Books like 'Impolitic Corpses'
Readers who enjoyed Impolitic Corpses by Paul Johnston also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
sc-fi mystery crime suspense amateur-sleuth humor investigator dystopia satire
-
Winter's Peak: Winter Black Season Two by Mary Stone
Rated: 4.70 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt’s lonely at the top. And deadly at the bottom.Sexual harassment isn’t the type of case Private Investigator Winter Black usually takes. But it’s a welcome distraction from whoever’s been sending creepy, anonymous text messages to her phone and set up cameras to spy on her home and office... -
A Town Called Discovery by R.R. Haywood, Carl Prekopp
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA new time-travel thriller from Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Amazon and Audible best-selling author R. R. Haywood. Creator of the smash-hit time-travel series Extracted and the UK's number one horror series The Undead. A man falls from the sky. He has no memory. He has no sense of self... -
The Family Experiment by John Marrs
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.Some families are virtually perfect…The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived... -
Chaos in Death / Possession in Death by J.D. Robb
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsChaos in Death When eye witness testimony paints the killer as a green-skinned monster with swollen red eyes and goblin ears, even Eve Dallas is shaken. But as she gets closer, the trail suggests something far more disturbing - someone is playing with science... Possession in Death After a Russian woman whispers her dying words to Eve Dallas, strange things begin to happen... -
-
Murder at Keyhaven Castle by Clara McKenna
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWith her wedding to Viscount “Lyndy” Lyndhurst just days away, strong-willed American ex-pat Stella Kendrick is the talk of Edwardian society—and the focus of a deadly mystery—in Clara McKenna’s third historical mystery set in England’s New Forest region at the turn of the 20th century...Categorized as:
amateur-sleuth crime suspense investigator romance mystery historical-fiction historical -
Blind Sided by Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter four years of life in a post-apocalyptic world, the one thing that both Mike and Sarah know for sure is that nothing ever stays the same. Just when life has begun to settle down, a threat comes at them from a totally unexpected source. Not England, nor the US, not rampaging gypsies or even the Middle East... -
I Am Sal by Abraham Falls
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhat if you were born as a fully formed adult? Completely aware of your surroundings, fully able to speak, walk, think, and recognize, by name, all of the items you could see? The only thing missing, the only nagging void in your memory: your identity... -
Bombing in Belgravia by Samantha Silver
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThings are about to blow up for Cassie... When an ambassador's children are killed in a deliberate gas explosion in the middle of the night, Violet Despuis is on the case. Right from the start, not everything is as it seems, as Cassie confirms at the crime scene that one of the victims had been poisoned beforehand... -
Orlando People by Alexander C. Kane
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsGretch Wolgast is a bit of a dud. Just ask her. She's a 21-year-old college dropout who has a loser job at the mall. Sure, she can lift a tennis ball with her telekinetic powers. But only three feet in the air. And she has to be sitting. Gretch is an OP, one of thousands born in Orlando, Florida, in the early 1980s who mysteriously developed the ability to move things with their minds... -
Yews with Caution by Kate Collins
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFlower shop owner Abby Knight is out to help a friend in need but soon finds herself in the weeds... The Spring of Abby's Discontent It's April in New Chapel, and Abby and her husband, Marco, are off to buy shrubs for their new house. But the owner of the local landscaping company is nowhere to be found... -
Liege-Killer by Christopher Hinz
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsTwo hundred years after Earth is devastated by nuclear war and genetically engineered Paratwa assassins, the humans of orbiting Earth colonies are at peace, until a series of murders reveal the reemergence of the Paratwa... -
Oranges and Lemons by Christopher Fowler
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"The most delightfully, wickedly entertaining duo in crime fiction." The Plain Dealer When a prominent politician is crushed by a fruit van making a delivery, the singular team of Arthur Bryant and John May overcome insurmountable odds to reunite the PCU and solve the case in the brainy new mystery from acclaimed author Christopher Fowler... -
Operation Sherlock by Bruce Coville
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen their scientist parents are assigned to a top secret project on a small, remote island, the five members of the A.I. Gang have to come along, and find themselves trying to stop a spy from destroying the project... -
The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Baggit and Clodde NovelA ratling and an ogryn aren't the best-matched pair, but in the crime-ridden heart of Varangantua, anything goes – at least, when there's a big score to be had.READ IT BECAUSEThis is first full length novel featuring the characters Baggit and Clodde from the audio drama Dredge Runners. Follow the duo as they hunt for a treasure that could answer all of their problems... -
-
Bloodlines by Chris Wraight
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe first title in the new "Warhammer Crime" imprint. Try to unravel the secrets lurking in the sprawling city of Varangantua.In the immense city of Varangantua, life is cheap but mistakes are expensive. When Probator Agusto Zidarov of the city’s enforcers is charged with locating the missing scion of a wealthy family, he knows full well that the chances of finding him alive are slight... -
The Nether: A Play by Jennifer Haley
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Nether, a daring examination of moral responsibility in virtual worlds, opens with a familiar interrogation scene given a technological twist. As Detective Morris, an online investigator, questions Mr. Sims about his activities in a role-playing realm so realistic it could be life, she finds herself on slippery ethical ground... -
Encounters of Sherlock Holmes by George Mann, Mark Hodder
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA brand-new collection of Sherlock Holmes stories from a variety of exciting voices in modern horror and steampunk, including James Lovegrove, Justin Richards, Paul Magrs, Guy Adams and Mark Hodder. Edited by respected anthologist George Mann, and including a story by Mann himself...Categorized as:
amateur-sleuth crime investigator adult anthologies fiction historical historical-fiction -
Fire Country by David Estes
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a changed world where the sky bleeds red, winter is hotter than hell and full of sandstorms, and summer's even hotter with raging fires that roam the desert-like country, the Heaters manage to survive, barely. Due to toxic air, life expectancies are so low the only way the tribe can survive is by forcing women to procreate when they turn sixteen and every three years thereafter... -
Spark by Rachael Craw
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEvie doesn’t have a choice.One day she’s an ordinary seventeen year old, grieving for her mother. The next, she’s a Shield, the result of a decades-old experiment gone wrong, bound by DNA to defend her best friend from an unknown killer.The threat could come at home, at school, anywhere. All Evie knows is that it will be a fight to the death.And then there’s Jamie. irresistible. off-limits... -
Blood Ties by Jo Nesbø, Robert Ferguson
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn many ways, the brothers Carl and Roy Opgard have succeeded in life. Or at least they’ve had as much success as is possible in a small town like Os where they've had to kill their way to the top. Carl manages the area’s swanky spa hotel, while Roy has made ambitious plans for an amusement park complete with a roller coaster. The only way is up for the two brothers... -
Under the Dome: Part Two by Stephen King
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAll hell has broken loose in Chester's Mill after an invisible force field suddenly and inexplicably descends on the small Maine town, isolating all within it from the outside world. As the grim reality of the situation dawns and panic sets in, each other town's denizens reveals their true nature in the face of shortages, rationing, lawlessness, and uncertainty... -
Murder at the Elms by Alyssa Maxwell
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAs the nineteenth century comes to a close, the illustrious Vanderbilt family dominates Newport, Rhode Island, high society. But when murder arrives, reporter Emma Cross learns that sometimes the actions of the cream of society can curdle one’s blood in the latest installment of this bestselling cozy historical mystery series . .Categorized as:
amateur-sleuth crime investigator mystery historical-fiction cozy historical fiction -
Constance by Matthew FitzSimmons
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA breakthrough in human cloning becomes one woman’s waking nightmare in a mind-bending thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Gibson Vaughn series. In the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination against nature... -
Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnother instant classic from Carl Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful new Hiaasen heroes“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida... -
-
One of Us by Michael Marshall Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt's not what you've done that counts it's what you remember....If you could sell your conscience, could you get away with murder?Hap Thompson works the gray area between truth and lies. He works for REMtemp, taking on other people's memories. It's illegal, but usually harmless. Maybe a petty criminal wants to pass a lie detector test. Or an unfaithful spouse wants to enjoy a guiltless affair... -
Banquets of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis book is the fourth of six that describe mysteries solved by the Black Widowers, based on a literary dining club he belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders. It collects twelve stories by Asimov, together with a general introduction and an afterword following each story by the author... -
Naked by Francine Pascal
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsI’ve been stripped of a home. Stripped of a family. Stripped of a life. I have almost nothing left to lose.Except the one I love most... -
Dome City Blues by Jeff Edwards
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFor fans of William Gibson, Phillip K. Dick, and Jak Koke…Los Angeles: 2063David Stalin was one of the best detectives in the business, running head-to-head with data-jackers, organ thieves, and the tech-enhanced gangs who ruled the shadowy streets of Los Angeles... -
The Exploding Detective by John Swartzwelder
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOne of a series of comedy science fiction novels featuring slow-witted detective Frank Burly. By John Swartzwelder, the author of "The Time Machine Did It", "Double Wonderful", "How I Conquered Your Planet", and 59 episodes of The Simpsons... -
Baby X by Kira Peikoff
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen any biological matter can be used to create life, stolen celebrity DNA sells to the highest bidder–or the craziest stalker–in this propulsive thriller.With a vivid imagining of the future, Gattaca meets Black Mirror in Kira Peikoff’s Baby X... -
Husk by J. Kent Messum
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom award-winning author J. Kent Messum, a serial killer thriller for fans of The Straw Men and The Shining Girls.LIFE GOES ONFor a lucky few, death is merely an inconvenience. With the help of technology the mind can survive long after a body has been laid to rest. This afterlife, however, is far from paradise...MAKING A LIVINGRhodes is a 'Husk'... -
Burnout by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCutter Dunn is a ghost. Unchipped and unregistered he exists as a nonperson, living off-the-grid, unrecognized by the facial recognition software built into every smart glass device that provides everyone with everything they want and need. According to the official system, he doesn't even exist... -
Simon Grave and the Curious Incident of the Cat in the Daytime by Len Boswell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“Boswell continues his genre-defying series in this ambitious adventure…” –PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY Murder rocks the seaside town of Crab Cove, but to solve the crime, Detective Simon Grave must first deal with the curious incident of the cat in the daytime... -
I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsA standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin.Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.But there are rules:He cannot look inside the box.He cannot ask questions... -
-
Dissolution by Nicholas Binge
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA woman dives into her husband's memories to uncover a decades-old feud threatening reality itself in this staggering technothriller from the bestselling author of Ascension.Maggie Webb has lived the last decade caring for elderly husband, Stanley, as memory loss gradually erases all the beautiful moments they created together. It's the loneliest she's ever felt in her life... -
A Fashionably French Murder by Colleen Cambridge
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAmerican expat Tabitha Knight has found a new life in postwar Paris, along with a delightful friend in aspiring chef Julia Child. Yet there are perils in peacetime too, as a killer infiltrates one of the city’s most famous fashion houses. If there’s one art the French have mastered as well as fine cuisine, it’s haute couture... -
The Authorities™ by Scott Meyer
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSinclair Rutherford is a young Seattle cop with a taste for the finer things. Doing menial tasks and getting hassled by superiors he doesn't respect are definitely not “finer things... -
The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWill Barrent had no memory of his crime . . . but he found himself shipped across space to a brutal prison-planet. On Omega, his only chance to advance himself -- and stay alive -- is to commit an endless series of violent crimes. The average inmate's life expectancy from time of arrival is three years... -
I Died for Beauty by Amanda Flower
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen a blaze takes both a neighbor’s home and his life, Emily Dickinson and her maid Willa have a burning desire to crack the case in this new historical mystery from Agatha Award–winning author Amanda Flower.Amherst, 1857. The Dickinson family braves one of the worst winters in New England’s history. Trains are snowbound and boats are frozen in the harbor... -
Gingerbread Man by Lee Strauss
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen that cute chick you met online is murdered - but shows up for your next internet meeting anyway.Marlow's just a regular geeky college freshman with little to no experience with girls, so when he has a semi-flirtatious chat with a cute girl online, it's almost more than his nerves can handle.Then the girl is brutally murdered... -
Edie Investigates by Nick Harkaway
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the author of "The Gone-Away World" and the forthcoming "Angelmaker"--an exhilarating espionage murder-mystery eShort. There has been a strange death in the quiet village of Shrewton: old Donny Caspian has lost his head. In the Copper Kettle tea rooms, Tom Rice, a junior nobody from the Treasury, puzzles over the details of the case... -
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
Delete All Suspects by Donna Andrews
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAfter a hit-and-run leaves Eddie, a young techie, in the hospital, his grandmother hires Artificial Intelligence Personality Turing’s friend Tim to look closely at Eddie’s business, which he runs out of their computer-filled basement... -
Hokkaido Popsicle by Isaac Adamson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter an altercation with the director of Wildman for Geisha! -- a movie based on ace reporter Billy Chaka's life -- Chaka finds himself in Hokkaido on mandatory vacation. Trouble starts when the elderly porter of the Hotel Kitty stumbles into Billy's room and dies. That same night, the lead singer of Japan's most popular rock band turns up dead in a sleazy love hotel in Tokyo... -
-
Crab Town by Carlton Mellick III
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this town, everyone's a bottom feeder ... Five desperate criminals are robbing one of the last remaining banks in Freedom City, a town devastated by the previous nuclear war. But these are no ordinary criminals. They are members of the House of Cards, an organization designed to help the less fortunate citizens of the city... -
Body Politic by Paul Johnston
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Gorky Park" meets "Brave New World" in this award-winning debut novel of a serial killer lost in a supposedly perfect society overtaken by the Enlightenment... -
The Trouble with Time by Lexi Revellian
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's 2045. Jace Carnady works for the Time Police, dedicated to the prevention of timecrime. Life is good; he loves his girlfriend and enjoys his work. But when the team gets wind of a rogue time machine and fails to find it, Jace suspects one of his colleagues may be involved, and his life begins to unravel . . -
The Registration by Madison Lawson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYou can’t outrun the RegistrationImagine it’s legal to commit one murder in your lifetime–if you Register the victim and accomplish the kill within fourteen days. So when Lynell Mize stands in line to Register the man who abused her as a child, she’s shocked to hear a stranger Register her to be killed... -
The Rivals by Jane Pek
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA prescient literary mystery about corporate espionage, family dynamics, and the follow-up to Jane Pek’s “thoroughly modern twist on classic detective fiction,” The Verifiers (New York Times Book Review)“Exhilaratingly well-written. I loved it so much that I didn’t want it to end.” —Emily St... -
How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsKristen Perrin is back with the second novel in her Castle Knoll series. Annie Adams is caught in a new web of murder that spans decades, returning us to the idyllic English village that holds layers of secrets.Present day: Annie Adams is just settling into life in Castle Knoll when local fortune teller Peony Lane crosses her path and shares a cryptic message...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.