Books like 'The Skeleton Road'
Readers who enjoyed The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery military, war & conflict thriller crime law-enforcement historical-fiction police-procedural suspense war
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The Border by Don Winslow
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe explosive, highly anticipated conclusion to the epic Cartel trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Force.What do you do when there are no borders? When the lines you thought existed simply vanish? How do you plant your feet to make a stand when you no longer know what side you’re on?The war has come home... -
Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBorn on the same day near the turn of the century on opposite sides of the world, both men are brought together by fate and the quest of a dream. These two men -- ambitious, powerful, ruthless -- are locked in a relentless struggle to build an empire, fuelled by their all-consuming hatred... -
Tombland by C.J. Sansom
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDuring the political upheaval of Tudor-era England, the lawyer Matthew Shardlake must decide where his loyalties lie in "one of the best ongoing mystery series" for fans of Hilary Mantel (Christian Science Monitor).LONGLISTED FOR THE SIR WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos...Categorized as:
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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...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense war thriller 20th-century -
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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... -
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...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue politics suspense war -
The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBeloved heroine Maisie Dobbs, “one of the great fictional heroines” (Parade), investigates the mysterious murder of an American war correspondent in London during the Blitz in a page-turning tale of love and war, terror and survival...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue suspense war -
The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAs Europe buckles under Nazi occupation, Maisie Dobbs investigates a possible murder that threatens devastating repercussions for Britain's war efforts in this latest installment in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.September 1941. While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder...Categorized as:
crime drama family female-mc historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue suspense -
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, Geoff Wilkes
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsInspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword by Geoff Wilkes, as well as facsimiles of the original Gestapo file which inspired the novel. Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear... -
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...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural political-intrigue suspense war thriller -
Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly by Adrian McKinty
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBelfast 1988: A man is found dead, killed with a bolt from a crossbow in front of his house. This is no hunting accident. But uncovering who is responsible for the murder will take Detective Sean Duffy down his most dangerous road yet, a road that leads to a lonely clearing on a high bog where three masked gunmen will force Duffy to dig his own grave...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense war thriller 20th-century -
Justice Hall by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOnly hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one murky riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door...literally. It's a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since... -
To Die But Once by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDuring the months following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, Maisie Dobbs investigates the disappearance of a young apprentice working on a hush-hush government contract...Categorized as:
crime drama family female-mc historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue suspense -
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...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue suspense war thriller -
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The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"In wartime," Winston Churchill wrote, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."For Britain's counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable-a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue politics suspense war thriller -
Snow Wolf by Glenn Meade
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the heart of the Cold War, they sent him to plot the ultimate assassination. Now they want him dead...It is 1953. Joseph Stalin, the world's most tyrannical dictator, is teetering on the edge of insanity, and about to plunge the world into nuclear chaos. Only one man and one woman can penetrate the Iron Curtain and stop this madman, before it's too late.But someone inside the Kremlin knows... -
The Lion's Game by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsDetective John Corey, last seen in Plum Island, now faces his toughest assignment yet: the pursuit and capture of the world's most dangerous terrorist -- a young Arab known as "The Lion" who has baffled a federal task force and shows no sign of stopping in his quest for revenge against the American pilots who bombed Libya and killed his family...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement police-procedural political-intrigue politics suspense war -
The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler, Jack Du Brul
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIsaac Bell returns for another thrilling mission in a new book from the Grand Master of Adventure, Clive CusslerDetective Isaac Bell's wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the attempted assassination of a United States Senator shortly after meeting the man...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement suspense thriller action-adventure adult audiobook -
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...Categorized as:
family female-mc historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war thriller 20th-century -
Special Ops by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsW.E.B. Griffin returns to the series that launched his phenomenal career-- in an explosive new novel that pits a team of Special Forces warriors against the legendary revolutionary Che Guevara... -
A Sparrow Falls by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Sparrow Falls, another gripping installment in Wilbur Smith's Courtney Family Adventure seriesMark Anders grew up on eight thousand acres of African land that bore his family name. Then he fought in Europe's Great War and, upon returning to his ancestral home, he saw savagery unlike any other….In Africa, Mark's family estate has been despoiled... -
In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAs Britain becomes engulfed in a second World War, the indomitable Maisie Dobbs is plunged into a treacherous battle of her own when she stumbles upon the deaths of refugees who may have been more than ordinary people seeking sanctuary on English soil, in this enthralling chapter in Jacqueline Winspear’s enormously popular New York Times bestselling seriesCritics have long sung the praises of...Categorized as:
crime family female-mc historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue suspense war -
Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille, Brian Murray
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHe is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity--and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue politics suspense war -
When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPart of the 'Courtney' series 'Something always dies when the lion feeds and yet there is meat for those that follow him.' The lion is Sean, hero of this tremendous drama of the men who took possession of South Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Sean and his twin-brother Garrick grew up on their father's farm in Natal... -
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Children of War by Martin Walker
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBruno, chef de police in the French town of St Denis, is already busy with a case when the body of an undercover French Muslim cop is found in the woods, a man who called Bruno for help only hours before.But Bruno’s sometime boss and rival, the Brigadier, doesn’t see this investigation as a priority – there are bigger issues at stake.Bruno has other ideas...Categorized as:
crime family historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense war thriller -
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsRobert Harris returns to the thrilling historical fiction he has so brilliantly made his own. This is the story of the infamous Dreyfus affair told as a chillingly dark, hard-edged novel of conspiracy and espionage. Paris in 1895... -
The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue politics suspense war -
Legacy of War by Wilbur Smith, David Churchill
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA brand-new Courtney Series adventure.The action-packed new book in the Courtney Series and the sequel to Courtney's War. The war is over, Hitler is dead - and yet his evil legacy lives on. Saffron Courtney and her beloved husband Gerhard only just survived the brutal conflict, but Gerhard's Nazi-supporting brother, Konrad, is still free and determined to regain power...Categorized as:
crime family historical-fiction political-intrigue politics suspense war action-adventure -
Dead of Night by Simon Scarrow
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAs Germany strangles under the tight grip of the Nazi Party, the frozen winter of 1940 brings even more reasons to fear the dark in the crackling new WWII crime novel from #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Scarrow – perfect for fans of Philip Kerr’s Berlin Trilogy, Robert Ludlum, Andrew Gross, and William Christie… One freezing night in 1940 Berlin, an SS doctor and his wife return from...Categorized as:
historical-fiction crime law-enforcement war thriller police-procedural suspense fiction -
The Forgotten Holocaust by Scott Mariani
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA BRUTAL MURDER. A HORRIFYING SECRET.ONLY BEN CAN EXPOSE THE TRUTH.A lost, aimless and hard-drinking Ben Hope has wandered back to his old haunt in Ireland. The ex-SAS soldier is searching for peace, but trouble soon appears when Kirsten Hall, a young journalist, is brutally murdered right in front of him. Unable to prevent it, Ben is driven by guilt to hunt down the killers...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction political-intrigue suspense war thriller action-adventure adult -
The Unwilling by John Hart
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet in the South at the height of the Vietnam War, The Unwilling combines crime, suspense and searing glimpses into the human mind and soul in New York Times bestselling author John Hart's singular style. Gibby's older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison...Categorized as:
crime drama family historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural 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 historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural political-intrigue suspense war thriller -
Metropolis by Philip Kerr, John Lee
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBerlin, 1928, the dying days of the Weimar Republic shortly before Hitler and the Nazis came to power. It was a period of decadence and excess as Berliners - after the terrible slaughter of WWI and the hardships that followed - are enjoying their own version of Babylon. Bernie is a young detective working in Vice when he gets a summons from Bernard Weiss, Chief of Berlin's Criminal Police...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural political-intrigue politics suspense war -
Good Friday by Lynda La Plante
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBEFORE PRIME SUSPECT THERE WAS TENNISON. Every legend has a beginning . . . During 1974 and 1975 the IRA subjected London to a terrifying bombing campaign. In one day alone, they planted seven bombs at locations across central London. Some were defused - some were not. Jane Tennison is now a fully-fledged detective...Categorized as:
crime female-mc historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense war thriller -
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State of Emergency by Marc Cameron
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCountdown To ArmageddonTwo agents, Russian and American, are brutally murdered. College students, working as drug mules, die gruesome deaths from radiation poisoning. Powerful dirty bombs explode minutes apart in San Francisco and St. Petersburg, Russia--slaughtering citizens and spreading blind panic throughout the world. But this is only a warning. The next attack will be nuclear... -
The Sound Of Thunder by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTHE SOUND OF THUNDER continues the Courtney saga where WHEN THE LIONS FEEDS left off. Sean Courtney is off to fight the burghers in the Boer War -- first in harrowing missions on the front lines for the British Guides, then as the leader of commandos designed to fight the Boers on their own terms -- guerilla combat in the field... -
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsMGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken... -
Secret Sanction by Brian Haig, John Rubinstein
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen a battalion of Serbs is senselessly murdered in Kosovo and the Green Berets stand accused, Major Sean Drummond, a top Army lawyer, is assigned the case of a lifetime. However, as he begins investigating this unspeakable atrocity, he soon realizes the case is much more than he bargained for...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement political-intrigue politics suspense war thriller -
Star of the North by D.B. John, Linda Park
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA propulsive and ambitious thriller about a woman trying to rescue her twin sister from captivity in North Korea, and the North Korean citizens with whom she forms an unlikely allianceStar of the North opens in 1998, when a Korean American teenager is kidnapped from a South Korean beach by North Korean operatives... -
Spoils of Victory: A Mason Collins Novel by John A. Connell
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the author of Ruins of War comes an electrifying novel featuring U.S. Army criminal investigator Mason Collins, set in the chaos of post-World War II Germany. When the Third Reich collapsed, the small town Garmisch-Partenkirchen became the home of fleeing war criminals, making it the final depository for the Nazis’ stolen riches. There are fortunes to be made on the black market...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural political-intrigue suspense war thriller -
The Renegade Merchant by Sarah Woodbury
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMarch 1147. Determined to escape the gloom that has descended on Aber, Gareth and Gwen travel to Shrewsbury in an attempt to find answers about Rhun’s death, about the whereabouts and plans of Prince Cadwaladr, and about Gwen’s family ties to England... -
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... -
A Thousand Devils by Frank Goldammer, Steve Anderson
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA disturbing murder reveals a high-stakes conspiracy among the ruins of postwar Dresden.Two years after the firebombing that devastated the historic East German city, the suffering continues in the throes of a brutal winter. The wary and exhausted citizens scramble to survive, wolf packs of orphans scavenge for food, and Detective Max Heller is called to the scene of a savage murder...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural war thriller 20th-century adult -
The Commandant's Daughter by Catherine Hokin
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1933, Berlin. Ten-year-old Hanni Foss stands by her father’s side watching the torchlit procession to celebrate Adolf Hitler as Germany’s new leader. As the lights fade, she knows her safe and happy childhood is about to change forever. Practically overnight, the father she adores becomes unrecognisable, lost to his ruthless ambition to oversee an infamous concentration camp…Twelve years later... -
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The Sins of the Father by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsOn the heels of the international bestseller Only Time Will Tell, Jeffrey Archer picks up the sweeping story of the Clifton Chronicles.Only days before Britain declares war on Germany, Harry Clifton, hoping to escape the consequences of long-buried family secrets, and forced to accept that his desire to marry Emma Barrington will never be fulfilled, has joined the Merchant Navy... -
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:
crime historical-fiction political-intrigue politics suspense war thriller 20th-century -
Villa Triste by Lucretia Grindle
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFlorence, 1943. Two sisters, Isabella and Caterina Cammaccio, find themselves surrounded by terror and death; and with Italy trapped under the heel of a brutal Nazi occupation, bands of Partisans rise up. Soon Isabella and Caterina will test their wits and deepest beliefs as never before. As the winter grinds on, they will be forced to make the most important decisions of their lives... -
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...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction political-intrigue politics suspense war thriller 20th-century -
Special Operations by W.E.B. Griffin, Michael Russotto
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA vicious madman is on a kidnapping and rape spree. Inspector Peter Wohl, commander of the new Special Operations task force, is determined to stop the maniacal reign of violence, facing off against a desperate public, a hostile press and reluctant witnesses...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense war action-adventure adult -
Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMen of Men by Wilbur SmithIt was called The Devils's Own: a steep scar in the African earth, around which men toiled with picks, shovels, and dreams of the milky treasures that would become prized, polished diamonds. In this demonic race, native tribesmen became miners. Sometimes they became thieves. And then they became rebels...
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