Book picks similar to
Johnny Come Home by Jake Arnott


fiction
crime
gay-fiction
historical-fiction

The North Water


Ian McGuire - 2016
    . .1859. A man joins a whaling ship bound for the Arctic Circle. Having left the British Army with his reputation in tatters, Patrick Sumner has little option but to accept the position of ship's surgeon on this ill-fated voyage. But when, deep into the journey, a cabin boy is discovered brutally killed, Sumner finds himself forced to act. Soon he will face an evil even greater than he had encountered at the siege of Delhi, in the shape of Henry Drax: harpooner, murderer, monster . . . 'A tour de force' Hilary Mantel'Riveting and darkly brilliant' Colm Tóibín

Dead Beat


Val McDermid - 1992
    Warshawski has done for Chicago. As a favour, Kate agrees to track down a missing songwriter, Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is a prelude to murder...

The Game of Love and Death


Martha Brockenbrough - 2015
    Helen of Troy and Paris. Romeo and Juliet. And now... Henry and Flora.For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance?Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured—a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him.The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess.Achingly romantic and brilliantly imagined, The Game of Love and Death is a love story you will never forget.

The Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series, Books 7-9


Louise Penny - 2015
    Featuring Chief Inspector of Homicide Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, these extraordinary novels are here together for the first time in a fabulous ebook bundles. A Trick of the Light When Three Pines artist Clara Morrow's former friend is found dead in her garden, Chief Inspector Gamache finds the art world is one of shading and nuance, shadow and light. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light. The Beautiful Mystery No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, where the monks have become world-famous for their glorious chants. But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Gamache. Before he can find the killer, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between. How the Light Gets In As Christmas approaches, Chief Inspector Gamache travels to Three Pines as a favor to the bookshop owner, whose friend has gone missing—a friend who was once one of the most famous people in the world. With mounting crises in his own homicide department, Gamache finds himself not only investigating a murder, but also seeking refuge for himself and his still-loyal colleagues—if such a refuge exists.

The Asylum


John Harwood - 2013
    She has no memory of the past few weeks. The doctor, Maynard Straker, tells her that she admitted herself under the name Lucy Ashton the day before, then suffered a seizure. When she insists he has mistaken her for someone else, Dr. Straker sends a telegram to her uncle, who replies that Georgina Ferrars is at home with him in London: “Your patient must be an imposter.” Suddenly her voluntary confinement becomes involuntary. Who is the woman in her uncle’s house? And what has become of her two most precious possessions, a dragonfly pin left to her by her mother and a writing case containing her journal, the only record of those missing weeks? Georgina’s perilous quest to free herself takes us from a cliffside cottage on the Isle of Wight to the secret passages of Tregannon House and into a web of hidden family ties on which her survival depends. Another delicious read from the author praised by Ruth Rendell as having “a gift for creating suspense, apparently effortlessly, as if it belongs in the nature of fiction.”

Conclave


Robert Harris - 2016
    Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election. They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals. Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.

The Long Drop


Denise Mina - 2017
    Peter Manuel has been found guilty of a string of murders and is waiting to die by hanging. But every good crime story has a beginning. Manuel's starts with the murder of William Watt's family. Looking no further that Watt himself, the police are convinced he's guilty. Desperate to clear his name, Watt turns to Manuel, a career criminal who claims to have information that will finger the real killer. As Watt seeks justice with the cagey Manuel's help, everyone the pair meets has blood on their hands as they sell their version of the truth. The Long Drop is an explosive novel about guilt, innocence and the power of a good story to hide the difference.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks


William S. Burroughs - 1945
    Burroughs from St. Louis, stabbed a man named David Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife and threw his body in the Hudson River. For eight years, Kammerer had fawned over the younger Carr, but that night something happened: either Carr had had enough or he was forced to defend himself.The next day, his clothes stained with blood, Carr went to his friends Bill Burroughs and Jack Kerouac for help. Doing so, he involved them in the crime. A few months later, they were caught up in the crime in a different way. Something about the murder captivated the Beats, especially Kerouac and Burroughs, who decided to collaborate on a novel about the events of the previous summer. At the time, the two authors were still unknown, yet to write anything of note. Narrating alternating chapters, they pieced together a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and art, obsession and violence, with scenes and characters drawn from their own lives.They submitted their manuscript—called And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks after an absurd line from a radio bulletin about a circus fire—to publishers, but it was rejected and confined to a filing cabinet for decades. Finally published, at long last, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks tells the story of Ramsay Allen and the object of his fixation, the charismatic, idealistic young Phillip Tourian. Phillip and his friends drink and dream in the bars and apartments of the West Village, until, with his friend Mike Ryko (Kerouac's narrator), he hatches a plan to ship out as a merchant marine. They'll catch a boat for France and jump ship, then make their way through the front to Paris. And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks is an engaging, fast-paced read that shows the two authors' developing styles. It is also an incomparable artifact, a legendary novel from the dawn of the Beat movement by two hugely influential writers.

Wake


Anna Hope - 2014
    Their tragic connection is slowly revealed as the book unfolds.Wake: 1) Emerge or cause to emerge from sleep 2) Ritual for the dead 3) Consequence or aftermath.Hettie, a dance instructress at the Palais, lives at home with her mother and her brother, mute and lost after his return from the war. One night, at work, she meets a wealthy, educated man and has reason to think he is as smitten with her as she is with him. Still there is something distracted about him, something she cannot reach...Evelyn works at the Pensions Exchange through which thousands of men have claimed benefits from wounds or debilitating distress. Embittered by her own loss, more and more estranged from her posh parents, she looks for solace in her adored brother who has not been the same since he returned from the front...Ada is beset by visions of her son on every street, convinced he is still alive. Helpless, her loving husband of 25 years has withdrawn from her. Then one day a young man appears at her door with notions to peddle, like hundreds of out of work veterans. But when he shows signs of being seriously disturbed—she recognizes the symptoms of "shell shock"—and utters the name of her son she is jolted to the core...The lives of these three women are braided together, their stories gathering tremendous power as the ties that bind them become clear, and the body of the unknown soldier moves closer and closer to its final resting place.

The Talented Mr. Ripley


Patricia Highsmith - 1955
    In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante. A dark reworking of Henry James's The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley—is up to his tricks in a 90s film and also Rene Clement's 60s film, "Purple Noon."

The Crow Girl


Erik Axl Sund - 2016
    When two more bodies are found, it becomes clear that she is hunting a serial killer.With her career on the line, she turns to psychotherapist Sofia Zetterlund. Together, they uncover a chain of shocking events that began decades ago – but will it lead them to the murderer before someone else dies?

Loving Eleanor


Susan Wittig Albert - 2016
    Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship documented by 3300 letters. Set during the chaotic years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War, Loving Eleanor reveals Eleanor Roosevelt as a complex, contradictory, and entirely human woman who is pulled in many directions by her obligations to her husband and family and her role as the nation's First Lady. Hick is revealed as an accomplished journalist, who, at the pinnacle of her career, gives it all up for the woman she loves. Then, as Eleanor is transformed into Eleanor Everywhere, First Lady of the World, Hick must create her own independent, productive life. Loving Eleanor is a profoundly moving novel that illuminates a relationship we are seldom privileged to see, celebrating the depth and durability of women's love.

And Justice for One: A novel of revenge


John Clarkson - 1992
    After the burial – on a whiskey-soaked night on the town – Jack’s brother disappears. When his brother is found comatose on the edge of death, Devlin resolves to avenge the wrong – no matter what it takes, no matter where the trail leads, even if he has to descend into the lawless underworld of New York City after-hours clubs where violence reigns, sex and drugs rule the night, and corruption kills. AND JUSTICE FOR ONE tells a dark, violent story set in 1980’s New York during a time when lawlessness and corruption pulsed intently under the city’s civilized veneer. Those times and places are gone now, but today’s readers can experience them in this intense, thoroughly-researched novel. This is the second edition of the acclaimed debut novel in the Jack Devlin “One” series, re-edited by the author, John Clarkson. The New York Times said AND JUSTICE FOR ONE "Packs a savage punch". Kirkus Reviews called it, "Dark, sexy, tough, and fast." Amazon reviewers called it: “The best action novel I have ever read!”, “Well-written, hot, furious, fun.”, “A helluva a good read, loaded with action.”If you missed AND JUSTICE FOR ONE the first time around, don’t miss it this time!Author's Note This novel was first published in 1992. I don't remember exactly when I began writing it. I do remember the two events that inspired the story. The first event occurred in 1976 when I visited an after-hours club in downtown Manhattan. The second event came in 1979. A six-year-old boy named Etan Patz disappeared on a spring morning in New York's SoHo district, igniting the worst fears of parents around the country. It happened during a two-block walk to his school bus stop. Somewhere in the back of my mind those two events brewed for years. What if someone you loved vanished? What would you do to find them? And what if it turned out that the mysterious, hidden world of after-hours clubs had something to do with the disappearance? At some point in the late eighties, those two events became the inspiration for my first novel. I hardly remember writing it. My sense is that it came out in a sudden rush. And selling it to a publisher happened quite fast. I landed an agent, George Wieser, very quickly. And it seems like George sold it to Crown with in a few weeks. Thank you, George! I do remember spending a very long time editing the book under the guidance of Peter St. John Ginna. He was patient with me. He made it a much better book. I still appreciate his efforts. In the original author's note, I also thanked my wife Ellen for her patience. A good deal of the research for And Justice for One started at four in the morning. All these years later Ellen is still patient with me, but more importantly,she still loves me, and I her. The others I thanked in the first edition were "the people who made it possible for me to enter the world of after-hours clubs, particularly a friend named Tommy Burns. When I asked how I should acknowledge him in the first edition, he said use T.B., 'Bartender to the Stars.'" Tommy rarely took anything very seriously. Obviously, all the after-hours clubs described in this book no longer exist. But all of them except for one which is a composite of three clubs, existed very much as described. It was a wild time in NYC. A time before cell phones and the internet and Uber. A time long gone. So, what prompted me to re-publish And Justice for One? Since its publication in 1992, I have persisted in writing crime thrillers, despite about a ten-year break after the first five. All five of those novels are out of print, but readers often ask me how they can get them. This is an attempt to make that easier. It has also provided me with the opportunity to polish the book. Nothing substantive, but lots of nips and tucks. This new edition is still what I consider a raw, rather impetuous novel from an unformed writer just starting out. Maybe that's the best kind. Hope you enjoy it.

Karen Memory


Elizabeth Bear - 2015
    See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I'm one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the o like that. It's French, so Beatrice tells me."Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.

Hangover Square


Patrick Hamilton - 1941
    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. George is adrift in hell, until something goes click in his head and he realizes that he must kill her.