Since her 2007 debut, “In the Woods,” the writer Tana French has created an army of devoted readers who can’t get enough of her twisty, psychologically complex brand of modern procedural. As “The Keeper,” the third and final volume of her Cal Hooper series, hits shelves, those who’ve already read French’s nine other books will find a wealth of inspiration for what to read next here.
Cover Her Face
by P.D. James
James’s 1962 debut introduced the world not just to “the Queen of Crime,” but also to the cerebral poet-cop Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard, summoned here to an Essex manor house to investigate the murder of a young maid who seems to have made enemies upstairs, downstairs and everywhere in between.
There are 14 Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. You might also like … Deborah Crombie’s Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James series or Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks novels.
Bluebird, Bluebird
by Attica Locke
Locke’s Edgar-winning mystery stars the Texas ranger Darren Mathews who’s been suspended from his job, but can’t resist chasing the case of a murdered Chicago lawyer. As he navigates race, identity and secrets in a small East Texas town, Mathews begins to question what it really means to belong to a community.
There are three Darren Mathews novels. You might also like … “All the Sinners Bleed,” by S.A. Cosby; “Blackwater Falls,” by Ausma Zehanat Khan; Valerie Wilson Wesley’s Tamara Hayle series; or “Burning Angel,” by James Lee Burke.
The Last Detective
by Peter Lovesey
In Bath, England, the brilliant, boorish Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond scraps protocol while investigating the death of a woman found floating in a local lake — a case that will ultimately involve a soap opera, two letters written by Jane Austen and a mall Santa.
There are 22 Peter Diamond books. You might also like … Peter James’s Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series or Mark Billingham’s Detective Inspector Tom Thorne novels.
Garnethill
by Denise Mina
A former psychiatric patient becomes the prime suspect in her therapist-slash-boyfriend’s murder. Gritty, mordantly funny and unapologetically Glaswegian, Mina’s debut is quintessential “tartan noir.”
You might also like … Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series or “Laidlaw,” by William McIlvanney.
The Fatal Touch
by Conor Fitzgerald
Rich with descriptions of sumptuous meals and the byzantine inner workings of the Italian police, this book stars Commissario Alec Blume, an American expat working as a homicide cop in Rome. Every book in the Blume series is brooding, introspective and intelligent, but this one — about the death of a skilled art forger — is the best.
There are five Alec Blume books. You might also like … Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries or Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Delegado Espinosa series.
The Missing American
by Kwei Quartey
The first book in Quartey’s Emma Djan series finds the young Ghanaian private detective taking on cybercrime, fetish priests, scams and, ultimately, murder. Accra comes to vivid life in this immersive procedural.
There are four Emma Djan mysteries. You might also like … Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series or Dennis Lehane’s Kenzie and Gennaro novels.
Beautiful Animals
by Lawrence Osborne
On a Greek island, two rich, spoiled young vacationers encounter a handsome Syrian refugee, whom they endeavor to help — with disastrous results. Palpable malice thrums beneath the postcard-pretty settings.
You might also like … “The Fall Guy,” by James Lasdun; “Our Kind of Cruelty,” by Araminta Hall; or “The Devil Loves Me,” by Margaret Millar.
A Great Deliverance
by Elizabeth George
This first novel starring the blue-blooded Scotland Yard inspector Thomas Lynley, offers “the grimly fascinating peeling away, layer by layer, of Gothic family secrets in Yorkshire,” as our reviewer wrote. There are currently 21 more books in the series, all pleasingly long and satisfyingly complex.
There are 22 D.I. Lynley books. You might also like … Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford series or Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries.
Case Histories
by Kate Atkinson
When the detective Jackson Brodie is called to work a grisly murder in Cambridge, England, the case draws him into a complex web of events dating back three decades — and into his own family history. Our crime columnist wrote that the novel “makes most murder-mystery page-turners feel as lifeless as the corpses they’re strewn with.”
There are six Jackson Brodie mysteries. You might also like … “Long Bright River,” by Liz Moore or Jane Harper’s series about the federal agent Aaron Falk.
A Place of Execution
by Val McDermid
Summoned to a creepy, insular Derbyshire village to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl, Detective Inspector George Bennett finds it “so cut off from the rest of the world, they might still be worshiping the corn goddess.” Decades later, everything Bennett thought he understood about the crime is upended.
You might also like … Stuart MacBride’s Logan McRae series or “Starve Acre,” by Andrew Michael Hurley.
Devil in a Blue Dress
by Walter Mosley
The year is 1948, the place is Los Angeles and Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins is finding postwar readjustment to a segregated United States bitter and financially challenging. Enter a sinister man offering him money to find a missing dame, and you get what our critic called “a suspenseful novel of human detection more than simply a detective novel.”
There are 17 Easy Rawlins books. You might also like … “The Last Good Kiss,” by James Crumley; “The Eighth Circle,” by Stanley Ellin; or “Your House Will Pay,” by Steph Cha.
Knife
by Jo Nesbo; translated by Neil Smith
Devastated by a breakup and medicating himself with whiskey, the Oslo police detective Harry Hole spirals out of control in this twisty Nordic noir. Transferred to the cold case bureau, Hole is powerless to act when a serial killer he once put behind bars is released from prison — and a fresh wave of murders hits the city.
There are 13 Harry Hole novels. You might also like … “The Black Echo,” by Michael Connelly or “Faceless Killers,” by Henning Mankell.
Raven Black
by Ann Cleeves
In a small community in Scotland’s Shetland Islands, the murder of a teenage girl brings long-simmering tensions and rumors to the surface. The local detective, Jimmy Perez, a man at a personal crossroads, must untangle the threads of the crime in a place of austere, forbidding beauty where “people were related in complicated and intimate ways.”
There are eight Jimmy Perez mysteries. You might also like … “Little Black Lies,” by Sharon Bolton or Arnaldur Indridason’s Inspector Erlendur series.
The Body Snatcher
by Patricia Melo; translated by Clifford E. Landers
After a nameless narrator witnesses a small plane crash in the Brazilian lowlands, he impulsively — and stupidly — steals a kilo of cocaine from the dead pilot’s possessions. As he’s sucked into an ever-scarier criminal underworld, the narrator’s dawning realizations about what he’s gotten himself into fill the novel with almost unbearable tension.
You might also like … “No Country for Old Men,” by Cormac McCarthy; Rafael Frumkin’s “The Comedown”; or “The Sound of Things Falling,” by Juan Gabriel Vásquez.
Witness the Night
by Kishwar Desai
Simran Singh — a “gin-swilling, cigarette-smoking, 45-year-old renegade” social worker with a side hustle solving crimes — comes to the defense of a teenage girl accused of mass murder in a small town in northern India.
You might also like … Agnete Friis and Lene Kaaberbol’s Nina Borg series or Damyanti Biswas’s Blue Mumbai thrillers.
Searching for Sylvie Lee
by Jean Kwok
When her seemingly perfect older sister, Sylvie, goes missing, Amy, the black sheep of the family, sets to work finding out her secrets. Based on events in Kwok’s own life, this engrossing mystery “explores the mirage of the American Dream,” The Times noted. “Kwok’s story asks: What is the price of realizing this dream? And who must pay it?”
You might also like … “My Sister, the Serial Killer,” by Oyinkan Braithwaite or “She Lies in Wait,” by Gytha Lodge.
Havoc
by Christopher Bollen
At first, the new guest at the slightly dilapidated Royal Karnak hotel in Luxor, Egypt, seems to be nothing more than a meddlesome 81-year-old woman. “What do I do? I liberate people who don’t know they’re stuck,” she says. “I change people’s lives for the better, whether they see it that way or not.” Just as you realize how malevolent she actually is, the woman meets her match in another guest: an 8-year-old boy.
You might also like … “The Secret History,” by Donna Tartt; “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” by Patricia Highsmith; or “Tangerine,” by Christine Mangan.
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