Books like 'Panic'
Readers who enjoyed Panic by Harold Schechter also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery horror 20th century true-crime crime noir
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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... -
![The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale]()
The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe narrator of The Bottoms is Harry Collins, an old man obsessively reflecting on certain key experiences of his childhood. In 1933, the year that forms the centerpiece of the narrative, Harry is 11 years old and living with his mother, father, and younger sister on a farm outside of Marvel Creek, Texas, near the Sabine River bottoms... -
![Shadows Linger by Glen Cook]()
Shadows Linger by Glen Cook
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsMercenary soldiers in the service of the Lady, the Black Company stands against the rebels of the White Rose. They are tough men, proud of honoring their contracts. The Lady is evil, but so, too, are those who falsely profess to follow the White Rose, reincarnation of a centuries-dead heroine... -
![The Spinster's Fortune by Mary Kendall]()
The Spinster's Fortune by Mary Kendall
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMoonlit alleys, shadowy tunnels, and buried secrets…Summer of 1929.Of supposed unsound mind without a penny to her name, Blanche Magruder lies alone in a home for the aged and infirm.Meanwhile, her house, a crumbled ruin in the heart of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., is pillaged nightly by thieves looking for treasure rumored to be hidden there... -
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![The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb]()
The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsInspired by serial killer Harry Powers, "The Bluebeard of Quiet Dell," who was hung in 1932 for his murders of two widows and three children. This best-selling novel, first published in 1953 to wide acclaim by author Grubb, (who like Powers lived in Clarksburg, West Virginia), served as the basis for Charles Laughton's noir classic... -
![Potsdam Station by David Downing]()
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... -
![In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, Paula Rabinowitz]()
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, Paula Rabinowitz
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPostwar Los Angeles is a lonely place where the American Dream is showing its seamy underside—and a stranger is preying on young women. The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect... -
![Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton]()
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... -
![Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood]()
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... -
![Hard Magic by Larry Correia]()
Hard Magic by Larry Correia
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsJake Sullivan is a licensed Private Eye—with a seriously hardboiled attitude. He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It's no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someone to go after a suspected killer who's been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree...Categorized as:
crime noir 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook -
![Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins, Catherine Pope]()
Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins, Catherine Pope
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHarriet Ogilvy is a young woman with a small fortune and a mental disability, making her the ideal target for the handsome and scheming Lewis Oman. After winning Harriet's love, Lewis, with the help of his brother and mistress, sets in motion a plan of unspeakable cruelty and evil to get his hands on her money... -
![The Long Home by William Gay]()
The Long Home by William Gay
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine - until he learns of it first-hand... -
![The Best American Noir Of The Century by Otto Penzler, James Ellroy]()
The Best American Noir Of The Century by Otto Penzler, James Ellroy
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn his introduction, James Ellroy writes, "Noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction…It's the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad."Ellroy & Penzler mined the past century to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories... -
![The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock]()
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama... -
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![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... -
![Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald]()
Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHow far would you go to save your family? In John D. MacDonald's iconic masterwork of suspense, the inspiration for not one but two Hollywood hits, a mild-mannered family is tormented by an obsessed criminal--and with the authorities powerless to protect them, they must take the law into their own hands... -
![The Bad Seed (P.S.) by William March]()
The Bad Seed (P.S.) by William March
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNow reissued – William March's 1954 classic thriller that's as chilling, intelligent and timely as ever before. This paperback reissue includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested reading and more.What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller... -
![Ripper by Michael Slade]()
Ripper by Michael Slade
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of Cutthroat comes a nerve-shattering thriller combining the legend of Jack the Ripper, the terrifying secrets of the Tarot, and a "mystery weekend" on a secluded Canadian island, whereurder becomes all too real... -
![Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation by Harlan Ellison]()
Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe original 50 cent paperback edition of this book now goes for $100 in rare book auctions. Why? Because it contains 25 of the best, hardest-to-find stories of the writer the Washington Post calls "one of the great living American short story writers," the unpredictable Harlan Ellison... -
![Angel Street: A Victorian Thriller in Three Acts by Patrick Hamilton]()
Angel Street: A Victorian Thriller in Three Acts by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Broadway hit first produced on the West End under the title Gaslight and filmed twice, Angel Street tells the story of the Manninghams who live on Angel Street in 19th Century London. As the curtain rises, all appears the essence of Victorian tranquility. It is soon apparent however, that Mr... -
![No Doors, No Windows by Harlan Ellison]()
No Doors, No Windows by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF! The only trouble is, fear comes in so many different shapes and sizes these days. It comes as rejection by a beautiful woman. It comes in the brutalization of your love by an amoral man... -
![The Falcon's Malteser by Anthony Horowitz]()
The Falcon's Malteser by Anthony Horowitz
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen the vertically-challenged Johnny Naples entrusts Tim Diamond with a package worth over three million pounds, he's making a big mistake. Tim Diamond is the worst detective in the world... -
![The Unclaimed Victim by D.M. Pulley]()
The Unclaimed Victim by D.M. Pulley
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLiving decades apart, two women get caught in the web of an infamous serial killer. In 1938, at the height of the Great Depression, a madman hunts his victims through the hobo jungles of Cleveland, terrorizing the city... -
![The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø]()
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsThe Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole... -
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![Crippen by John Boyne]()
Crippen by John Boyne
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJuly 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr... -
![Bloodcircle by P.N. Elrod]()
Bloodcircle by P.N. Elrod
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratings"Critics are thirsting for "Vampire Files"...An entertaining blend of detective story and the supernatural". Science Fiction Chronicle"A blend of the hard-boiled detective novel and the vampire tale.. -
![Art in the Blood by P.N. Elrod]()
Art in the Blood by P.N. Elrod
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsI'm a vampire, not an artist, but I know what I like.And I don't like murder:So when the career of a talented young artist is fatally cut short, I know I won't sleep easy in my coffin until I find the killer: But the world of high art--with its big money, bigger egos, and expensive forgeries--makes even bloodsucking seem simple. And safer... -
![Once by Patricia Highsmith]()
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![He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr]()
He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Dr Gideon Fell mystery and classic of the locked-room genre Outside the little French city of Chartres, industrialist Howard Brookes is found dying on the parapet of an old stone tower. Evidence shows that it was impossible for anyone to have entered at the time of the murder, however someone must have, for the victim was discovered stabbed in the back... -
![The Far Cry by Fredric Brown]()
The Far Cry by Fredric Brown
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOnce upon a time, a girl named Jenny Ames was murdered in a lonely house. No one knew where she had come from, or why she had died, or who killed her. Years later a man moved into the same house and discovered that nothing is more seductive than an unsolved murder... -
![The Adventures of Solar Pons by August Derleth]()
The Adventures of Solar Pons by August Derleth
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSolar Pons: In his Inverness cape Solar Pons steps briskly from No 7B Praed Street onto the mist-shrouded cobblestones of old London's alleyways. The game is afoot...Pons, Solar. Born 1880 in Prague. Public school education. Graduated Oxford University 1889. Unmarried. Member Savile, Diogenes, Athenaeum, Cliff Dwellers, Lambs. Est. private inquiry practice at 7B Praed Street, 1907... -
![A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell]()
A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFaith Severn has grown up with the dark cloud of murder looming over her family. Her aunt Vera Hillyard, a rigidly respectable woman, was convicted and hanged for the crime, but the reason for her desperate deed died with her. Thirty years later, a probing journalist pushes Faith to look back to the day when her aunt took knife in hand and walked into a child's nursery... -
![Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham]()
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a carnival-show geek—alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd’s gleeful disgust and derision—going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There’s no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him... -
![Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count by Loren D. Estleman]()
Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count by Loren D. Estleman
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAfter a mysterious schooner runs aground in an English harbor with no human passengers--only the dead captain, drained of blood--a series of bizarre nocturnal crimes takes place in London. It can only be the work of Count Dracula, and only one man can save the city: the great Sherlock Holmes... -
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![The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich]()
The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAMERICA'S MASTER OF SUSPENSE...FIRST IN THE DEFINITIVE SERIES OF THIS AMERICAN GENIUSNo one knew who she was, where she came from, or why she had entered their lives. All they really knew about her was that she possessed a terrifying beauty-and that each time she appeared, a man died horribly.. -
![Lifeblood by P.N. Elrod]()
Lifeblood by P.N. Elrod
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsJack Fleming was an investigative journalist in Prohibition-era Chicago until he got shot by an unknown assassin, bitten by his vampire girlfriend, and became one of the undead. Now, this nice-guy nosferatu has a bunch of crazy vampire hunters on his trail armed with crosses, silver bullets, and sharp wooden stakes... -
![The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B. Hanna]()
The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B. Hanna
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis novel brings back to life Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's great character in atmospheric Victorian London as he is faced with a crisis of conscience when confronted with disclosing the identity of Jack the Ripper. "Intriguing and chilling".--New York Times Book Review... -
![I Married a Dead Man by William Irish, Cornell Woolrich]()
I Married a Dead Man by William Irish, Cornell Woolrich
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPregnant, abandoned by her slimy husband and destitute, Helen Georgesson boards a train going west. In the crowded train car she meets happy newlyweds Patrice Hazzard, also expecting, and Hugh. They are on their way to visit Hugh’s parents, whom Patrice is meeting for the first time... -
![Nocturne by Karina Halle]()
Nocturne by Karina Halle
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA vampire romance so dark it’ll bite.He’s not just dangerous—he’s designed to destroy you.Blood. Obsession. Murder.And a love story twisted enough to hurt so good.Los Angeles, 1947.The city is drowning in secrets and blood—and Lena Reid just lost her best friend to the shadows.Elizabeth Short is dead. The press calls her the Black Dahlia.Lena wants answers. Closure. Revenge... -
![The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont]()
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWho Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?Take a journey back to the desperate days of America post the Great Depression, when the country turned to the pulp novels for relief, for hope and for heroes. Meet Walter Gibson, the mind behind The Shadow, and Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage, as they challenge one another to discover what is real and what is pulp...Categorized as:
crime noir 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history amateur-sleuth book -
![Deception by Roald Dahl]()
Deception by Roald Dahl
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTHE PERFECT GIFT for fans of Roald Dahl.Think you know Dahl? Think again. There's still a whole world of Dahl to discover in a newly collected book of his deliciously dark tales for adults . . . 'The cruelest lies are often told in silence . . -
![When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger]()
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audrian has kept his independence the hard way. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan... -
![The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown]()
The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt was the figure of a girl, her arms thrust out to ward off the ripper... her body distorted, rigid with terror... her mouth open in a silent, eternal scream. Originally published in 1949... -
![A Wicked Snow (Emily Kenyon #3) by Gregg Olsen, Kevin Foley]()
A Wicked Snow (Emily Kenyon #3) by Gregg Olsen, Kevin Foley
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHannah Griffin was a girl when tragedy struck on her family's farm. She still remembers the flames reflected against the newly fallen snow and the bodies the police dug upone of them her mother's. It was the nation's worst murder scene in decades and the killer was never found. Two decades later Hannah is a CSI investigating a case of child abuse when the past comes hurtling back... -
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![Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales by P.D. James, Peter Kemp]()
Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales by P.D. James, Peter Kemp
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA collectible gift for all P. D. James fans to stand alongside her bestselling The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories six previously uncollected stories from the beloved Queen of Crime--swift, cunning murder mysteries from throughout her extraordinary career. Put your feet up and enjoy a good read! Longtime P. D... -
![The Exploits of Juve by Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre]()
The Exploits of Juve by Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe scourge of Paris commits his most ingenious crime yet The second installment in this groundbreaking series opens with a crime that even Inspector Juve, dedicated hunter of the archvillain Fantômas, finds impossible to believe: A woman has been murdered in the very same room the inspector was staking out not an hour before... -
![The Inugami Clan by Seishi Yokomizo]()
The Inugami Clan by Seishi Yokomizo
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhat's the reason behind this sequence of grotesque and bloody murders -- and who is the ghastly murderer? These are the riddles that ace private eye Kosuke Kindaichi has to solve.In mid-1940s Japan Sahei Inugami, wealthy head of the Inugami Group and 'Silk King of Japan', dies in his lakeside villa at the venerable age of 81... -
![The Deadly Streets by Harlan Ellison]()
The Deadly Streets by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRemember Charles Bronson stalking the streets of New York blowing holes in muggers in Death Wish? Remember Glenn Ford standing off the vicious juvenile delinquents in Blackboard Jungle? Well, it's more than fifty years and two different worlds from 1955 to now. And something the author of these stories knows, that you're scared to admit, is that reality and fantasy have flip-flopped... -
![White Chapel, Scarlet Tracings by Iain Sinclair]()
White Chapel, Scarlet Tracings by Iain Sinclair
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA novel about London -- its past, its people, its underbelly and its madness."In this extraordinary work Sinclair combines a spiritual inquest into the Whitechapel Ripper murders and the dark side of the late Victorian imagination with a posse of seedy book dealers hot on the trail of obscure rarities of that period... -
![Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich, Nguyễn Thành Long]()
Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich, Nguyễn Thành Long
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt begins as a publicity stunt: a singer parading a jaguar on a leash. But then the killer cat escapes into the heart of a large South American city and soon a woman is found torn to death. As the police search for the deadly jaguar, one man looks deeper--for a creature more terrible than any jungle beast..
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