Books like 'Rampage'
Readers who enjoyed Rampage 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 thriller
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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... -
Shattered / Whispers / Watchers by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThree more electrifying thrillers by the new king of the genre. The New York Times #1 bestselling author's terrifying masterpieces: Watchers (his personal favorite), Whispers and Shattered, now for the first time in one hardcover edition... -
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... -
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
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
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
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
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
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... -
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... -
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
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
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 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... -
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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
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... -
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... -
In the Teeth of the Evidence by Dorothy L. Sayers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAll that was left of the garage was a heap of charred and smouldering beams. In the driving seat of the burnt-out car were the remains of a body...An accident, said the police. An accident, said the widow. She had been warning her husband about the danger of the car for months. Murder, said the famous detective Lord Peter Wimsey--and proceeded to track down the killer... -
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
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
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
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... -
Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTHERE'S A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN IN JULIAN KESTREL'S BED. UNFORTUNATELY, SHE'S DEAD.Add the unflappable Julian Kestrel to the ranks of great sleuths of ages past. He's the very model of a proper Beau Brummell--except for his unusual willingness to plunge headlong into murder investigations... -
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... -
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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... -
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
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.. -
Black Sun by Owen Matthews
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA thrilling debut set at the height--and in the heart--of Soviet power, with intricately plotted machinations, secrets and surveillance, corrupt politicos and puppet masters in the Politburo, and one devastating weapon.It is the dawn of the 1960s... -
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... -
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The Buried Book by D.M. Pulley
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen Althea Leary abandons her nine-year-old son, Jasper, he’s left on his uncle’s farm with nothing but a change of clothes and a Bible.It’s 1952, and Jasper isn’t allowed to ask questions or make a fuss. He’s lucky to even have a home and must keep his mouth shut and his ears open to stay in his uncle’s good graces. No one knows where his mother went or whether she’s coming back... -
The Golden Gate by Amy Chua
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAmy Chua's debut novel, The Golden Gate, is a sweeping, evocative, and compelling historical thriller that paints a vibrant portrait of a California buffeted by the turbulent crosswinds of a world at war and a society about to undergo massive change... -
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... -
Dodging and Burning by John Copenhaver
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA lurid crime scene photo of a beautiful woman arrives on mystery writer Bunny Prescott's doorstep with no return address—and it's not the first time she's seen it. The reemergence of the photo, taken fifty-five years earlier, sets her on a journey to reconstruct the vicious summer that changed her life... -
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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... -
Tokyo by Mo Hayder
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWith the redolent atmosphere of Ian Rankin and the spine-chilling characters of Thomas Harris, Mo Hayder's The Devil of Nanking, takes the reader on an electrifying literary ride from the palatial apartments of yakuza kingpins to deep inside the secret history of one of the twentieth century's most brutal events: the Nanking Massacre... -
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... -
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsProfessor Charles Grimaud was explaining to some friends the natural causes behind an ancient superstition about men leaving their coffins when a stranger entered and challenged Grimaud's skepticism. The stranger asserted that he had risen from his own coffin and that four walls meant nothing to him. He added, 'My brother can do more.. -
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
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
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... -
The Purification Ceremony by Mark T. Sullivan
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAn LA Times Best Book of the Year The product of a long line of hunters, shamans, and healers, Diana Jackman grew up surrounded by wilderness. A natural-born tracker, she and seven other hunters have gathered in the remote and treacherous snow-covered tundra of northern British Columbia in pursuit of white-tail deer. And while the group may be isolated, they are not alone... -
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... -
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 -
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The Wicker Man by Robin Hardy, Anthony Shaffer
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFirst published in 1978, five years after the release of the classic horror film from which it is adapted, The Wicker Man is a gripping horror classic.It is the tale of Highlands policeman, Police Sergeant Neil Howie, on the trail of a missing girl being lured to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle. As May Day approaches, strange, shamanistic and erotic events erupt around him... -
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... -
The Forbidden Territory by Dennis Wheatley, Nick Mercer
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDennis Wheatley’s first published novel, introducing his modern trinity of musketeers in the epicurean Duc de Richleau, financier Simon Aron, and the wealthy young American, Rex Van Ryn.The Duc receives a coded message from his missing friend Van Ryn who, while hunting for treasure lost during the Soviet takeover of Russia, is now in prison somewhere in that vast country... -
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... -
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 Devil's Flute Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn ingenious and highly atmospheric classic whodunit from Japan’s master of crime.Amid the rubble of post-war Tokyo, inside the grand Tsubaki house, a once-noble family is in mourning.The old viscount Tsubaki, a brooding, troubled composer, has been found dead...
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