Books like 'Babylon Berlin'
Readers who enjoyed Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery 20th century thriller europe western-central-europe germany urban crime historical-fiction
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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 noir police-procedural suspense ww2 thriller -
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 noir police-procedural suspense ww2 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 noir police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century -
Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsErika Rosenthal has always been secretive with her friend and neighbor, Detective Inspector Gemma James, about her past, except for one telling detail: She and her long-dead husband, David, came to London as refugees from Nazi Germany. But now the elderly woman needs Gemma's help. A unique piece of jewelry stolen from her years ago has mysteriously turned up at a prestigious London auction house...Categorized as:
crime europe historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense urban ww2 -
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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 thriller ww2 police-procedural suspense fiction -
Night Flight to Paris by David Gilman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'Page-turning and gritty' DAILY MAIL. It is 1943 and for agents of the Special Operations Executive, a mission to Nazi-occupied Paris is a death sentence. So why has unlikely spy Harry Mitchell volunteered to return to the city he fled two years ago? The French capital is at war with itself...Categorized as:
europe historical-fiction law-enforcement suspense urban western-central-europe ww2 thriller -
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... -
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 noir police-procedural suspense ww2 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 europe germany historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense -
The Kaiser's Web by Steve Berry
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTwo candidates are vying to become Chancellor of Germany. One is a patriot having served for the past sixteen years, the other a usurper, stoking the flames of nationalistic hate. Both harbor secrets, but only one knows the truth about the other...Categorized as:
europe western-central-europe germany historical-fiction suspense thriller ww2 crime -
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 organized-crime police-procedural suspense ww2 thriller -
Todo lo peor by César Pérez Gellida
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSigue la Guerra fría, sigue en pie el muro que divide Alemania en dos partes. Todo lo peor sucederá en estas circunstancias.Un asesino comienza a matar. Sus víctimas son homosexuales y sus crímenes parecen tener un componente religioso... -
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 ww2 thriller 20th-century adult -
One Good Deed by David Baldacci
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 28 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci returns with his next blockbuster thriller...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense ww2 thriller -
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The Chinese Lake Murders by Robert van Gulik
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA.D. 666The Chinese Lake Murders describes how Judge Dee solves three difficult cases in A.D. 666, shortly after he has been appointed magistrate of Han-yuan."[Robert van Gulik] deftly interweaves three criminal cases involving exotic yet universally recognizable characters, then has his Judge Dee provide a surprising yet most plausible solution...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural whodunit 20th-century adult book -
Standartenführer's Wife by Ellie Midwood
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis is a diary of Annalise Meissner, a young German Jew with long time ago falsified papers, living a carefree life in pre-war Berlin. A talented ballerina, she comes from a wealthy family and at first doesn’t want to concern herself with the changes her country starts undergoing under the new Nazi regime...Categorized as:
europe germany historical-fiction urban western-central-europe ww2 20th-century adult -
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...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement suspense ww2 thriller 20th-century 21st-century -
Goldstein by Volker Kutscher
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVolker Kutscher, author of the international bestseller Babylon Berlin, continues his Gereon Rath Mystery series with Goldstein as a police inspector investigates the crime and corruption of a decadent 1930s Berlin in the shadows the growing Nazi movement.Berlin, 1931. A power struggle is taking place in Berlin's underworld...Categorized as:
crime europe germany historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural urban -
Stettin Station by David Downing
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the fall of 1941, Anglo-American journalist John Russell is still living in Berlin, tied to the increasingly alien city by his love for two Berliners: his fourteen-year-old son, Paul, and his longtime girlfriend, Effi. Forced to work for both German and American Intelligence, he's searching for a way out of Germany...Categorized as:
crime europe germany historical-fiction law-enforcement urban western-central-europe ww2 -
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... -
A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBerlin, March, 1943. A month has passed since the stunning defeat at Stalingrad. Though Hitler insists Germany is winning the war, commanders on the ground know better. Morale is low, discipline at risk. Now word has reached Berlin of a Red massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. If true, the message it would send to the troops is clear: Fight on or risk certain death...Categorized as:
crime europe germany historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense -
In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWhen a drought drains the local Thornfield Reservoir, uncovering a long-drowned small village and the skeleton of a murder victim from the 1940s, Detective Alan Banks and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabot must investigate the decades-old crime and unmask an evil secret from the past...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense ww2 thriller 20th-century -
Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWorking with the British Secret Service on an undercover mission, Maisie Dobbs is sent to Hitler’s Germany in this thrilling tale of danger and intrigue—the twelfth novel in Jacqueline Winspear’s New York Times bestselling “series that seems to get better with each entry” (Wall Street Journal).It’s early 1938, and Maisie Dobbs is back in England...Categorized as:
crime europe germany historical-fiction law-enforcement suspense western-central-europe whodunit -
The Phantom Patrol by James R. Benn
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the nineteenth installment of James R. Benn’s acclaimed WWII mystery series, an investigation into a secret gang of Nazi-affiliated art thieves in post-Liberation Paris leads Billy Boyle and his comrades into the catastrophic Battle of the Bulge in winter 1944...Categorized as:
historical-fiction ww2 law-enforcement organized-crime crime mystery fiction historical -
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The Million Dollar Wound by Max Allan Collins
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom a foxhole on Guadalcanal (shared with Barney Ross) to the glitzy underworld of Hollywood in the '40s, Nate Heller fights his memories and the Mob.Something happened at the Canal, something Heller's blocking out. What he can't block, though, is the wound he received--the "million-dollar wound," the one that got him home...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement noir suspense ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
Madness in the Ruins by John A. Connell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA mutilated body. No witnesses. The only clue, a message, “Those who I have made suffer will become saints and they shall lift me up from hell.” Winter, 1945. Munich is in ruins, and a savage killer is stalking the city.U.S. Army investigator Mason Collins enforces the law in the American Zone of Occupation. This post is his last chance to do what he loves most—being a homicide detective...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense ww2 thriller 20th-century -
Deadly Pleasure by Brenda Joyce
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBrenda Joyce has enthralled millions of readers with her New York Times bestselling novels. Now, join us in the next chapter of her unforgettable storytelling: the Francesca Cahill novels. Step into the glittering world of New York City's high society at the turn of the last century, where murder and pleasure are one and the same, and love becomes the ultimate weapon.. -
Todo lo mejor by César Pérez Gellida
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsUna ciudad separada por un muro y unida por un sanguinario asesino. Dos investigadores que descubrirán que la crueldad no tiene límites.Una historia negra para iniciarse en el género Gellida.Viktor Lavrov es un joven talento perteneciente al KGB destinado en Berlín durante el periodo más crudo de la Guerra Fría... -
The Reckoning by Rennie Airth
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Second World War has ended, leaving a bruised and fragile peace. But this tranquillity is threatened when a shocking murder takes place in the Sussex countryside. Before long, police experts discover a link to another, earlier, killing hundreds of miles away ..Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural ww2 thriller 20th-century adult -
Lightning Men by Thomas Mullen
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the acclaimed author of The Last Town on Earth comes the gripping follow-up to Darktown, a “combustible procedural that will knock the wind out of you” (The New York Times).Officer Denny Rakestraw, “Negro Officers” Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith, and Sergeant McInnis have their hands full in an overcrowded and rapidly changing Atlanta...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century adult -
The Black Mountain by Rex Stout, Max Allan Collins
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAlternate cover edition of ISBN 9780553272918Vowing to avenge the murder of his dear friend, Marko Vukcic, Nero Wolfe, along with his faithful partner, Archie Goodwin, journey to the hazardous mountains of Montenegro...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement suspense urban 20th-century adult audiobook -
Winter: A Berlin Family, 1899-1945 by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEpic prelude to the classic spy trilogy, GAME, SET and MATCH, that follows the fortunes of a German dynasty during two world wars... -
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... -
The Lady from Zagreb by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA beautiful actress, a rising star of the giant German film company UFA, now controlled by the Propaganda Ministry. The very clever, very dangerous Propaganda Minister—close confidant of Hitler, an ambitious schemer and flagrant libertine. And Bernie Gunther, former Berlin homicide bull, now forced to do favors for Joseph Goebbels at the Propaganda Minister’s command...Categorized as:
crime europe germany historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense -
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The Other Side of Silence by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe French Riviera, 1956. Bernie Gunther, our sardonic former Berlin homicide dick and unwilling SS officer, is the go-to guy at the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, the man you turn to for touring tips or if you need a fourth for bridge. As it happens, a local writer needs just that, someone to fill the fourth seat in a regular game that is the usual evening diversion at the Villa Mauresque... -
Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsKnowing New York Times -bestselling author Philip Kerr's delight in subterfuge and obfuscation, readers can rest assure that nothing is what it seems when Bernie Gunther discovers war criminals living freely in Europe. It is 1956 and Bernie Gunther has a new name (Christoph Ganz), a clean passport, a chip on his shoulder, and a menial low-paying job in Munich...Categorized as:
crime europe germany historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense -
No Shred of Evidence by Charles Todd
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of the crime. A shocked father calls in a favor at the Home Office. Scotland Yard is asked to review the case. Inspector Ian Rutledge is not the first Inspector to reach the village, however. Following in the shoes of a dead man, he is told the case is all but closed...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century adult -
To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen a young strikingly handsome photographer mysteriously disappears, it's up to Inspector Alan Grant to discover whether he accidentally drowned, committed suicide, or met his death at the hands of one of his many female admirers...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century -
The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn sick leave from Scotland Yard, Inspector Alan Grant is planning a quiet holiday with an old school chum to recover from overwork and mental fatigue...Categorized as:
crime europe historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense whodunit -
The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe striking seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck facing one of the greatest challenges in his professional career.The gruesome murder of a police captain in his hospital room reveals the unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strong-arm police work and shear brutality... -
Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe shocking ninth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö finds Beck investigating parallel cases that have shocked a small rural community. In a country town, a woman is brutally murdered and left buried in a swamp. There are two main suspects: her closest neighbor and her ex-husband... -
The Big Blowdown by George P. Pelecanos
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWashington DC, 1946. For two local young men, Pete Karras and Joey Recevo, the easiest way to find work after the war is by providing a little muscle for a local boss who runs a protection racket with the Mafia. The trouble with Pete Karras is that he is just too soft on his fellow immigrants, and the last thing the boss wants is for his mob to get soft... -
Hard Evidence by John Lescroart
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe first evidence is found in the belly of a shark: a hand sporting a jade ring. The hand belongs to a Silicon Valley billionaire. When the rest of his bullet-ridden body washes up on shore, Dismas Hardy, assistant D.A., is suddenly plunged into San Francisco's murder trial of the century. A Japanese call girl with a long list of bigshot johns is the defendant...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 20th-century adult audiobook -
Silesian Station by David Downing
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSummer, 1939. British journalist John Russell has just been granted American citizenship in exchange for agreeing to work for American intelligence when his girlfriend Effi is arrested by the Gestapo. Russell hoped his new nationality would let him safely stay in Berlin with Effi and his son, but now he's being blackmailed. To free Effi, he must agree to work for the Nazis...Categorized as:
crime europe germany historical-fiction suspense western-central-europe ww2 thriller -
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Laura by Vera Caspary, A.B. Emrys
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLaura Hunt was the ideal modern woman: beautiful, elegant, highly ambitious, and utterly mysterious. No man could resist her charms—not even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to find out who turned her into a faceless corpse. As this tough cop probes the mystery of Laura's death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement noir police-procedural suspense urban thriller -
The Man From Berlin by Luke McCallin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsYugoslavia, a German officer has been shot and killed. Along with him a young, beautiful filmmaker and photographer—a veritable hero to her people—has been brutally murdered.Assigned to the case is military intelligence officer Captain Gregor Reinhardt...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense ww2 thriller 20th-century -
The Mongolian Conspiracy by Rafael Bernal
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOnly a couple of days before the state visit of the President of the United States, Filiberto Garcia -- an impeccably groomed "gun for hire," ex-Mexican revolutionary, and classic anti-hero -- is recruited by the Mexican police to discover how much truth there might be to KGB and FBI reports of a Chinese-Mongolian plot to assassinate the Soviet and American presidents during the unveiling of a... -
The Murderer in Ruins by Cay Rademacher, Peter Millar
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHamburg, 1947. A ruined city occupied by the British who bombed it, experiencing the coldest winter in living memory. Food is scarce; refugees and the homeless crowd into shanty towns and sheds. There is a killer on the loose, and all attempts to find him or her have failed...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural suspense ww2 thriller 20th-century -
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...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement police-procedural 20th-century adult book fiction -
Safe House by Andrew Vachss
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn Burke, Vachss gave readers of crime fiction a hero they could believe in, an avenger whose sense of justice was forged behind bars and tempered on New York's meanest streets. In this blistering new thriller, Burke is drawn into his ugliest case yet, one that involves an underground network of abused women and the sleekly ingenious stalkers who've marked them as their personal victims...
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