Books like 'Killer in the Rain'
Readers who enjoyed Killer in the Rain by Raymond Chandler also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery action / adventure 20th century crime classics hard-boiled noir university law-enforcement
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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... -
![The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures by Mike Ashley]()
The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures by Mike Ashley
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe biggest collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle laid down his pen - nearly 200,000 words of superb fiction featuring the Great Detective by masters of historical crime, including Stephen Baxter, H. R. F. Keating, Michael Moorcock and Amy Myers. Almost all the stories here are specially written; the cases presented in the order in which Holmes solved them...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies fiction -
![Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett]()
Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsComplete in one volume, the five books that created the modern American crime novelIn a few years of extraordinary creative energy, Dashiell Hammett invented the modern American crime novel... -
![Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Illustrated Short Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle]()
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Illustrated Short Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThey're among the most influential, enduring, and popular short stories in the English language; marvelous mysteries that feature the "most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has ever seen." Here are all 56 Sherlock Holmes tales in one very handsome collection, accompanied by the original artwork in facsimile reproduction...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies fiction -
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![Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly by Adrian McKinty]()
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... -
![Collected Stories by Raymond Chandler]()
Collected Stories by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratings(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)The only complete edition of stories by the undisputed master of detective literature, collected here for the first time in one volume, including some stories that have been unavailable for decades... -
![The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie]()
The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFor the first ime in one volume are Agatha Christie's first two mysteries that introduced the world to Hercule Poirot and to Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, all sleuths who have starred in the PBS Mystery! series: with a sudden death as the initiation of his career, Hercule Poirot calls upon the sprawling estate of the Styles Court to identify the murderer of a wealthy heiress from a crowd of... -
![Sunset Express by Robert Crais]()
Sunset Express by Robert Crais
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsProminent restaurateur Teddy Martin is facing charges in his wife’s brutal murder. But he’s not going down without spending a bundle of cash on his defense. So his hotshot attorney hires P.I. Elvis Cole to find proof that Detective Angela Rossi tampered with the evidence. Rossi needs a way back to the fast track after falling hard during an internal investigation five years ago... -
![L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, David Strathairn]()
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, David Strathairn
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsJames Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is film-noir crime fiction akin to Chinatown, Hollywood Babylon, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. It's about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D... -
![Quarantine In The Grand Hotel by Jenő Rejtő]()
Quarantine In The Grand Hotel by Jenő Rejtő
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsQuarantine in the Grand Hotel centers around a mysterious murder in a hotel on the island of Little Lagonda, which is put under quarantine because one of the guests seems to have contracted bubonic plague. However, just before the quarantine is declared, the police arrive, and so does a young man, who hides in his pyjamas in the wardrobe of Miss Maud Borckman... -
![Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon]()
Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsOne of Sidney Sheldon's most popular and bestselling titles, repackaged and reissued for a new generation of fans. Kate Blackwell is one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. She is an enigma, a woman surrounded by a thousand unanswered questions. Her father was a diamond prospector who struck it rich beyond his wildest dreams...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement thriller 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
![A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr]()
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... -
![Riiginõunik by Boris Akunin]()
Riiginõunik by Boris Akunin
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSince the publication of The Winter Queen, a New York Times Notable Book and the first mystery featuring Erast Fandorin, Boris Akunin’s historical mystery series has become a worldwide sensation, selling millions of copies and propelling Akunin into the ranks of Russia’s most widely read contemporary novelists... -
![Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers]()
Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn this delightful collection of Wimsey exploits, Dorothy L. Sayers reveals a gruesome, grotesque but absolutely bewitching side rarely shown in Lord Peter's full-length adventures.Lord Peter views the body in 12 tantalizing and bizarre ways in this outstanding collection...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult amateur-sleuth -
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![Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers]()
Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMystery novelist Harriet Vane knew all about poisons, and when her former lover died in the manner prescribed in one of her books, a jury of her peers had a hangman's noose in mind. But Lord Peter Wimsey was determined to find her innocent...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement noir university thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
![Todo lo peor by César Pérez Gellida]()
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... -
![The Outfit by Richard Stark]()
The Outfit by Richard Stark
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen the Outfit tries to kill him, Parker declares war. Ripping off the syndicate is easy, but going one-on-one with Bronson, the Outfit's big boss, is the hard part. Hard for anyone but Parker, because the entire underworld understands that whatever Parker does -- he does for keep... -
![Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze]()
Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShe had the face of a madonna and a heart made of dollar bills.She was sitting on the floor, naked, in a skitter of green bills. Beyond her was the custodian, still simpering in death. She was scooping up handfuls of the green money and dropping it on top of her head so that it came sliding down along the cream-colored hair, slipping down along her shoulders and body... -
![The One from the Other by Philip Kerr]()
The One from the Other by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhilip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy—featuring the tough, fast-talking, noirish detective Bernie Gunther—is a publishing phenomenon that continues to win new fans more than fifteen years after its initial publication. Kerr has brought Bernie back in a highly anticipated thriller that will delight fans of the original books and attract new attention to the backlist... -
![Dark Star by Alan Furst]()
Dark Star by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe acclaimed author of Night Soldiers offers a dramatic and exciting spy thriller of Eastern Europe on the brink of World War II. In the back alleys and glittering salons of Europe, there is a thin line between survival and betrayal, as Soviet NKVD agents and the Nazi Gestapo confront each other in a brilliant duel of espionage. Like watching Casablanca for the first time.--Time... -
![Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler]()
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsMarlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard... -
![The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories by Otto Penzler]()
The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories by Otto Penzler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn unstoppable anthology of crime stories culled from Black Mask magazine the legendary publication that turned a pulp phenomenon into literary mainstream. Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared... -
![The Million Dollar Wound by Max Allan Collins]()
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 hard-boiled law-enforcement noir 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven]()
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA CULT MASTERPIECE—THE ADVENTURE NOVEL THAT INSPIRED JOHN HUSTON'S CLASSIC FILM, BY THE ELUSIVE AUTHOR WHO WAS A MODEL FOR THE HERO OF ROBERTO BOLAÑO'S 2666 Little is known for certain about B. Traven. Evidence suggests that he was born Otto Feige in Schlewsig-Holstein and that he escaped a death sentence for his involvement with the anarchist underground in Bavaria... -
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![Bright Orange for the Shroud by John D. MacDonald]()
Bright Orange for the Shroud by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTravis McGee is looking forward to a "slob summer," spending his days as far away from danger as possible. But trouble has a way of finding him, no matter where he hides. An old friend, conned out of his life savings by his ex-wife, has tracked him down and is desperate for help... -
![Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis]()
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt's AD 72 Rome, and Emperor Vespasian refuses to elevate sometime sleuth Marcus Didius Falco to the middle rank. Yet hope springs eternal, so when Vespasian's chief spy offers Falco an assignment in the East, he jumps at the chance. But his new assignment soon becomes a nightmare when he finds the corpse of a Roman playwright in a sacred pool...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement noir thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-civilization -
![Time to Depart by Lindsey Davis]()
Time to Depart by Lindsey Davis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBalbinus Pius, the dirtiest underworld organizer in Emperor Vespasian's Rome, has been convicted of a capital crime at last, thanks to public servant Petronius Longus, better known to Marcus Didius Falco as his old army buddy Petro. A quirk of Roman law, however, allows every citizen condemned to death time to depart. In other words, he has a chance to skip town...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement noir thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-civilization -
![A Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis]()
A Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNobody is poisoned at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers; the assassination attempt comes afterward. Falco ought to know, he is at the banquet along with some unexpected guests, including Anacrites the Chief Spy and Falco's own hostile brat of a brother-in-law, Aelianus...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement noir thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-civilization -
![A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald]()
A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBeing accused at gunpoint of hiding another man's wife is a rude shock. But it's an even bigger shock when Travis McGee discovers that the woman in question is Mary Broll, a dear old friend. Now she's disappeared, vanished without a word to anyone...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled law-enforcement noir thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Iron Hand of Mars: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery by Lindsey Davis]()
The Iron Hand of Mars: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery by Lindsey Davis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen Germanic troops in the service of the Empire begin to rebel, and a Roman general disappears, Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can trust: Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer whose rates are low enough that even the stingy Vespasian is willing to pay them.To Falco, an undercover tour of Germania is an assignment from Hades...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement noir thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-civilization -
![Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis]()
Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA.D. 72: To many, Rome is the center of the Empire. To Marcus Didius Falco, Imperial spy and casual informer, it is the home of his mother, the domineering matriarch who has kept the Didius clan together since her husband absconded with a redhead some twenty years before. Trouble is the last thing Falco wants on his return from a six-month mission to the German legions...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement noir thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-civilization -
![The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald]()
The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWith an introduction by CARL HIAASENJOHN D. MacDONALD."..the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller." --STEPHEN KING."..a master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer."--MARY HIGGINS CLARK."..a dominant influence on writers crafting the continuing series character."--SUE GRAFTON."..my favorite novelist of all time."--DEAN KOONTZ.". -
![If The Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr]()
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 Big Nowhere by James Ellroy]()
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings1950s Los Angeles: The City of Angels has become the city of the Angel of Death. Communist witch-hunts and insanely violent killings are terrorising the community. Three men are plunged into a maelstrom of violence and deceit when their lives become inextricably linked as each one confronts his own personal darkness...Categorized as:
classics crime hard-boiled law-enforcement noir thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
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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 Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler]()
The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA beautiful, historically accurate edition of the modern classic first published in 1943 reproduces the original and offers an alternative for those who love great old books and want to relive Philip Marlowe's strange and puzzling search for the missing woman... -
![Tales from Two Pockets by Karel Čapek]()
Tales from Two Pockets by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsCapek wrote 48 stories that deconstruct the mystery story by breaking one rule here, three rules there, and yet also make for wonderful reading. His unique approaches to the mysteries of justice and truth are full of the ordinary and the extraordinary, humor and humanism...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies fiction -
![The Golden Ball and Other Stories by Agatha Christie]()
The Golden Ball and Other Stories by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIs it a gesture of good will or a sinister trap that lures Rupert St...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
![The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy]()
The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn this savagely audacious novel, James Ellroy plants a pipe bomb under the America in the 1960s, lights the fuse, and watches the shrapnel fly. On November 22, 1963 three men converge in Dallas. Their job: to clean up the JFK hit’s loose ends and inconvenient witnesses. They are Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a Las Vegas cop with family ties to the lunatic right; Ward J... -
![The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey]()
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... -
![White Butterfly by Walter Mosley, Stanley Bennett Clay]()
White Butterfly by Walter Mosley, Stanley Bennett Clay
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe police don't show up on Easy Rawlins's doorstep until the third girl dies. It's Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: "I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto." But Easy turns them down. He's married now, a father -- and his detective days are over... -
![Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake]()
Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen John Dortmunder sets out to rob a bank, he really means it. He steals the whole thing. With the help of his usual crew, as well as a sophomoric ex-FBI man and a militant safecracker, Dortmunder puts a set of wheels under a trailer that just happens to be the temporary site of the Capitalists' & Immigrants' Trust Corp... -
![The Way Some People Die by Ross Macdonald]()
The Way Some People Die by Ross Macdonald
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn a rundown house in Santa Monica, Mrs. Samuel Lawrence presses fifty crumpled bills into Lew Archer's hand and asks him to find her wandering daughter, Galatea. Described as ‘crazy for men’ and without discrimination, she was last seen driving off with small-time gangster Joe Tarantine, a hophead hood with a rep for violence... -
![The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie]()
The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsWhen Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already looking into the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it's one letter down, twenty-five to go.There's a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway Guide beside each victim's body...Categorized as:
classics crime law-enforcement university thriller 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
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![Nightmare Town: Stories by Dashiell Hammett]()
Nightmare Town: Stories by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIntroduced by Colin Dexter, one of England's greatest writers of detective fiction, here are twenty long-unavailable stories by Dashiell Hammett, the author of The Maltese Falcon and one of the finest writers of the twentieth century.In the title story, a man on a bender enters a small town and ends up unravelling the dark mystery at its heart... -
![A Night of Long Knives by Rebecca Cantrell]()
A Night of Long Knives by Rebecca Cantrell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsJournalist Hannah Vogel has vowed to never again set foot in her homeland of Germany while the Nazis are still in power. She has good three years ago in 1931, she kidnapped her “son,” Anton, from the man claiming to be his father--Ernst Rohm, head of the Nazis' SA. A powerful man not to be trifled with, Hannah knows that Rohm will never stop searching for them... -
![The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler]()
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsDown these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid....He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. This is the Code of the Private Eye as defined by Raymond Chandler in his 1944 essay 'The Simple Act of Murder... -
![Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett]()
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWhen the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. "Red Harvest" is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain... -
![Pastime by Robert B. Parker, David Dukes]()
Pastime by Robert B. Parker, David Dukes
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPastime is a startling game of memory, desire, and danger that forces Spenser to face his own past. Ten years ago, he saved a teenage boy from a father's rage. Now, on the brink of manhood, the boy seeks answers to his mother's sudden disapearance. Spenser is the only man he can turn to.This time, it's more than a routine search for a missing person--Spenser must search his own soul.. -
![The Quick Red Fox by John D. MacDonald]()
The Quick Red Fox by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt was the standard blackmail scheme. For years, sultry Lysa Dean's name on a movie had meant a bonanza at the box office. Now a set of pictures could mean the end of her career. When first approached for help by lovely Dana Holtzer, Lysa's personal secretary, Travis McGee is thoroughly turned off by the tacky details...
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