Books like 'The Swordfish'
Readers who enjoyed The Swordfish by Hugo Claus & Ruth Levitt also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century coming-of-age crime
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The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsUpon its original publication in 1951, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was immediately embraced as one of the first serious works of fiction to help readers grapple with the human consequences of World War II... -
![Nothing More Dangerous by Allen Eskens, Kevin Stillwell]()
Nothing More Dangerous by Allen Eskens, Kevin Stillwell
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe summer of 1976 is a turning point for 15-year-old Boady Sanden. He's managed to outrun and outwit the bullying seniors throughout his freshman year at St. Ignatius High; he's working multiple jobs for Wally Schenicker's construction company; and he finally makes a friend his own age--Thomas Elgin, son of the only black family on Boady's side of town...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime 20th-century action-adventure amateur-sleuth audiobook bildungsroman book -
![The Boy Who Granted Dreams by Luca Di Fulvio]()
The Boy Who Granted Dreams by Luca Di Fulvio
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratings1909. Ellis Island. Arriving off one of the many transatlantic freighters are Cetta Luminita and her illegitimate baby boy Natale, fleeing the poverty and violence of their Southern Italian hometown. Having sacrificed everything, and endured every possible shame, Cetta has but one wish: that her baby should be an American, and grow up with the freedom to decide his own destiny... -
![A Prince Without a Kingdom by Timothée de Fombelle]()
A Prince Without a Kingdom by Timothée de Fombelle
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis was the only treasure that Vango was after: the secret of his life.Vango has been in danger for as long as he can remember. He has spent his life running along rooftops, fleeing to mysterious islands, and abandoning those he loves in order to protect them from the demons of his past. But Vango will not run for much longer... -
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![Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers]()
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with a charismatic, married doctor...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime romance historical-fiction fiction historical literary-fiction audiobook -
![When Daylight Comes by Lyn Andrews]()
When Daylight Comes by Lyn Andrews
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJessica Brennan's world falls apart when her father is lost at sea. The death of her mother soon after is almost too much to bear. Then Jess learns that the family business is in ruins, and there are further blows to come.Suddenly a young woman who has known only comfort and security finds herself alone and friendless... -
![The Girl in the Photo by Catherine Hokin]()
The Girl in the Photo by Catherine Hokin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTheresienstadt Concentration Camp, 1944. ‘I have to go away, my darling. Please, be brave, stay alive, for me.’ Mama’s voice breaks. The little girl tries to stop the forbidden tears from falling, as the train takes her mother, and she is left alone…Berlin, six years later. Hanni Winter glows with pride as she shows her new husband around her first solo photography exhibition...Categorized as:
coming-of-age 20th-century adult book female-mc fiction historical historical-fiction -
![The Nero Wolfe Mystery Series: The Zeck Trilogy: And Be a Villain, The Second Confession, In the Best Families by Rex Stout]()
The Nero Wolfe Mystery Series: The Zeck Trilogy: And Be a Villain, The Second Confession, In the Best Families by Rex Stout
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe perfect introduction to crime fiction’s greatest armchair detective: three mysteries featuring Nero Wolfe and his nemesis, gangland kingpin Arnold Zeck . . .AND BE A VILLAINTHE SECOND CONFESSIONIN THE BEST FAMILIES A guest on a radio talk show drops dead on-air after drinking a glass of a sponsor’s beverage... -
![The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater]()
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWalter and Winston set out to rescue the inventor of the Alligatron, a computer developed from an avocado which is the world's last defense against the space-realtors...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children children-books -
![The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman]()
The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America’s rising eugenics movement – when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin – in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope for readers of Susan...Categorized as:
coming-of-age historical-fiction fiction audiobook historical social-commentary rural 20th-century -
![Rich Man, Poor Man by Irwin Shaw]()
Rich Man, Poor Man by Irwin Shaw
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsRich Man, Poor Man is the story of two brothers whose contrasting natures reflect the turmoil of post-war America. Rudy is the rich man - a romantic who would let no one stand between him and success. Tom is the poor man - the black sheep of the family on the run from his violent past... -
![An Ordinary Woman: An utterly captivating and uplifting story of one woman’s strength and determination… by Susan Sallis]()
An Ordinary Woman: An utterly captivating and uplifting story of one woman’s strength and determination… by Susan Sallis
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen Rose was four the scandal broke about her head. She was really too young to understand what was happening - only that her mother was in disgrace and that they were leaving Aunt Mabe in America and returning home to England. The following May, Joanna - 'Jon' - was born. Rose and Jon were totally different... -
![Madame by Antoni Libera]()
Madame by Antoni Libera
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe comic "sentimental education" of a schoolboy who falls in love with his French teacher. Madame is an unexpected gem: a novel about Poland during the grim years of Soviet-controlled mediocrity, which nonetheless sparkles with light and warmth... -
![Magda's Daughter by Catrin Collier]()
Magda's Daughter by Catrin Collier
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsStateless and destitute after the Second World War, Magda Janek settles in the Welsh town of Pontypridd, in the hope of building a new life for herself and her baby daughter, Helena. All Magda has to give Helena are the ambitions she had once cherished for herself; dreams cruelly snatched from her by the war and its terrible aftermath... -
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![The Lost Girl of Astor Street by Stephanie Morrill]()
The Lost Girl of Astor Street by Stephanie Morrill
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLydia has vanished. Lydia, who’s never broken any rules, except falling in love with the wrong boy. Lydia, who’s been Piper’s best friend since they were children. Lydia, who never even said good-bye. Convinced the police are looking in all the wrong places, eighteen-year-old Piper Sail begins her own investigation in an attempt to solve the mystery of Lydia’s disappearance... -
![The 3 Robbers by Tomi Ungerer]()
The 3 Robbers by Tomi Ungerer
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsThree robbers terrify the countryside until they are subdued by the charm of a little orphan girl named Tiffany. Illustrations... -
![The Kobra Manifesto by Adam Hall]()
The Kobra Manifesto by Adam Hall
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Yugoslavian plane crashes in the south of France; a fuel tanker explodes at Rome airport, a British diplomat is shot dead in Phnom Penh. In each case Quiller, Adam Hall's relentless British agent witnesses the violence as he pursues a fanatical terrorist group known as Kobra.THE KOBRA MANIFESTO is the seventh of Adam Hall's highly acclaimed series of Quiller novels... -
![My Lvov: Holocaust Memoir of a twelve-year-old Girl by Janina Hescheles, Yaroslav Hrytsak]()
My Lvov: Holocaust Memoir of a twelve-year-old Girl by Janina Hescheles, Yaroslav Hrytsak
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhile still twelve years old, Janina Hescheles wrote this harrowing report from her hiding place in Cracow. The notebook, filled with clear childlike writing, was fortunately preserved. She tells about the German occupation of Lvov, the loss of her parents, about the Ghetto and mass murder in the notorious forced-labor camp Janowska in Lvov...Categorized as:
coming-of-age 20th-century adult book fiction historical historical-fiction literary-fiction -
![Violet’s Children by Maureen Lee]()
Violet’s Children by Maureen Lee
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBeginning in 1950s Liverpool, VIOLET'S CHILDREN is a warm and nostalgicstory of a young woman who must adopt her sister's children after tragedy strikes... -
![Christmas With Nurse Millie by Jean Fullerton]()
Christmas With Nurse Millie by Jean Fullerton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsChristmas is approaching - but for Nurse Millie and Nurse Annie babies are still being born, and in the East End of London, new mothers still need all the care and support they can give... -
![In Times Like These by Emilie Loring]()
In Times Like These by Emilie Loring
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYoung, beautiful, embittered Page Wilburn staggered under the impact of a callously broken engagement. Her only solace was her drab secretarial job. Suddenly winter turned to spring. Page was swept into the whirlwind of international intrigue as the in-name-only wife of a dashing undercover agent investigating treason in our space program... -
![Ellan Vannin by Lyn Andrews]()
Ellan Vannin by Lyn Andrews
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLife was not easy for widowed George Vannin and his young daughter but somehow George had raised the child alone and Ellan adored her father. She was ten when the shaft at Foxdale Mine collapsed, and her father never came up. From then on she lived with Aunt Maud, a dour woman with a quick temper... -
![Queen of Clubs by Beezy Marsh]()
Queen of Clubs by Beezy Marsh
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLondon, 1957: After rising up against gangland’s queen, Alice Diamond, formerly downtrodden Nell is living the perfect life of crime. Far from the East End slums where she was raised, she’s now an accomplished professional thief by day—lifting luxury goods from high-end department stores—and a glamorous nightclub owner after dark... -
![The Blue Sapphire by D.E. Stevenson]()
The Blue Sapphire by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe blue sapphire is the gem which the Ancients called the hyacinthus and which Solinus described as ‘a gem that feels the influence of the air and sympathises with the heavens and does not shine equally if the sky be cloudy or bright...’ On a beautiful spring day Julia Harburn sat on a seat in Kensington Gardens enjoying the sunshine... -
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![The Sun Rose in Paris: Portraits in Blue - Book One by Penny Fields-Schneider]()
The Sun Rose in Paris: Portraits in Blue - Book One by Penny Fields-Schneider
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen a chance foray into the midst of the 1930s Parisian art world ignites passions Jack did not know existed, how can he possibly go home? Jack has been praised all his life for his extraordinary artistic talent and is rarely seen without his sketchpad... -
![The Long Home by William Gay]()
The Long Home by William Gay
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine - until he learns of it first-hand... -
![The Missing Daughter by Emily Gunnis]()
The Missing Daughter by Emily Gunnis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the author of the runaway bestseller The Girl in the Letter comes a heartwrenching, twisting novel of betrayal, tragedy and a shocking family secret buried for decades.1960. Thirteen-year-old Rebecca lives in fear of her father’s temper. As a storm batters Seaview Cottage one night, she hears a visitor at the door and a violent argument ensues... -
![The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig]()
The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon, as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort... -
![The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke]()
The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke—an atmospheric, coming-of-age story set in 1952 Texas, as the Korea War rages.On its surface, life in Houston is as you would expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, jukeboxes, teenagers discovering their sexuality... -
![The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris]()
The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsNEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY BESTSELLEROn a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard’s only daughter—one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island—has gone missing. Tending the warden’s greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously... -
![O toaletă à la Liz Taylor by Rodica Ojog-Braşoveanu]()
O toaletă à la Liz Taylor by Rodica Ojog-Braşoveanu
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAvem un tânăr superb, fermecător, bogat; canalie. Șase oameni care nu se cunosc între ei, șase oameni cu motivații cu totul diferite, iau hotărârea de a-l ucide. În aceeași zi, la aceeași oră.Deși avertizată, victima nu reușește să se sustragă propriului destin. Există, de fapt, un singur asasin... -
![The Lacquer Screen by Robert van Gulik]()
The Lacquer Screen by Robert van Gulik
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsEarly in his career, Judge Dee visits a senior magistrate who shows him a beautiful lacquer screen on which a scene of lovers has been mysteriously altered to show the man stabbing his lover. The magistrate fears he is losing his mind and will murder his own wife... -
![Net of Jewels by Ellen Gilchrist]()
Net of Jewels by Ellen Gilchrist
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRhoda Manning is home for the summer in Dunleith, Alabama. In an age of conformity and innocence, the 19-year-old is tired of conventional virtue. Resisting her easy life, she yearns for meaning and beauty, profundity and mystery. Impulsive and adventurous, she attends a midnight meeting of the Klan, and then repelled, hurls herself into the civil rights movement... -
![Deadly Kisses by Brenda Joyce]()
Deadly Kisses by Brenda Joyce
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"I did not kill anyone, Francesca. And the fact that you wish to destroy evidence suggests you think me capable of murder." Called to the home of her fiancé Calder Hart's former mistress late one night, amateur sleuth Francesca Cahill's curiosity is piqued... -
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![Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation by Harlan Ellison]()
Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe original 50 cent paperback edition of this book now goes for $100 in rare book auctions. Why? Because it contains 25 of the best, hardest-to-find stories of the writer the Washington Post calls "one of the great living American short story writers," the unpredictable Harlan Ellison... -
![The Real Minerva by Mary Sharratt]()
The Real Minerva by Mary Sharratt
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMinerva, Minnesota, in 1923 is the picture of Willa Cather-like gentility: the Northern Pacific Railway runs through a town center dominated by church steeples and the Hamilton Creamery and Pop Factory. But Minerva is also a small town of limited opportunity, a place where the status quo is firmly entrenched and rigidly enforced... -
![Brothers, Boyfriends & Other Criminal Minds by April Lurie]()
Brothers, Boyfriends & Other Criminal Minds by April Lurie
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBrooklyn 1977. April Lundquist lives in Dyker Heights, a neighborhood populated by the Mafia. Three hit men live on her block:Francesco "Frankie the Crunch' Consiglione, Vincent "Gorgeous Vinny" Persico, and Salvatore "Soft Sal" Luciano. When Soft Sal approaches April and her best friend, Brandi Rinaldi, for a favor, well . . . the girls can't refuse... -
![Journey to the End of the World by Henning Mankell]()
Journey to the End of the World by Henning Mankell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNow that he's getting older, Joel Gustafson has a lot to consider. His birthday is next month. He'll be fifteen, and he can't stop thinking about the new liberties that come with being fifteen: he'll be allowed to ride a moped, and he'll no longer need to sneak into the cinema to see an adults-only film... -
![Lethal Practice by Peter Clement]()
Lethal Practice by Peter Clement
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSt. Paul's Hospital. Buffalo, New York.Scandal rocks the medical community when someone murders the chief administrator, plunging a long thin cardiac needle into his heart with deadly precision. Top ER physician Earl Garnet is one of the few doctors who knows how to insert a cardiac needle... -
![World Light by Halldór Laxness]()
World Light by Halldór Laxness
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAs an unloved foster child on a farm in rural Iceland, Olaf Karason has only one consolation: the belief that one day he will be a great poet. The indifference and contempt of most of the people around him only reinforces his sense of destiny, for in Iceland poets are as likely to be scorned as they are to be revered... -
![The Last Fashion House in Paris by Renee Ryan]()
The Last Fashion House in Paris by Renee Ryan
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the heart of occupied WWII Paris, an elegant fashion house is the unlikely headquarters of a daring resistance network. Behind closed doors, courageous women vie to save loved ones and strangers alike from the Nazis in this powerful story of survival, friendship and second chances.France, 1942Once, Paulette Leblanc spent her days flirting, shopping and drawing elegant dresses in her sketch pad... -
![Love Among the Walnuts by Jean Ferris]()
Love Among the Walnuts by Jean Ferris
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSandy Huntington-Ackerman didn't expect life to be a free ride (even though his parents are multimillionaires). He certainly didn't expect his two money-grubbing uncles to try to kill his family with a drugged birthday cake. Luckily for Sandy, the cake only sends his parents (and their pet chicken, Attila) into a coma...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime 20th-century action-adventure book children comedy domestic-drama -
![The Maids / Deathwatch by Jean Genet]()
The Maids / Deathwatch by Jean Genet
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe two plays featured in this volume represent Genet's first attempts to analyze the mores of a bourgeois society he had previously been content simply to vilify. In The Maids, two domestic workers, deeply resentful of their inferior social position, try to revenge themselves against society by destroying their employer... -
![The Art of Living by John Gardner]()
The Art of Living by John Gardner
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe first collection in seven years from one of America's most celebrated and admired writers--ten wonderful short (and long) stories that allow us to explore and enjoy once again the many facets of John Gardner's unique fictional world... -
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![An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser]()
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 28 ratings'An American Tragedy' is the story of Clyde Griffiths, who spends his life in the desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, it is the masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's ambitions and seal his fate; it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American dream... -
![A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez]()
A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA young woman looks back to the world of her immigrant parents: a Chinese-Panamanian father and a German mother. Growing up in a housing project in the 1950s and 1960s, she escapes into dreams inspired both by her parents' stories and by her own reading and, for a time, into the otherworldly life of ballet... -
![The Blackboard Jungle by Evan Hunter]()
The Blackboard Jungle by Evan Hunter
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis "nightmarish but authentic" ("Time") portrait of a high school English teacher and the defiant, uncontrollable students in his charge rings with ferocious urgency and harrowing realism. A timeless rendering of youth culture set against the backdrop of 1950s New York City, "The Blackboard Jungle" speaks powerfully to the alarming epidemic of violence and security issues in today's schools... -
![The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden]()
The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNot a usual marker, but a feather, a tip feather from a peacock's train, lucently blue and green ..Categorized as:
coming-of-age 20th-century book family female-mc fiction historical historical-fiction -
![The House By The Loch by Kirsty Wark]()
The House By The Loch by Kirsty Wark
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle, a novel of long-hidden family secrets that refuse to lie buried in the past . . .Scotland 1950sWalter MacMillan is bewitched by the clever, glamorous Jean Thompson and can't believe his luck when she agrees to marry him... -
![The Whiskey Sea by Ann Howard Creel]()
The Whiskey Sea by Ann Howard Creel
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsRunning rum during Prohibition, she’ll risk her life—and her heart. Motherless and destitute, Frieda Hope is determined to make a better life for herself and her sister, Bea. The girls are taken in by a kindly fisherman named Silver, and Frieda begins to feel at home on the water...
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