Books like 'Blood Rubies'
Readers who enjoyed Blood Rubies by Axel Young, Michael McDowell & Dennis Schuetz also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical horror 20th century pulp creepy-children family crime
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The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.52 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsThe internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author returns to the magnificent universe he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven in this riveting series finale—a heart-pounding thriller and nail-biting work of suspense which introduces a sexy, seductive new heroine whose investigation shines a light on the dark... -
![Boy's Life by Robert McCammon]()
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn Alabama boy’s innocence is shaken by murder and madness in the 1960s South in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Swan Song. It’s 1964 in idyllic Zephyr, Alabama. People either work for the paper mill up the Tecumseh River, or for the local dairy. It’s a simple life, but it stirs the impressionable imagination of twelve-year-old aspiring writer Cory Mackenson... -
![The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult]()
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSome stories live forever . . .Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship... -
![The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The War of the Worlds by Manly Wade Wellman, Wade Wellman]()
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The War of the Worlds by Manly Wade Wellman, Wade Wellman
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn 1897, the world changed forever when our planet came under attack from Martian invaders. The world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, along with his friend Professor Challenger embark on one of their most dangerous adventures to date... to discover the nature and intent of their extra-terrestrial attackers... -
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![The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBarcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past... -
![Provinces of Night by William Gay]()
Provinces of Night by William Gay
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe year is 1952, and E.F. Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after twenty years of roaming. The wife he walked out on has withered and faded. His three sons are grown and angry. Warren is a womanising alcoholic; Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife's lover; and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mother's porch... -
![The Delicate Prey and Other Stories by Paul Bowles]()
The Delicate Prey and Other Stories by Paul Bowles
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPaul Bowles once said that a story should remain taut throughout, like a piece of string. That tense, stretched tone is the key to this collection of 17 eerie tales by the author best known for The Sheltering Sky. The Delicate Prey is dedicated: "For my mother, who first read me the stories of Poe... -
![The Spinster's Fortune by Mary Kendall]()
The Spinster's Fortune by Mary Kendall
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMoonlit alleys, shadowy tunnels, and buried secrets…Summer of 1929.Of supposed unsound mind without a penny to her name, Blanche Magruder lies alone in a home for the aged and infirm.Meanwhile, her house, a crumbled ruin in the heart of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., is pillaged nightly by thieves looking for treasure rumored to be hidden there... -
![In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, Paula Rabinowitz]()
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, Paula Rabinowitz
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPostwar Los Angeles is a lonely place where the American Dream is showing its seamy underside—and a stranger is preying on young women. The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect... -
![Crooked House by Agatha Christie]()
Crooked House by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsIn the sprawling, half-timbered mansion in the affluent suburb of Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides lies dead from barbiturate poisoning. An accident? Not likely. In fact, suspicion has already fallen on his luscious widow, a cunning beauty fifty years his junior, set to inherit a sizeable fortune, and rumored to be carrying on with a strapping young tutor comfortably ensconced in the family estate... -
![The Best American Noir Of The Century by Otto Penzler, James Ellroy]()
The Best American Noir Of The Century by Otto Penzler, James Ellroy
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn his introduction, James Ellroy writes, "Noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction…It's the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad."Ellroy & Penzler mined the past century to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories... -
![The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock]()
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama... -
![Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart, Sandra Brown]()
Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart, Sandra Brown
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA governess in a French chateau encounters an apparent plot against her young charge's life in this unforgettably haunting and beautifully written suspense novel. When lovely Linda Martin first arrives at Château Valmy as an English governess to the nine-year-old Count Philippe de Valmy, the opulence and history surrounding her seems like a wondrous, ecstatic dream... -
![Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison]()
Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings'Legends of the Fall, an epic tale of three brothers and their lives of passion, madness, exploration and danger at the beginning of the Great War, confirms Jim Harrison's reputation as one of the finest American writers of his generation. This magnificent trilogy also contains two other superb short novels. In Revenge, love causes the course of a man's life to be savagely and irrevocably altered... -
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![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 Bad Seed (P.S.) by William March]()
The Bad Seed (P.S.) by William March
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNow reissued – William March's 1954 classic thriller that's as chilling, intelligent and timely as ever before. This paperback reissue includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested reading and more.What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller...Categorized as:
creepy-children crime family 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook -
![This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart]()
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWhen Lucy Waring's sister Phyllida suggests that she join her for a quiet holiday on the island of Corfu, young English Lucy is overjoyed. Her work as an actress has temporarily come to a halt. She believes there is no finer place to be "at liberty" than the sun-drenched isle of Corfu, the alleged locale for Shakespeare's The Tempest... -
![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... -
![Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite]()
Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsONCE A PERSON LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN, THEY NEVER COME BACK, NOT REALLY. THEY’RE LOST FOREVER. Nellie Clay married Hobbs Pritchard without even noticing he was a spell conjured into a man, a walking, talking ghost story. But her mama knew. She saw it in her tea leaves: death. Folks told Nellie to get off the mountain while she could, to go back home before it was too late... -
![The Lost Ones by Anita Frank]()
The Lost Ones by Anita Frank
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSome houses are never at peace. England, 1917 Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion... -
![The Conan Chronicles: Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard]()
The Conan Chronicles: Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsConan the Cimmerian: he rose from boy-thief and mercenary to become king of Aquilonia. Neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery could oppose the barbarian warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legendary Hyborian Age. Collected together for the first time anywhere in the world, in chronological order, are all Robert E...Categorized as:
pulp 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics fiction heroic-fantasy -
![Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber]()
Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsIn the second instalment of this rousing series, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser journey from the ancient city of Lankhmar, searching for a little adventure and debauchery to ease their broken hearts. When a stranger challenges them to find and fight Death on the Bleak Shore, they battle demonic birds, living mountains, and evil monks on the way to their heroic fate... -
![Ripper by Michael Slade]()
Ripper by Michael Slade
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of Cutthroat comes a nerve-shattering thriller combining the legend of Jack the Ripper, the terrifying secrets of the Tarot, and a "mystery weekend" on a secluded Canadian island, whereurder becomes all too real... -
![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... -
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![Angel Street: A Victorian Thriller in Three Acts by Patrick Hamilton]()
Angel Street: A Victorian Thriller in Three Acts by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Broadway hit first produced on the West End under the title Gaslight and filmed twice, Angel Street tells the story of the Manninghams who live on Angel Street in 19th Century London. As the curtain rises, all appears the essence of Victorian tranquility. It is soon apparent however, that Mr... -
![No Doors, No Windows by Harlan Ellison]()
No Doors, No Windows by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF! The only trouble is, fear comes in so many different shapes and sizes these days. It comes as rejection by a beautiful woman. It comes in the brutalization of your love by an amoral man... -
![The Falcon's Malteser by Anthony Horowitz]()
The Falcon's Malteser by Anthony Horowitz
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen the vertically-challenged Johnny Naples entrusts Tim Diamond with a package worth over three million pounds, he's making a big mistake. Tim Diamond is the worst detective in the world... -
![Crippen by John Boyne]()
Crippen by John Boyne
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJuly 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr... -
![My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier]()
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsPhilip Ashley's older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son, has died in Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose's beautiful English estate, is crushed that the man he loved died far from home. He is also suspicious. While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman... -
![The Buried Book by D.M. Pulley]()
The Buried Book by D.M. Pulley
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen Althea Leary abandons her nine-year-old son, Jasper, he’s left on his uncle’s farm with nothing but a change of clothes and a Bible.It’s 1952, and Jasper isn’t allowed to ask questions or make a fuss. He’s lucky to even have a home and must keep his mouth shut and his ears open to stay in his uncle’s good graces. No one knows where his mother went or whether she’s coming back... -
![He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr]()
He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Dr Gideon Fell mystery and classic of the locked-room genre Outside the little French city of Chartres, industrialist Howard Brookes is found dying on the parapet of an old stone tower. Evidence shows that it was impossible for anyone to have entered at the time of the murder, however someone must have, for the victim was discovered stabbed in the back... -
![The Horror on the Links by Seabury Quinn]()
The Horror on the Links by Seabury Quinn
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsToday the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic... -
![The Far Cry by Fredric Brown]()
The Far Cry by Fredric Brown
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOnce upon a time, a girl named Jenny Ames was murdered in a lonely house. No one knew where she had come from, or why she had died, or who killed her. Years later a man moved into the same house and discovered that nothing is more seductive than an unsolved murder... -
![The Adventures of Solar Pons by August Derleth]()
The Adventures of Solar Pons by August Derleth
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSolar Pons: In his Inverness cape Solar Pons steps briskly from No 7B Praed Street onto the mist-shrouded cobblestones of old London's alleyways. The game is afoot...Pons, Solar. Born 1880 in Prague. Public school education. Graduated Oxford University 1889. Unmarried. Member Savile, Diogenes, Athenaeum, Cliff Dwellers, Lambs. Est. private inquiry practice at 7B Praed Street, 1907... -
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![Dodging and Burning by John Copenhaver]()
Dodging and Burning by John Copenhaver
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA lurid crime scene photo of a beautiful woman arrives on mystery writer Bunny Prescott's doorstep with no return address—and it's not the first time she's seen it. The reemergence of the photo, taken fifty-five years earlier, sets her on a journey to reconstruct the vicious summer that changed her life... -
![The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert]()
The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWould you stay in a haunted house for more than one night?Would you live in a place where ghostly things keep happening? Where a cellar door you know you locked the night before is always open the following morning? Where hushed whimpering is heard? Where white shadows steal through the darkness? Where the presence of evil is all around you?Would you? Should you?The Caleighs did, but they had... -
![A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell]()
A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFaith Severn has grown up with the dark cloud of murder looming over her family. Her aunt Vera Hillyard, a rigidly respectable woman, was convicted and hanged for the crime, but the reason for her desperate deed died with her. Thirty years later, a probing journalist pushes Faith to look back to the day when her aunt took knife in hand and walked into a child's nursery... -
![Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham]()
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a carnival-show geek—alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd’s gleeful disgust and derision—going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There’s no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him... -
![The Darkling Bride by Laura Andersen]()
The Darkling Bride by Laura Andersen
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe Gallagher family has called Deeprath Castle home for seven hundred years. Nestled in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, the estate is now slated to become a public trust, and book lover and scholar Carragh Ryan is hired to take inventory of its historic library... -
![Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown]()
Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn Gods of Howl Mountain, award-winning author Taylor Brown explores a world of folk healers, whiskey-runners, and dark family secrets in the high country of 1950s North Carolina.Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood - a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint... -
![Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns]()
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis is the story of the Willoweed family and the English village in which they live. It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “What about my rose beds?” demands Grandmother Willoweed. Her son shouts down her ear-trumpet that the garden is submerged, dead animals everywhere, she will be lucky to get a bunch... -
![Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen]()
Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsA beautiful violinist is haunted by a very old piece of music she finds in a strange antique shop in Rome. The first time Julia Ansdell picks up The Incendio Waltz, she knows it’s a strikingly unusual composition. But while playing the piece, Julia blacks out and awakens to find her young daughter implicated in acts of surprising violence... -
![I Married a Dead Man by William Irish, Cornell Woolrich]()
I Married a Dead Man by William Irish, Cornell Woolrich
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPregnant, abandoned by her slimy husband and destitute, Helen Georgesson boards a train going west. In the crowded train car she meets happy newlyweds Patrice Hazzard, also expecting, and Hugh. They are on their way to visit Hugh’s parents, whom Patrice is meeting for the first time... -
![The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont]()
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWho Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?Take a journey back to the desperate days of America post the Great Depression, when the country turned to the pulp novels for relief, for hope and for heroes. Meet Walter Gibson, the mind behind The Shadow, and Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage, as they challenge one another to discover what is real and what is pulp...Categorized as:
crime pulp 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history amateur-sleuth book -
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![Deception by Roald Dahl]()
Deception by Roald Dahl
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTHE PERFECT GIFT for fans of Roald Dahl.Think you know Dahl? Think again. There's still a whole world of Dahl to discover in a newly collected book of his deliciously dark tales for adults . . . 'The cruelest lies are often told in silence . . -
![Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt]()
Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsOriginally published nearly 40 years ago, this gothic classic has been frightening, romancing, and winning fans ever since. Part Jane Eyre, part Rebecca and all good, clean, campy fun, Mistress of Mellyn will keep you tearing through the pages, and looking for copies to lend out to friends... -
![The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown]()
The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt was the figure of a girl, her arms thrust out to ward off the ripper... her body distorted, rigid with terror... her mouth open in a silent, eternal scream. Originally published in 1949... -
![The Forbidden Territory by Dennis Wheatley, Nick Mercer]()
The Forbidden Territory by Dennis Wheatley, Nick Mercer
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDennis Wheatley’s first published novel, introducing his modern trinity of musketeers in the epicurean Duc de Richleau, financier Simon Aron, and the wealthy young American, Rex Van Ryn.The Duc receives a coded message from his missing friend Van Ryn who, while hunting for treasure lost during the Soviet takeover of Russia, is now in prison somewhere in that vast country... -
![Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick]()
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsJason Tavener woke up one morning to find himself completely unknown. The night before he had been the top-rated television star with millions of devoted watchers. The next day he was just an unidentified walking object, whose face nobody recognised, of whom no one had heard, and without the I.D. papers required in that near future... -
![The Butcher's Wife by Li Ang]()
The Butcher's Wife by Li Ang
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsChen Jiangshui is a pig-butcher in a small coastal Taiwanese town. Stocky, with a paunch and deep-set beady eyes, he resembles a pig himself. His brutality towards his new young wife, Lin Shi, knows no bounds. The more she screams, the more he likes it. She is further isolated by the vicious gossip of her neighbors who condemn her for screaming aloud...
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