Books like 'The Asphalt Jungle'
Readers who enjoyed The Asphalt Jungle by W.R. Burnett also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery 20th century action / adventure noir crime classics hard-boiled drama heist
-
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAndy Dufresne, a banker, was convicted of killing his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank Prison. He maintains his innocence over the decades he spends at Shawshank during which time he forms a friendship with "Red", a fellow inmate.Source: stephenking... -
![The Godfather by Mario Puzo, Peter Bart]()
The Godfather by Mario Puzo, Peter Bart
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsThe Godfather—the epic tale of crime and betrayal that became a global phenomenon.Almost fifty years ago, a classic was born. A searing portrayal of the Mafia underworld, The Godfather introduced readers to the first family of American crime fiction, the Corleones, and their powerful legacy of tradition, blood, and honor... -
![Five Decembers by James Kestrel]()
Five Decembers by James Kestrel
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn this novel of World War II, an American police detective trapped while trailing a killer overseas struggles to survive with only the help of a total stranger and his daughter, who risk their lives to protect him. December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever... -
![The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, Фредерик Форсайт]()
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, Фредерик Форсайт
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsLibrarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man.One man with a rifle who can change the course of history... -
-
![The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Angus Wilson]()
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Angus Wilson
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 35 ratings'Holmes,' I cried. 'Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?'Missing, presumed dead, for three years, Sherlock Holmes returns triumphantly to his dear companion Dr Watson. And not before time! London has never been in more need of his extraordinary services: a murderous individual with an air gun stalks the city... -
![Behind the Lines by W.E.B. Griffin]()
Behind the Lines by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBehind the Lines is W. E. B. Griffin's powerful novel of World War II -- and the courage, patriotism, and sacrifice of those who fought it.By 1942, the Japanese have routed the outnumbered American forces and conquered the Philippines. But deep in the island jungles, the combat continues. Refusing to surrender, a renegade Army officer organizes a resistance force and vows to fight to the last man... -
![Charm School by Nelson DeMille]()
Charm School by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsRead by James NaughtonSomething very strange -- and sinister -- is going on in the Russian woods at Borodino. In a place called Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, young KGB agents are being taught by American POW's how to be model citizens of the USA. The Soviet goal -- to infiltrate the United States undetected... -
![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... -
![King Stakh’s Wild Hunt by Uladzimir Karatkevich]()
King Stakh’s Wild Hunt by Uladzimir Karatkevich
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsKing Stakh's Wild Hunt tells the tale of Andrey Belaretsky, a young folklorist who finds himself stranded by a storm in the castle of Marsh Firs, the seat of the fading aristocratic Yanovsky family. Offered refuge by Nadzeya, the last in the Yanovskys’ line, he learns of the family curse and terrible apparitions that portend her early death and trap her in permanent, maddening fear... -
![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... -
![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... -
![The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie]()
The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFor the first ime in one volume are Agatha Christie's first two mysteries that introduced the world to Hercule Poirot and to Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, all sleuths who have starred in the PBS Mystery! series: with a sudden death as the initiation of his career, Hercule Poirot calls upon the sprawling estate of the Styles Court to identify the murderer of a wealthy heiress from a crowd of... -
![Sackett by Louis L'Amour]()
Sackett by Louis L'Amour
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA drifter by circumstance, William Tell Sackett hungered for a place he couldn’t name but knew he had to find. South of the Tetons, through a keyhole pass, he found it: a lonely yet beautiful valley—with a fortune in gold. Then he found an even greater treasure: Ange Kerry, a courageous and resourceful woman... -
![Sunset Express by Robert Crais]()
Sunset Express by Robert Crais
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsProminent restaurateur Teddy Martin is facing charges in his wife’s brutal murder. But he’s not going down without spending a bundle of cash on his defense. So his hotshot attorney hires P.I. Elvis Cole to find proof that Detective Angela Rossi tampered with the evidence. Rossi needs a way back to the fast track after falling hard during an internal investigation five years ago... -
-
![L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, David Strathairn]()
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, David Strathairn
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsJames Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is film-noir crime fiction akin to Chinatown, Hollywood Babylon, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. It's about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D... -
![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... -
![Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon]()
Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsOne of Sidney Sheldon's most popular and bestselling titles, repackaged and reissued for a new generation of fans. Kate Blackwell is one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. She is an enigma, a woman surrounded by a thousand unanswered questions. Her father was a diamond prospector who struck it rich beyond his wildest dreams... -
![A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr]()
A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhilip Kerr returns with his best-loved character, Bernie Gunther, in the fifth novel in what is now a series: a tight, twisting, compelling thriller that is firmly rooted in history.A Quiet Flame opens in 1950... -
![The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean]()
The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn entire navy had tried to silence the guns of Navarone and failed. Full-scale attacks had been driven back. Now they were sending in just five men, each one a specialist in dealing death... -
![As the Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer]()
As the Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsGrowing up in the slums of East End London, Charlie Trumper dreams of someday running his grandfather's fruit and vegetable barrow. That day comes suddenly when his grandfather dies leaving him the floundering business. With the help of Becky Salmon, an enterprising young woman, Charlie sets out to make a name for himself as "The Honest Trader"... -
![The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré]()
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIn this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction... -
![Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean]()
Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsForbidding peaks, resourceful commandos, beautiful spies, nonstop action, and neck-snapping plot twists make this the classic adventure thriller—the kind of page-turner that readers actually will find impossible to put down... -
![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 Outfit by Richard Stark]()
The Outfit by Richard Stark
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen the Outfit tries to kill him, Parker declares war. Ripping off the syndicate is easy, but going one-on-one with Bronson, the Outfit's big boss, is the hard part. Hard for anyone but Parker, because the entire underworld understands that whatever Parker does -- he does for keep... -
-
![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... -
![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... -
![Homeboy: A Novel by Seth Morgan]()
Homeboy: A Novel by Seth Morgan
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSeth Morgan’s frenzied, addictive walk on the wild side of 1980s San Francisco When strip-joint barker Joe Speaker unwittingly steals a sixty-nine-carat blue diamond, he becomes enmeshed in a blackmail-and-murder conspiracy that begins with the savage slaying of high-priced call girl Gloria Monday. Suddenly Joe’s a wanted man... -
![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... -
![Isabella's Painting by Ellen Butler]()
Isabella's Painting by Ellen Butler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn 1990 Boston's Gardner Museum was robbed of $500 million worth of artwork. Twenty-eight years later the art remains at large ... until now. Peeling back layers of lies could save a masterpiece or reveal a killer. After a long week lobbying on Capitol Hill, all Karina Cardinal wants to do is chill with Netflix and her boyfriend, Patrick Dunne... -
![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... -
![Daddy by Loup Durand]()
Daddy by Loup Durand
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWho has the key to a $350 million fortune the Nazis have sent their most brilliant operative to find? Thomas, an 11-year old boy with the mind of a genius, the cunning of a fox, and the chance of a snowball in Hell to escape...unless he is helped by one man. An American who doesn't even know he exists. A man he calls Daddy... -
![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... -
![The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout]()
The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBy the author of The Homesman, now a major motion picture The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a gunfighter at the turn of the twentieth century who must confront the greatest Shootist of all: Death. Most men would end their days in bed or take their own lives, but a gunfighter has a third option, one that Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner... -
![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 Mystery of the Spiteful Letters by Enid Blyton]()
The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters by Enid Blyton
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn adventure for the Five Find-Outers and their dog. Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip, Bets and Buster become involved in a very peculiar situation when a series of unsigned letters are sent to various people in Peterswood... -
![A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald]()
A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBeing accused at gunpoint of hiding another man's wife is a rude shock. But it's an even bigger shock when Travis McGee discovers that the woman in question is Mary Broll, a dear old friend. Now she's disappeared, vanished without a word to anyone... -
![The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald]()
The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWith an introduction by CARL HIAASENJOHN D. MacDONALD."..the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller." --STEPHEN KING."..a master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer."--MARY HIGGINS CLARK."..a dominant influence on writers crafting the continuing series character."--SUE GRAFTON."..my favorite novelist of all time."--DEAN KOONTZ.". -
![If The Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr]()
If The Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn instant classic in the Bernie Gunther series, with storytelling that is fresher and more vivid than ever. Berlin, 1934: The Nazis have secured the 1936 Olympiad for the city but are facing foreign resistance. Hitler and Avery Brundage, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, have connived to soft-pedal Nazi anti- Semitism and convince America to participate... -
![HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean]()
HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe novel that launched the astonishing career of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers of action and suspense – an acclaimed classic of heroism and the sea in World War II. Now reissued in a new cover style... -
![Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke]()
Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA sprawling thriller drenched with atmosphere and intrigue that takes a young boy from a chance encounter with Bonnie and Clyde to the trenches of World War II and the oil fields along the Texas-Louisiana coast... -
![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... -
![Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald]()
Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHow far would you go to save your family? In John D. MacDonald's iconic masterwork of suspense, the inspiration for not one but two Hollywood hits, a mild-mannered family is tormented by an obsessed criminal--and with the authorities powerless to protect them, they must take the law into their own hands... -
![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... -
![The Sicilian by Mario Puzo]()
The Sicilian by Mario Puzo
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAfter Mario Puzo wrote his internationally acclaimed The Godfather, he has often been imitated but never equaled. Puzo's classic novel, The Sicilian, stands as a cornerstone of his work--a lushly romantic, unforgettable tale of bloodshed, justice, and treachery. . . .The year is 1950. Michael Corleone is nearing the end of his exile in Sicily... -
-
![The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier]()
The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBy chance, John and Jean--one English, the other French--meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared... -
![White Butterfly by Walter Mosley, Stanley Bennett Clay]()
White Butterfly by Walter Mosley, Stanley Bennett Clay
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe police don't show up on Easy Rawlins's doorstep until the third girl dies. It's Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: "I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto." But Easy turns them down. He's married now, a father -- and his detective days are over... -
![Hombre by Elmore Leonard]()
Hombre by Elmore Leonard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet in Arizona mining country, Hombre is the tale of a white man raised by Indians, who must come to the aid of people who hate him when their stagecoach is attacked by outlaws... -
![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... -
![The Way Some People Die by Ross Macdonald]()
The Way Some People Die by Ross Macdonald
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn a rundown house in Santa Monica, Mrs. Samuel Lawrence presses fifty crumpled bills into Lew Archer's hand and asks him to find her wandering daughter, Galatea. Described as ‘crazy for men’ and without discrimination, she was last seen driving off with small-time gangster Joe Tarantine, a hophead hood with a rep for violence... -
![Nightmare Town: Stories by Dashiell Hammett]()
Nightmare Town: Stories by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIntroduced by Colin Dexter, one of England's greatest writers of detective fiction, here are twenty long-unavailable stories by Dashiell Hammett, the author of The Maltese Falcon and one of the finest writers of the twentieth century.In the title story, a man on a bender enters a small town and ends up unravelling the dark mystery at its heart...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
