotel. But his fortune flips when he discovers a hotel guest dead from a heart attack and, next to him, a tube jammed with hundred-dollar bills... -
![Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson, John Lanchester]()
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson, John Lanchester
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsChristie Malry is a simple man. His job in a bank puts him next to, but not in possession of, money. As a clerk he learns the principles of Double-Entry Bookkeeping and adapts them in his own dramatic fashion to settle his personal account with society... -
![The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler]()
The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsRaymond Chandler's fifth novel has Philip Marlowe going to Hollywood as he explores the underworld of the glitter capital, trying to find a sweet young thing's missing brother. Along the way he uncovers a little blackmail, a lot of drugs, and more than enough murder...Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult amateur-sleuth audiobook -
![The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato]()
The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsOne of the great short novels of the twentieth century—in an edition marking the 100th anniversary of the author's birth.An unforgettable psychological novel of obsessive love, The Tunnel was championed by Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, and Graham Greene upon its publication in 1948 and went on to become an international bestseller... -
![The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch, Martha C. Nussbaum]()
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch, Martha C. Nussbaum
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBradley Pearson, an unsuccessful novelist in his late fifties, has finally left his dull office job as an Inspector of Taxes. Bradley hopes to retire to the country, but predatory friends and relations dash his hopes of a peaceful retirement... -
![Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me by Javier Marías]()
Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me by Javier Marías
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"No one ever suspects," begins Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me, "that they might one day find themselves with a dead woman in their arms...." Marta has just met Victor when she invites him to dinner at her Madrid apartment while her husband is away on business. When her two-year-old son finally falls asleep, Marta and Victor retreat to the bedroom... -
![The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov]()
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a perversely magical literary detective story - subtle, intricate, leading to a tantalizing climax - about the mysterious life of a famous writer... -
![A Climate of Fear by Fred Vargas]()
A Climate of Fear by Fred Vargas
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the #1 bestselling French author and four-time winner of the Crime Writers Association s International Dagger Award.A woman is found murdered in her bathtub, and the murder has been made to look like a suicide. But a strange symbol found at the crime scene leads the local police to call Commissaire Adamsberg and his team... -
-
![The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg]()
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.” As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and bitterness—proceeds, the narrator’s murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability. Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg’s writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage... -
![A Hell of a Woman by Jim Thompson]()
A Hell of a Woman by Jim Thompson
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrank "Dolly" Dillon has a job he hates, working sales and collections for Pay-E-Zee Stores, a wife named Joyce he can't stand, and an account balance that barely allows him to pay the bills each month. Working door-to-door one day, trying to eke money out of folk with even less of it than he has, Dolly crosses paths with a beautiful young woman named Mona Farrell... -
![Giant's Bread by Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie]()
Giant's Bread by Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsVernon Deyre is a sensitive and brilliant musician, even a genius, tormented and driven by forces even he didn't understand. His sheltered childhood in the home he loves has not prepared Vernon for the harsh reality of his adult years, and in order to write the great masterpiece of his life, he has to make a crucial decision with no time left to count the cost... -
![Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles, Anthony Berkeley]()
Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles, Anthony Berkeley
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsOn a balmy summer's day in 1930 the great and the good of the county are out in force for the annual, much-anticipated tennis party at the Bickleighs, although not everyone has much enthusiasm for the game. The tennis party exists for other reasons - and charmingly mannered infidelity is now the most popular pastime in the small but exclusive Devonshire hamlet of Wyvern's Cross... -
![The Woman Chaser by Charles Willeford]()
The Woman Chaser by Charles Willeford
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"A pitilessly hilarious dissection of the American male psyche."--Chicago Tribune Richard Hudson, an inveterate woman-chaser and gifted used car salesman, possesses a pimp's understanding of the ways in which women (and men) are most vulnerable -- and justifies his seductions with a highly perverse logic. By day, he works his crooked car lot with much success... -
![A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor]()
A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSpending the holiday with friends, as she has for many years, Camilla finds that their private absorptions - Frances with her painting and Liz with her baby - seem to exclude her from the gossipy intimacies of previous summers...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
