Books like 'The Blackbirder'
Readers who enjoyed The Blackbirder by Dorothy B. Hughes also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery 20th century military, war & conflict ww2 thriller noir pulp crime classics
-
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... -
In Danger's Path by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDesperate to find someone to unite the warring interests of General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, and OSS chief Donovan, FDR puts Fleming Pickering in charge of the OSS's Pacific operations... -
The Paris Assignment by Rhys Bowen
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA courageous wife, mother, and resister confronts the devastation of World War II in a heartbreaking and hopeful novel by the bestselling author of The Venice Sketchbook and The Tuscan Child.Londoner Madeleine Grant is studying at the Sorbonne in Paris when she marries charismatic French journalist Giles Martin. As they raise their son, Olivier, they hold on to a tenuous promise for the future... -
The Secretary by Catherine Hokin
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsThe Tower House. Down a secluded path, hidden by overgrown vines, the crumbling villa echoes with memories. Of the family who laughed and sang there, until the Nazis tore them from their home. And of the next woman to walk its empty rooms, whose courage in the face of evil could alter the course of history…Germany 1940... -
-
The Last Restaurant in Paris by Lily Graham
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsParis 1944. To save her people, she served the enemy.In enemy-occupied Paris, as the locals go to bed starving and defeated by the war, music and laughter spills through the door of a little restaurant, crowded with German soldiers. The owner Marianne moves on weary feet between its packed tables, carrying plates of steaming, wholesome food for the enemy officers...Categorized as:
female-mc historical-fiction journey literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
Retreat, Hell! by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is the fall of 1950. The Marines have made a pivotal breakthrough at Inchon, but a roller coaster awaits them. While Douglas MacArthur chomps at the bit, intent on surging across the 38th parallel, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering works desperately to mediate the escalating battle between MacArthur and President Harry Truman... -
Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom New York Times–bestselling author Philip Kerr, the much-anticipated return of Bernie Gunther, our compromised former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer. With his cover blown, he is waiting for the next move in the cat-and-mouse game that, even a decade after Germany’s defeat, continues to shadow his life... -
Counterattack by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to America's first bold counterstrike against the Japanese on the beaches of Guadalcanal, this compelling novel takes readers to the front lines of victory and defeat... -
The Secret Agent: An emotional and totally gripping WW2 historical novel by Elisabeth Hobbes
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMy name is Sylvie Duchene and I am a dancer. There is no network. I am just a dancer. I know nothing. Please…I swear it…An unknown location, occupied France, 1944Dropping silently behind enemy lines, Sylvia Crichton, codename Monique, is determined to fight for the country of her birth and save it from its Nazi stranglehold... -
Black Cross by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is January 1944 — and as Allied troops prepare for D-day, Nazi scientists develop a toxic nerve gas that will repel and wipe out any invasion force. To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects... -
The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the depths of war, she would defy the odds to help liberate a nation...a gripping historical novel based on a remarkable true story from the bestselling author of Hemingway's GirlFrance, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn't like the other young society women back home in Baltimore--she never wanted the debutante ball or silk gloves... -
Conspiracy of Lies by Kathryn Gauci
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the author of The Embroiderer comes a powerful account of one woman's struggle to balance her duty to her country and a love she knows will ultimately end in tragedy. 1940. With the Germans about to enter Paris, Claire Bouchard flees France for England. Two years later she is recruited by the Special Operations Executive and sent back into occupied France to work alongside the Resistance...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 20th-century -
The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins, Maria Luisa Bocchino
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn November of 1943, an elite team of Nazi paratroopers descends on British soil with a diabolical goal: to abduct Winston Churchill and cripple the Allied war effort. The mission, ordered by Hitler himself and planned by Heinrich Himmler, is led by ace agent Kurt Steiner and aided on the ground by IRA gunman Liam Devlin... -
Victory and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe spectacular new book in New York Times-bestselling author W.E.B. Griffin's Honor Bound saga of World War II espionage. Wars come to an end. But then new ones begin. Just weeks after Hitler's suicide, Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS find themselves up to their necks in battles every bit as fierce as the ones just ended...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller 20th-century -
-
Empire and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOctober 1945: The Germans and Japanese have surrendered. For Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS, it should be time to pack up—but they have far more important things to do.Chief among them is the protection of their assets, especially the human ones. In the closing months of the war, the United States made a secret deal with the head of German intelligence’s Soviet section...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller 20th-century -
Blood and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIf you enjoyed W. E. B. Griffin's Honor Bound, you should segue with pleasure into this involving sequel. Set in Buenos Aires in 1943, it follows the adventures of three American soldiers as they think and fight their way through a complex story about Nazi sympathizers, dedicated supporters of the Allied cause, and other people just trying to stay alive... -
Secret Honor by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe crackling new novel in the bestselling Honor Bound series, by the master of the military thriller. As with his other enormously popular series, the first two novels in W. E .B. Griffin’s saga of World War II espionage in Germany and Argentina – Honor Bound and Blood and Honor – became immediate bestsellers and were hailed as “immensely entertaining adventures” (Kirkus Reviews)...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller 20th-century -
The Girl from Vichy by Andie Newton
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShe's done running. Now she fights. 1942, occupied France.With the war raging in Europe, Adèle Ambeh dreams of a France that is free from the clutches of the Nazis. As the date of her marriage to a ruthless man draws closer, she only has one choice: she must run.Adèle flees to Lyon and seeks refuge at the Sisters of Notre Dame de la Compassion...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue war ww2 20th-century adult -
Secret Army by Robert Muchamore
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBritain, 1941. The government is building a secret army of intelligence agents to work undercover, gathering information and planning sabotage operations. Henderson's boys are part of that network: kids cut adrift by the war, training for the fight of their lives. They'll have to parachute into unknown territory, travel cross-country and outsmart a bunch of adults in a daredevil exercise... -
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...Categorized as:
crime espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction noir political-intrigue suspense war -
Field Gray by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhilip Kerr delivers a novel with the noir sensibility of Raymond Chandler, the realpolitik of vintage John le Carré, and the dark moral vision of Graham Greene...Categorized as:
crime espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction noir political-intrigue suspense war -
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...Categorized as:
classics crime espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue suspense war -
Invitation to Valhalla by Mike Whicker
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsErika Lehmann. She is the Nazis' top spy. Code-named Lorelei, she is the English speaking daughter of Hitler's old comrade and a member of the Fuhrer's inner circle. She is beautiful, athletic, and clever--the epitome of Aryan womanhood. She'll stop at nothing to accomplish her mission, including masquerading as a Jew. Joe Mayer... -
In Satan's Shadow by John Anthony Miller
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBerlin, 1943. British agent Michael York is sent to Berlin to solve the mystery of his predecessor’s death. A member of the Berlin String Quartet, four talented musicians, had offered the British Intelligence officer valuable information. But another member had betrayed him, and turned him in to the Gestapo...Categorized as:
historical-fiction espionage romantic-love suspense literary-fiction thriller ww2 war -
-
The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter the murder of her best friend, a librarian’s search for answers leads back to her own dark secrets in this sweeping novel about a woman transformed by war, family, vengeance, and love, from award-winning writer Allen Eskens.Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone... -
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... -
While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEnglish girl Sheila Matthews’ innocent holiday to Poland becomes a nightmare when the German Army invade in the summer of 1939. Working for the Polish underground as a double-agent, she plays a dangerous game, and is soon suspected by the Germans. Forced to flee to the forest and hunted by a ruthless German officer, she must rely on the dashing Captain Adam Wisniewski to help her home... -
One Final Turn by Ashley Weaver
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe fifth and final installment in the Electra McDonnell series brings safecracker Ellie on a mission across World War II-era Europe to Lisbon, Portugal to rescue a key group of escaped POWs.Ellie McDonnell is about to embark on her most perilous mission go to Lisbon, Portugal to save her beloved cousin Toby who has reportedly escaped from a German prisoner of war camp... -
Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel, Charles W. Bailey II
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Gentleman Jim" Scott was a brilliant magnetic general. Like a lot of people, he believed the President was ruining the country. Unlike anyone else, he had the power to do something about it, something unprecedented and terrifying. Colonel "Jiggs" Casey was the Marine who accidentally stumbled onto the plot...Categorized as:
classics crime espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war thriller -
The Soldier Spies by W.E.B. Griffin, Stephen Lang
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn November 1942, war is raging in Europe. The invasion of North Africa has begun. In Washington, OSS Chief William J. Donovan finds himself fighting a rear-guard battle against an unexpected enemy: the rival intelligence chiefs back home...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue war ww2 thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Assassination Option by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJames Cronley’s first successful mission for the new Central Intelligence Directorate has drawn all kinds of attention, some welcome, some not, including from the Soviets, his own Pentagon, and a seething J. Edgar Hoover... -
Bomber by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe classic novel of the Second World War that relates in devastating detail the 24-hour story of an allied bombing raid.Bomber is a novel of war. There are no victors, no vanquished. There are simply those who remain alive, and those who die.Bomber follows the progress of an Allied air raid through a period of twenty-four hours in the summer of 1943...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue war ww2 thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Honor Bound by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt's 1942. A Marine aviator, an Army paratrooper and demolitions expert, and a non-com radio man are on an impossible mission for the OSS - sabotaging the resupply of German ships and submarines - by any means necessary! First Lieutenant Cletus Frade is fresh from Guadalcanal...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller 20th-century -
Eagle Day by Robert Muchamore
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLate summer, 1940.Hitler has conquered France. Now he intends to cross the Channel and defeat Britain before winter arrives.A group of young refugees led by British spy Charles Henderson faces a stark choice. To head south into the safety of neutral Spain, or go north on a risky mission to sabotage the German invasion plans.For official purposes, these children do not exist... -
-
The Fighting Agents by W.E.B. Griffin, Stephen Lang
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBest of the Best. The fourth volume of Men at War follows the electrifying saga of the OSS during World War II as the story moves from the Philippines to Budapest to Cairo. Abridged...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller 20th-century -
Potsdam Station by David Downing
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsApril, 1945. The Third Reich is on the verge of extinction, and its enemies are already plotting against each other. For John Russell, this has personal importance: his son and girlfriend are trapped in Berlin and only the Soviets can get him in there. But the price of their help will threaten both his and the world's postwar future...Categorized as:
crime espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction noir political-intrigue suspense war -
The One from the Other by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhilip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy—featuring the tough, fast-talking, noirish detective Bernie Gunther—is a publishing phenomenon that continues to win new fans more than fifteen years after its initial publication. Kerr has brought Bernie back in a highly anticipated thriller that will delight fans of the original books and attract new attention to the backlist...Categorized as:
crime espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction noir political-intrigue suspense war -
Dark Star by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe acclaimed author of Night Soldiers offers a dramatic and exciting spy thriller of Eastern Europe on the brink of World War II. In the back alleys and glittering salons of Europe, there is a thin line between survival and betrayal, as Soviet NKVD agents and the Nazi Gestapo confront each other in a brilliant duel of espionage. Like watching Casablanca for the first time.--Time...Categorized as:
crime espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction noir political-intrigue suspense war -
To the Grave by Steve Robinson
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA curiously dated child’s suitcase arrives, unannounced and unexplained, in a modern-day Washington suburb. A week later, American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is sitting in an English hotel room, staring at the wrong end of a loaded gun.In his latest journey into the past, Tayte lands in wartime Leicestershire, England... -
The Mademoiselle Alliance by Natasha Lester
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHow did a young Parisienne mother, celebrated for her beauty and glamour, come to lead the largest spy network in France? A powerful, heartbreaking historical novel by the New York Times bestselling authorMorocco, 1928. Eighteen-year-old Frenchwoman Marie-Madeleine is not the kind of woman who goes through life sitting down, something her new husband can attest... -
Mr Einstein's Secretary by Matthew Reilly
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA SECRETARY LIKE NO OTHERIN AN EPIC SPANNING 40 YEARSAll Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein.But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life - as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy... -
Code Name Sapphire by Pam Jenoff
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA woman must rescue her cousin's family from a train bound for Auschwitz in this riveting tale of bravery and resistance, from the bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris1942. Hannah Martel has narrowly escaped Nazi Germany after her fiancé was killed in a pogrom...Categorized as:
espionage female-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 -
Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA suspected informer is found dead in a collapsed section of an escape tunnel being dug in a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy. To protect the tunnel, the prisoners decide to move the body to another tunnel that has already been abandoned. But then the fascist captors declare the death to be murder and determine to investigate and execute the officer they suspect was responsible... -
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... -
-
A Game of Lies by Rebecca Cantrell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJournalist Hannah Vogel returns in A Game of Lies by award-winning author Rebecca Cantrell In preparation for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Nazis have rid the streets of anti-Semitic material and other propaganda, and present a peace-seeking face to the world. Journalist and part-time spy for the British, Hannah Vogel, shudders to think of what lies under the temporary coat of gloss... -
Dark Voyage by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMay, 1941. At four in the morning, a rust-streaked tramp freighter steams up the Tagus River to dock at the port of Lisbon. She is the Santa Rosa; she flies the flag of neutral Spain and is in Lisbon to load cork oak, tinned sardines, and drums of cooking oil bound for the Baltic port of Malmo.But she is not the Santa Rosa. She is the Noordendam, a Dutch freighter...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller 20th-century -
The Spy by Andrew Gross
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFebruary, 1943. Both the Allies and the Nazis are closing in on attempts to construct the decisive weapon of the war. Kurt Nordstrum, an engineer in Oslo, puts his life aside to take up arms against the Germans as part of the Norwegian resistance...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller -
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...Categorized as:
crime espionage historical-fiction literary-fiction noir political-intrigue suspense war -
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... -
The World at Night by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsParis, 1940. The civilized, upper-class life of film producer Jean Casson is derailed by the German occupation of Paris, but Casson learns that with enough money, compromise, and connections, one need not deny oneself the pleasures of Parisian life. Somewhere inside Casson, though, is a stubborn romantic streak...Categorized as:
espionage historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war ww2 thriller 20th-century
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.