Books like 'The Pledge'
Readers who enjoyed The Pledge by Friedrich Dürrenmatt also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery 20th century thriller crime classics law-enforcement drama journey noir
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Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsFrom the acclaimed international bestseller Keigo Higashino (The Devotion of Suspect X) comes a sweeping novel in the tradition of Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment...Categorized as:
crime drama journey law-enforcement literary-fiction police-procedural suspense thriller -
![Trunk Music by Michael Connelly]()
Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsBack on the job after an involuntary leave of absence, LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch is ready for a challenge. But his first case is a little more than he bargained for. It starts with the body of a Hollywood producer in the trunk of a Rolls-Royce, shot twice in the head at close range - what looks like "trunk music," a Mafia hit...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
![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 Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter]()
The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe final Inspector Morse mystery finds the cunning detective and the long-suffering Sergeant Lewis in pursuit of nurse Yvonne Harrington's murderer . . . two years after her death...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural thriller 20th-century adult book contemporary -
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![Blood Work by Michael Connelly]()
Blood Work by Michael Connelly
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly presents his most ambitious, most gripping achievement to date--a novel of masterly suspense and righteous obsession that will never let you go.When Graciella Rivers steps onto his boat, ex-FBI agent Terrell McCaleb has no idea he's about to come out of retirement. He's recuperating from a heart transplant and avoiding anything stressful... -
![Lullaby Town by Robert Crais]()
Lullaby Town by Robert Crais
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsHollywood's newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelson, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure. His films make billions, but his manners make enemies. What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelson wants is for Elvis Cole to comb the country for the airhead wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third biggest filmmaker in America... -
![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... -
![Seven by Anthony Bruno]()
Seven by Anthony Bruno
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMismatched partner cops Somerset and Mills are on the trail of a psychotic murderer who intends to avenge the seven deadly sins, starting with gluttony... -
![The Black Echo by Michael Connelly]()
The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsFor maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam... -
![Crimson Rivers by Jean-Christophe Grangé]()
Crimson Rivers by Jean-Christophe Grangé
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA horrifically mutilated corpse is discovered wedged in an isolated crevice. The highly-regarded but unpredictable ex-commando Pierre NiTmans is sent from Paris to the French Alps to investigate. Meanwhile, Karim Abdouf, a young Arab policeman, is trying to find out why the tomb of a young child has been desecrated... -
![The Black Ice by Michael Connelly]()
The Black Ice by Michael Connelly
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsNarcotics office Cal Moore's orders were to look into the city's latest drug killing. Instead, he ends up in a motel room with a fatal bullet wound to the head and a suicide note stuffed in his back pocket.Working the case, LAPD detective Harry Bosch is reminded of the primal police rule he learned long ago: don't look for the facts, but the glue that holds them together...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement literary-fiction noir police-procedural suspense thriller -
![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... -
![People of Darkness by Tony Hillerman]()
People of Darkness by Tony Hillerman
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWho would murder a dying man? Why would someone steal a box of rocks? And why would a rich man's wife pay $3,000 to get them back? These questions haunt Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police as he journeys into the scorching Southwest... -
![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... -
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![Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie]()
Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAfter twelve years, the last person Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid expects to hear from is his ex-wife Victoria. But this is no social call. In her biographical research on troubled poet Lydia Brooke, Vic’s uncovered reasons to believe Lydia’s death five years ago was not suicide... -
![The Way Through The Woods by Colin Dexter]()
The Way Through The Woods by Colin Dexter
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMorse is enjoying a rare if unsatisfying holiday in Dorset when the first letter appears in THE TIMES. A year before, a stunning Swedish student disappeared from Oxfordshire, leaving behind a rucksack with her identification. As the lady was dishy, young, and traveling alone, the Thames Valley Police suspected foul play... -
![One Step Behind by Henning Mankell]()
One Step Behind by Henning Mankell
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. But unknown to them, they are being watched. With a bullet each, all three are murdered. Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is this the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation, Wallander is always, tantalisingly, One Step Behind... -
![Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane]()
Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWhen Boston private investigator Patrick Kenzie meets Karen Nichols, she strikes him as an innocent from a protected upbringing... -
![One False Move by Harlan Coben]()
One False Move by Harlan Coben
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsShe's smart, beautiful, and she doesn't need a man to look after her. But sports agent Myron Bolitar has come into her life -- big time. Now Myron's next move may be his last.Brenda Slaughter is no damsel in distress. Myron Bolitar is no bodyguard. But Myron has agreed to protect the bright, strong, beautiful basketball star...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
![A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George]()
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsTo this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders... -
![Written In Blood by Caroline Graham]()
Written In Blood by Caroline Graham
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsInvestigating the brutal murder of a Midsomer Worthy Writers' Circle club member, Chief Inspector Barnaby and his colorful sidekick, Sergeant Troy, delve into the secret passions of the eccentric club to find a killer... -
![No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker]()
No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAfter serving an eight-year term in Folsom State Prison, Max Dembo is determined not to return to his former way of life, in a realistic, suspenseful study of the pressures facing ex-convicts as they attempt to negotiate the straight world. Reissue... -
![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... -
![Nerve by Dick Francis]()
Nerve by Dick Francis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRob Finn was a bit of a misfit: a struggling young jockey in a family of accomplished musicians, a man in love with a beautiful woman who wouldn't have him -- he suddenly looked like a rider who had lost his nerve. Could it be, though, that the horses were unusually sluggish, and that there was something more sinister attempting to sabotage him...?"The best thriller writer going... -
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![The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins, Mark Hammer]()
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins, Mark Hammer
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsEddie Coyle works for Jimmy Scalisi, supplying him with guns for a couple of bank jobs. But a cop named Foley is on to Eddie and he's leaning on him to finger Scalisi, a gang leader with a lot to hide. And then there's Dillon-a full-time bartender and part-time contract killer--pretending to be Eddie's friend. Wheeling, dealing, chasing, and stealing--that's Eddie, and he's got lots of friends... -
![Mourn Not Your Dead by Deborah Crombie]()
Mourn Not Your Dead by Deborah Crombie
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen a high-ranking police officer is brutally murdered, Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are drawn into a case that not only challenges their investigative skills but forces them to examine their ethics and their relationship with each other... -
![Death Is Now My Neighbor by Colin Dexter]()
Death Is Now My Neighbor by Colin Dexter
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe peaceful quadrangle of Lonsdale College seems remote from the shocks of the outside world—such as the shooting of a young woman in her North Oxford home. But things at Lonsdale are not as tranquil as they appear. The Master of the college is retiring, and two senior dons, Denis Cornford and Julian Storrs, are vying, discreetly but furiously, to succeed him... -
![For Kicks by Dick Francis]()
For Kicks by Dick Francis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDaniel Roke, Australian who established a stud farm to raise orphaned siblings, accepts undercover stable lad job from the Earl of October, investigating steeplechase doping in England. At least ten horses win adrenalin-high stimulated, but regular lab tests show nothing. Gorgeous October daughters distract, detract, and fatally endanger. Tension builds into an explosive fight to the death... -
![Clockers by Richard Price]()
Clockers by Richard Price
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAward-winning author Richard Price here offers a viscerally affecting and accomplished portrait of inner-city America.Veteran homicide detective Rocco Klein's passion for the job gave way long ago...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement literary-fiction noir police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century -
![The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri]()
The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn the third book in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, the urbane and perceptive Sicilian detective exposes a viper's nest of government corruption and international intrigue in a compelling new case...Categorized as:
cozy crime law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense 20th-century action-adventure -
![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...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement literary-fiction police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century adult -
![Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin]()
Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the dark days and biting windstorms of an Edinburgh winter, two drop-out kids dive off the towering Forth Road Bridge. A civic office is spattered by a grisly gun-blast. Two suicides and a murder that just don't add up, unless John Rebus can crunch the numbers... -
![Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George]()
Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"The story begins with my father, actually, and the fact that I'm the one who's answerable for his death. It was not my first crime, as you will see, but it is the one my mother couldn't forgive." In her astonishing "New York Times" bestseller, acclaimed author Elizabeth George reveals the even darker truth behind this startling confession...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century adult audiobook -
![The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin]()
The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Hanging Gardens of Babylon... The hanging of four French villagers in World War II... The hanging of an old man in a Scottish cemetery... Seemingly random facts linked to one man.. -
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![Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George]()
Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBalford-le-Nez is a dying seatown on the coast of Essex. But when a member of the town's small but growing Asian community, a Pakistani named Haytham Querashi, is found dead near its beach, his neck broken, sleepy Balford-le-Nez ignites... -
![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...Categorized as:
classics crime drama law-enforcement literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century -
![Stalking the Angel by Robert Crais]()
Stalking the Angel by Robert Crais
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsThe second blistering Elvis Cole novel from the bestselling author of THE FIRST RULE.Bradley Warren had lost something very valuable, something that belonged to someone else: a rare thirteenth-century Japanese manuscript called the Hagakure... -
![Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George]()
Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe career of playwright Joy Sinclair comes to an abrupt end on an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands when someone drives an eighteen-inch dirk through her neck. Called upon to investigate the case in a country where they have virtually no authority, aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, grapple for both a motive and a murderer...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Sidetracked by Henning Mankell]()
Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIn the award-winning Sidetracked, Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day he is called to a beach where Sweden’s former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped... -
![Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James]()
Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsHailed as “mystery at its best” by The New York Times, Shroud for a Nightingale is the fourth book in bestselling author P.D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh mystery series.The young women of Nightingale House are there to learn to nurse and comfort the suffering. But when one of the students plays patient in a demonstration of nursing skills, she is horribly, brutally killed...Categorized as:
classics cozy crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century -
![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...Categorized as:
classics crime drama literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
![Cat & Mouse by James Patterson]()
Cat & Mouse by James Patterson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsIn this New York Times bestseller, two killers-one operating in America, one in Europe-believe Alex Cross is the only worthy opponent in the deadly game each has planned. Gary Soneji, a dying prison escapee, is looking for revenge on Cross, while another insane killer is pursued by Thomas Augustine Pierce-a brilliant and relentless detective who may even be better than Cross...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
![When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson]()
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThree lives come together in unexpected and thrilling ways in Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News?On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever...On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement literary-fiction police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century -
![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 drama literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
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![Plum Island by Nelson DeMille]()
Plum Island by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsThe hair-raising suspense of The General's Daughter... the wry wit of The Gold Coast...this is vintage Nelson DeMille at the peak of his originality and the height of his powers.Wounded in the line of duty, NYPD homicide cop John Corey is convalescing in rural eastern Long Island when an attractive young couple he knows is found shot to death on the family patio...Categorized as:
classics crime drama law-enforcement literary-fiction noir police-procedural suspense -
![For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George]()
For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsElena Weaver was a surprise to anyone meeting her for the first time. In her clingy dresses and dangling earrings she exuded a sexuality at odds with the innocence projected by the unicorn posters on her walls. While her embittered mother fretted about her welfare from her home in London, in Cambridge—where Elena was a student at St...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century adult audiobook -
![A Taste for Death by P.D. James]()
A Taste for Death by P.D. James
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen the quiet Little Vestry of St... -
![Degree of Guilt by Richard North Patterson]()
Degree of Guilt by Richard North Patterson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTV journalist Mary Carelli admits that she shot and killed Mark Ransom, one of the world’s most famous authors. She claims it was self-defense. She swears he tried to rape her. Now she has to prove it in a court of law—with her former lover acting as her attorney…Christopher Paget is one of the top lawyers in the country... -
![The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter]()
The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Dead of Jericho is Colin Dexter's fifth outing featuring the popular detective, Inspector Morse. Morse switched on the gramophone to 'play', and sought to switch his mind away from all the terrestrial troubles. Sometimes, this way, he almost managed to forget. But not tonight . . . Anne Scott's address was scribbled on a crumpled note in the pocket of Morse's smartest suit... -
![The Anodyne Necklace by Martha Grimes]()
The Anodyne Necklace by Martha Grimes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA severed finger found at the scene of a baffling murder in the village of Littlebourne leads local constables on what seems like a wild goose chase. But Richard Jury prefers to take the less traveled route to a slightly disreputable pub, where drinks all around loosen tongues and provide clues galore...
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