18 books like The Drowning Pool

What to read after The Drowning Pool — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

The Moving Target Ross MacDonald · 1950 · ★ 3.9 · 212p · ≈ 7h · Moderate The first book in Ross Macdonald's acclaimed Lew Archer series introduces the detective who redefined the role of the American private eye and gave the crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity only hinted at before.Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There's the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading… Shares: Archer, Los angeles, California, Private investigators

The chill Ross Macdonald · 1963 · ★ 3.6 · 233p · ≈ 7h · Moderate L'auteure évoque quelques caractéristiques de la femme, selon une approche qui relève davantage de la psychologie. Principaux points: le désir féminin, les rôles dans l'amour, les priorités de l'amour, connaître les principaux traits de sa personnalité, l'amour et la beauté, ce que femme veut: l'amour; la résistance féminine. Shares: Archer, Los angeles, California, Private investigators

Stalking the Angel Robert Crais · 1989 · ★ 4.0 · 256p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Meet Elvis Cole, L.A. private eye . . . he quotes Jiminy Cricket and carries a .38. He’s a literate, wisecreacking Vietnam vet who is determined never to grow up. The blonde who walked into Cole’s office was the bestlooking woman he’d seen in weeks. The only thing that kept her from rating a perfect “10” was the briefcase on one arm and the uptight hotel magnate on the other. Bradley Warren had… Shares: Los angeles, California, Private investigators

Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler · 1940 · ★ 4.1 · 249p · ≈ 8h · Challenging This is one of Chandler’s most famous crime novels featuring the detective Philip Marlowe, who’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. Shares: Los angeles, Private investigators, Mystery

The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler · 1939 · ★ 3.9 · 184p · ≈ 6h · Challenging Philip Marlowe, a private eye who operates in Los Angeles's seamy underside during the 1930s, takes on his first case, which involves a paralyzed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder Shares: Los angeles, California, Private investigators, Mystery

The Monkey's Raincoat Robert Crais · 1987 · ★ 4.0 · 256p · ≈ 8h · Moderate When Los Angeles private detective Elvis Cole investigates the disappearance of Ellen Lang's husband and young son, he stumbles into a bizarre nightmare of high-level intrigue, missing drugs, and murder in Hollywood's seamy underworld. Shares: Los angeles, California, Private investigators

Ticktock Dean Koontz · 1996 · ★ 3.8 · 318p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Tommy Phan is a 30-year-old Vietnamese-American detective and novelist living in Southern California, and a chaser of the American Dream. He drives home his brand-new Corvette one day to discover a strange doll on his doorstep. It's a rag doll made entirely of white cloth, with no face or hair or clothes. Where the eyes should be, there are two crossed stitches of black thread. Five sets of… Shares: California, Private investigators

The high window Raymond Chandler · 1942 · ★ 3.7 · 198p · ≈ 6h · Challenging Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the 1940s and 1950s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. In The High Window, Marlowe starts out on the trail of a single stolen coin and ends up… Shares: Los angeles, California, Private investigators

The Last Detective Robert Crais · 2003 · ★ 4.3 · 302p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Elvis Cole is back...With his acclaimed bestsellers, Hostage (a New York Times Notable Book) and Demolition Angel, Robert Crais drew raves for his unstoppable pacing, edgy characterizations, and cinematic prose. Now, in The Last Detective, Crais returns to his signature character, Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole, in a masterful page-turner that probes the meaning of family and the… Shares: Los angeles, Private investigators, Mystery

Ask the Dust John Fante · 1939 · ★ 4.3 · 208p · ≈ 6h · Challenging Arturo Bandini is a struggling writer lodging in a seedy LA hotel. While basking in the glory of having had a single short story published in a small magazine, he meets local waitress Camilla Lopez and they embark on a strange and strained love-hate relationship/ Slowly, but inexorably, it descends into the realms of madness. Ask the Dust is one of the truly great, yet unsung, American novels of… Shares: Los angeles, California

Another City, Not My Own Dominick Dunne · 1997 · ★ 3.8 · 360p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Told from the point of view of one of Dunne's most familiar fictional characters - Gus Bailey - Another City, Not My Own tells how Gus, the movers and shakers of Los Angeles, and the city itself are drawn into the vortex of the O.J. Simpson trial. We have met Gus Bailey in previous novels by Dominick Dunne. He is a writer and journalist, father of a murdered child, and chronicler of justice -… Shares: Los angeles, California

The case of the lame canary Erle Stanley Gardner · 1937 · ★ 4.0 · 255p · ≈ 8h · Challenging helyesírás címben Shares: Los angeles, California, Mystery

The case of the haunted husband Erle Stanley Gardner · 1941 · ★ 3.9 · 290p · ≈ 9h · Challenging Aspiring actress Stephane Olger just wants to be in pictures. But she may end up in mug shots instead when she gets herself caught up in a crime. Shortly after quitting her job and moving to Hollywood, she is picked up by a well-dressed man while hitchhiking. The man loses control of the car and they end up in a horrible accident. Both Stephane and the driver escape unscathed but the strange man… Shares: Los angeles, California, Mystery

The Concrete Blonde Michael Connelly · 1994 · ★ 4.2 · 367p · ≈ 12h · Moderate The Dollmaker was the name of the serial killer who had stalked Los Angeles ruthlessly, leaving grisly calling cards on the faces of his female victims. Now with a single faultless shot, Detective Harry Bosch thinks he has ended the city's nightmare.But the dead man's widow is suing Harry and the LAPD for killing the wrong man-- an accusation that rings terrifyingly true when a new victim is… Shares: Los angeles, California, Mystery

A Darkness More Than Night Michael Connelly · 2000 · ★ 4.5 · 418p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Terrence McCaleb is asked by the LAPD to help them investigate a series of murders that have them baffled. They are the kind of ritualized killings that McCaleb specialized in solving with the FBI, and he is reluctantly drawn from his peaceful new life back into the horror and excitement of tracking down a terrifying homicidal maniac. More horrifying still, the suspect who seems to fit the… Shares: Los angeles, California, Private investigators, Mystery

The Shape of Dread Marcia Muller · 1989 · 282p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Bobby Foster, carhop at the chic Cafe Comedie, is going to the gas chamber. He’s already confessed to the murder of Tracy Kostakos, the club’s rising star. But two years after the crime, Tracy’s body is still missing and Bobby’s confession is full of holes. All Souls Legal Cooperative’s final appeal sends San Francisco’s number one PI Sharon McCone behind the footlights into the super-charged… Shares: California, Private investigators, Mystery

Amateur City Katherine V. Forrest · 1984 · ★ 4.2 · 204p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Tough and demanding LAPD Detective Kate Delafield is the leader of the investigation into a high-rise office building murder. The case is intriguing but routine—until Kate interviews the only witness, Ellen O'Neil. When Ellen O'Neil took her new job over the objections of her lover, she wasn't expecting to become embroiled in murder. The curiosity that Kate Delafield rouses is equally… Shares: Los angeles, California

Violent Ward-12 Copy Dump Len Deighton · 1993 · ★ 3.3 · 312p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Mickey Murphy, a criminal lawyer in Southern California, finds himself suspected of murder. Shares: Los angeles, California

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