Books like 'Anatomy of a Murder'
Readers who enjoyed Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery psychological thriller crime classics legal historical-fiction true-crime suspense
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Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAndy Dufresne, a banker, was convicted of killing his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank Prison. He maintains his innocence over the decades he spends at Shawshank during which time he forms a friendship with "Red", a fellow inmate.Source: stephenking...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century -
Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLibrarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found hereThe endgame is at hand for Penn Cage, his family, and the enemies bent on destroying them in this revelatory volume in the epic trilogy set in modern-day Natchez, Mississippi—Greg Iles’s epic tale of love and honor, hatred and revenge that explores how the sins of the past continue to haunt the present...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement legal literary-fiction suspense thriller -
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 86 ratingsFirst, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction suspense whodunit -
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 87 ratingsFirst, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction suspense whodunit -
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It Happened in Silence by Karla M. Jay
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHonorable Mention in the 2022 Eric Hoffer Book Award Historical Fiction Category2021 Benjamin Franklin Silver Award 2021 Finalist Wishing Shelf Book AwardRiveting Southern Fiction by the award-winning author of When We Were Brave. ~Set in a world where women of the KKK betray their neighbors, horrors of unscrupulous foundling homes come to light, and buried mysteries are not all that hidden... -
Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsAvery Mason, host of American Events, knows the subjects that grab a TV audience's attention. Her latest story--a murder mystery laced with kinky sex, tragedy, and betrayal--is guaranteed to be ratings gold. New DNA technology has allowed the New York medical examiner's office to make its first successful identification of a 9/11 victim in years... -
Edinburgh Dusk by Carole Lawrence
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe prize-winning author of Edinburgh Twilight returns to the darkening shadows of nineteenth-century Scotland to track a killer on a profane mission of revenge...Categorized as:
historical-fiction crime law-enforcement suspense thriller mystery historical fiction -
Next in Line by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLondon, 1988. Royal fever sweeps the nation as Britain falls in love with the ‘people’s princess’.Which means for Scotland Yard, the focus is on the elite Royalty Protection Command, and its commanding officer. Entrusted with protecting the most famous family on earth, they quite simply have to be the best. A weak link could spell disaster...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement suspense thriller literary-fiction noir fiction -
The Bone Tree by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis edition cancelled by the publisher...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement legal literary-fiction suspense thriller -
Whatever Happened to Betsy Blake? by David B. Lyons
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIf your daughter went missing, how many years would it take for you to admit she’s never coming home? Betsy Blake was only four years old when she vanished outside her family home in Dublin. Her father – wracked with guilt for the past seventeen years – still can’t bring himself to admit the search is over, despite the fact his wife has moved on and police have closed off the investigation... -
None Left to Tell by Noelle W. Ihli
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThree women, connected by one of the most brutal mass slayings in US history.Lucy is sick of turning the other cheek. Ten years ago, an anti-Mormon mob drove her family and friends from their homes in Illinois. But now, the tables have turned. Rumor has it, some of those same men are traveling through Utah on their way to California. And this time, Lucy won’t run... -
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River, an immersive, propulsive novel about a missing child whose disappearance sends equal shockwaves through three very different worlds—an opulent Adirondack summer estate, the rustic teen summer camp that operates in its shadow, and the blue-collar community that serves them both...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller mystery fiction historical season-summer -
Venom by Colin Falconer
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom Saigon to Paris, from Bangkok to the Ganges, this thriller is the story of Michel Christian. Abandoned on the streets of Saigon when he is only a child, he grows up with a fatal attraction for women and an insatiable desire for revenge...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense action-adventure adult book -
Natchez Burning by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling novelist Greg Iles returns with his most eagerly anticipated book yet, and his first in five years – Natchez Burning, the first installment in an epic trilogy that weaves crimes, lies, and secret past and present into a mesmerizing thriller featuring Southern mayor and former prosecutor Penn Cage...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement legal literary-fiction suspense thriller -
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Dead Eyed by Matt Brolly, David Monteath
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDCI Michael Lambert thought he’d closed his last case…Yet when he’s passed a file detailing a particularly gruesome murder, Michael knows that this is no ordinary killer at work.The removal of the victim’s eyes and the Latin inscription carved into the chest is the chilling calling-card of the ‘soul jacker’: a cold-blooded murderer who struck close to Michael once before, twenty-five years ago... -
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 historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction suspense thriller action-adventure -
The Caretakers by Eliza Maxwell
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the isolated estate she’s found the perfect getaway. But there’s no escaping the past in this chilling novel from the bestselling author of The Unremembered Girl. Filmmaker Tessa Shepherd helped free a man she believed was wrongly imprisoned for murder. When he kills again, Tessa’s life is upended.She’s reeling with guilt, her reputation destroyed... -
Past Caring by Robert Goddard, Paul Shelley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAt a lush villa on the sun-soaked island of Madeira, Martin Radford is given a second chance. His life ruined by scandal, Martin holds in his hands the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller adult amateur-sleuth -
The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMary Russell is used to dark secrets—her own, and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond. And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement suspense whodunit thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Absent in the Spring by Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsReturning from a visit to her daughter in Iraq, Joan Scudamore finds herself unexpectedly alone and stranded in an isolated rest house by flooding of the railway tracks. This sudden solitude compels Joan to assess her life for the first time ever and face up to many of the truths about herself...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense 20th-century adult -
The Seven-Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFirst discovered and then painstakingly edited and annotated by Nicholas Meyer, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution relates the astounding and previously unknown collaboration of Sigmund Freud with Sherlock Holmes, as recorded by Holmes's friend and chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction suspense whodunit thriller -
Qb VII by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn Queen’s Bench Courtroom Number Seven, famous author Abraham Cady stands trial. In his book The Holocaust—born of the terrible revelation that the Jadwiga Concentration Camp was the site of his family’s extermination—Cady shook the consciousness of the human race. He also named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of Jadwiga’s most sadistic inmate/doctors...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement legal literary-fiction suspense -
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIn this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction noir suspense -
The Madness of a Seduced Woman by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAgnes is on her way to Montpelier, when she sees a young man rescue a girl from a burning building. Agnes falls in love with this man, a local stonecutter, but the hero is also a betrayer, the apex of a triangle that eventually leads Agnes to commit murder... -
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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... -
Entre los muertos by Mikel Santiago
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDespués del éxito de El mentiroso y En plena noche, llega el esperado cierre de la Trilogía de Illumbe: un thriller magistral, lleno de misterios y giros sorprendentes cuya clave podría estar en la pregunta que late en el alma de esta historia: ¿Es posible enterrar un secreto para siempre?Hay muertos que nunca descansan, y tal vez no deban hacerlo hasta que se les haga justicia... -
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...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction noir suspense -
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHamilton captures the edgy, obsessive and eventually murderous mindset of a romantically frustrated British man in this WWII-era novel. London 1939, and in the grimy publands of Earls Court, George Harvey Bone is pursuing a helpless infatuation with Netta who is cool, contemptuous and hopelessly desirable to George... -
A Place of Execution by Val McDermid
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWinter 1963: two children have disappeared in Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from the isolated Derbyshire hamlet of Scardale... -
Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA landmark American drama that inspired a classic film and a Broadway revival—featuring an introduction by David MametA blistering character study and an examination of the American melting pot and the judicial system that keeps it in check, Twelve Angry Men holds at its core a deeply patriotic faith in the U.S. legal system...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction legal literary-fiction suspense 20th-century -
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIn Alias Grace, bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The Handmaid's Tale. She takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense true-crime thriller -
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsA triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction noir suspense -
Veil of Doubt by Sharon Virts
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen a mother is charged with murder in a town already convinced of her guilt, can defense attorney Powell Harrison find truth and justice in a legal system where innocence is not presumed? Emily Lloyd, a young widow in Reconstruction-era Virginia, is accused of poisoning her three-year-old daughter, Maud... -
The Hound of the Baskervilles, with "the Adventure of the Speckled Band" by Arthur Conan Doyle
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Hound of the Baskervilles (1901–02) is Arthur Conan Doyle’s most celebrated Sherlock Holmes adventure. At the end of the yew tree path of his ancestral home, Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead. Close by are the footprints of a gigantic hound. Called to investigate, Holmes seems to face a supernatural foe...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction mystery fiction industrial-era -
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The Beast Within by Émile Zola
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsHis haunting, impressionistic study of a man's slow corruption by jealousy, Emile Zola's The Beast Within (La Bete Humaine) is translated from the French with an introduction and notes by Roger Whitehouse in Penguin Classics.Roubaud is consumed by a jealous rage when he discovers a sordid secret about his young wife's past... -
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...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense 20th-century adult audiobook -
Poirot quitte la scène by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsArthritic and immobilized, Poirot calls on his old friend Captain Hastings to join him at Styles to be the eyes and ears that will feed observations to Poirot's still razor sharp mind. Though aware of the criminal's identity, Poirot will not reveal it to the frustrated Hastings, and dubs the nameless personage 'X'...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction suspense whodunit thriller -
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...Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century -
Folly by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn acclaimed master of suspense creates a heroine you will never forget in this superbly chilling novel of a woman who begins a desperate undertaking that may transform her life--or end it.WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR WORST FEARS AREN’T ALL IN YOUR MIND?Rae Newborn is a woman on the edge: on the edge of sanity, on the edge of tragedy, and now on the edge of the world...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction law-enforcement literary-fiction suspense whodunit action-adventure adult -
The Summer of Katya by Trevanian
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the golden summer of 1914, Jean-Marc Montjean, recently graduated from medical school, comes to the small French village of Salies to assist the village physician. His first assignment is to treat the brother of a beautiful woman named Katya Treville. As he and her family become friendly, he realizes they are haunted by an old, dark secret . .Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century adult -
A Million Drops by Víctor del Árbol
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn intense literary thriller that tears through the interlocked histories of fascism and communism in Europe without pausing for breath. Gonzalo Gil is a disaffected lawyer stuck in a failed career and a strained marriage, dodging the never-ending manipulation of his powerful father-in-law... -
Famous Last Words by Timothy Findley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the final days of the Second World War, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley scrawls his desperate account on the walls and ceilings of his ice-cold prison high in the Austrian Alps. Officers of the liberating army discover his frozen, disfigured corpse and his astonishing testament - the sordid truth that he alone possessed...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century adult alternate-history -
Pick-Up by Charles Willeford
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHe Holed Up With a Helpless LushProwling the grimy streets of San Francisco low-life, Helen is a beautiful, sensuous drunk - and a pathetically easy pick-up. Harry just wants to help, but before long he and Helen are both adrift in a sea of alcohol - until Harry conceives the ultimate crime.. -
An Unthinkable Thing by Nicole Lundrigan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA tragedy brings a young boy into the home of a "perfect" family--one whose dark secrets begin closing in, until a horrifying moment changes everything.Tommie Ware’s life is turned upside down the summer of 1958, just after his eleventh birthday... -
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Leave Her to Heaven by Ben Ames Williams
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis classic bestselling novel about a man who encounters a woman whose power to destroy is as strong as her power to love evokes Hemingway in its naturalistic portrayal of elemental forces in both nature and humanity. Ellen’s beauty was radiant, and Harland had been so struck with her personality and the strength of her character that he knew he could never leave her... -
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... -
Last Seen Alive by Carlene Thompson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsChyna Greer was sixteen when her best friend, Zoey, disappeared. Though very different in looks and temperament, the two girls shared a bond that was stronger than blood. But even Chyna's urgent warnings couldn't prevent a love-struck Zoey from sneaking out to the lake to meet her secret crush--and being swallowed up into the warm summer night forever…... -
The Nanny at Number 43 by Nicola Cassidy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBe Careful Who You Let Into Your Home Wanted, a respectable woman to care for a motherless child. When William D. Thomas’s wife dies in childbirth, he places an advertisement in his local newspaper seeking a nanny for his newborn child. He is thankful when an experienced nanny arrives at 43 Laurence Street and takes over from his frazzled housekeeper Mrs McHugh...Categorized as:
historical-fiction crime thriller fiction mystery psychological historical female-author -
Before the Killing by Marjory Kaptanoglu
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA time-travel tale of love and murder…In the summer of 1973, 19-year-old Cassie returns to her home town on the Massachusetts coast after her first year away at college. The next day, her boyfriend, Julian, is implicated in a brutal killing.Seven years later, a freak occurrence gives Cassie the ability to travel through time without altering it... -
Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s: Laura / The Horizontal Man / In a Lonely Place / The Blank Wall by Vera Caspary, Helen Eustis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWomen writers have always had a central place in American crime writing, although one wouldn’t know it for all the attention focused on the men of the hardboiled school. This collection, the first of a two-volume omnibus, presents four classics of the 1940s overdue for fresh attention...
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