18 books like The Shape of Dread

What to read after The Shape of Dread — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Eye of the Storm Marcia Muller · 1988 · 356p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Eye (cyclone), a region of calmer weather found at the center of strong tropical cyclones Shares: Women private investigators, San Francisco, California, Private investigators

Blue shoes and happiness Alexander McCall Smith · 2006 · ★ 4.1 · 248p · ≈ 8h · Moderate In this seventh installment in the internationally bestselling, universally beloved series, there is considerable excitement at the shared premises of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. A cobra has been found in Precious Ramotswe's office. Then a nurse from a local medical clinic reveals to Mma Ramotswe that faulty blood-pressure readings are being recorded there.… Shares: Women private investigators, Private investigators, Mystery

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

An Incomplete Revenge Jacqueline Winspear · 2008 · ★ 4.4 · 313p · ≈ 10h · Moderate With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something… Shares: Women private investigators, Private investigators

Q Is for Quarry Sue Grafton · 2002 · ★ 4.0 · 385p · ≈ 12h · Moderate She was a "Jane Doe," an unidentified white female whose decomposed body was discovered near a quarry off California's Highway 1. The case fell to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department, but the detectives had little to go on. The woman was young, her hands were bound with a length of wire, there were multiple stab wounds, and her throat had been slashed. After months of investigation, the… Shares: Women private investigators, California, Private investigators, Mystery

Hunted By The Others Jess Haines · 2010 · ★ 3.6 · 352p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Shares: Women private investigators, Private investigators

The Fire Rose Mercedes Lackey · 1995 · ★ 4.3 · 433p · ≈ 14h · Moderate Lackey's story of a young turn of the century female who is brought to the wilds of San Francisco to read books for a reclusive alchemist recreates the fable of the monster who wins the heart of a young woman yet forbids her to view him. For the monster here is a magician caught in a werewolf spell, and the young girl is a destitute young woman with no other choices. A retelling of Beauty and the… Shares: San Francisco, California

Stalking the Angel Robert Crais · 1989 · ★ 4.0 · 256p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Stalking the Angel is a 1989 detective novel by Robert Crais. It is the second in a series of linked novels centering on the private investigator Elvis Cole. An audiobook was released in 2001. Shares: California, Private investigators

The Alington Inheritance (A Miss Silver Mystery) Patricia Wentworth · 1958 · ★ 3.9 · 222p · ≈ 7h · Moderate When a question of inheritance turns fatal, Miss Silver searches for the killer. Jenny has never been one to feel sorry for herself. The illegitimate child of a wealthy man and a stature less woman, she has been an orphan since before she can remember. It is a hard life made bearable only by the kindness of her guardian, an old woman named Miss Garstone, who has always treated Jenny as her own.… Shares: Women private investigators, Mystery

Tears of the Giraffe (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith · 2000 · ★ 4.3 · 230p · ≈ 7h · Moderate In 1999 The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency received two Booker Judges' Special Recommendations and was voted one of the ‘International Books of the Year and the Millennium' by the Times Literary Supplement. Tears of the Giraffe takes us further into the life of the engaging and sassy Precious Ramotswe, the owner and detective of Botswana's only Ladies' detective agency. Among her cases are… Shares: Women private investigators, Private investigators, Mystery

Babycakes Armistead Maupin · 1984 · ★ 4.3 · 316p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Babycakes (1984) is the fourth book in the Tales of the City series by American novelist Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. Shares: San Francisco, California

The case of the Sin City sister Lynne Hinton · 2015 · 324p · ≈ 10h · Moderate "When Eve's biological sister goes missing, the nun heads to Las Vegas to track her down before it's too late. Years ago, Eve heard God's call to become a nun, but her recent stint moonlighting at her father's detective agency invigorates her so much that she's wrestling with her vocation. She's working with him on a case involving a miner in New Mexico when alarming news develops: her sister… Shares: Women private investigators, Private investigators

Degree of guilt Richard North Patterson · 1992 · ★ 4.0 · 540p · ≈ 18h · Moderate Christopher Paget is a trial lawyer with a famous past...Christopher Paget is a trial lawyer with a famous past: as a young investigator in Washington he unearthed a scandal that brought ruin to the President – and an abrupt end to his affair with journalist Mary Carelli. Now, fifteen years later, Carelli is a famous TV journalist in New York and Paget is leading a relatively tranquil life… Shares: San Francisco, California

The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett · 1929 · ★ 3.9 · 256p · ≈ 8h · Challenging Classic noir. Private detective Sam Spade is hired to search for a valuable, gem-encrusted antique in the shape of a falcon. Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's… Shares: San Francisco, California, Private investigators

Maisie Dobbs Jacqueline Winspear · 2003 · ★ 4.4 · 294p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Maisie Dobbs isn’t just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence—and the patronage of her benevolent employers—she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the War, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator. But her… Shares: Women private investigators, Private investigators, Mystery

Sure of You Armistead Maupin · 1989 · ★ 4.3 · 273p · ≈ 9h · Moderate A fiercely ambitious TV talk show host finds she must choose between national stardom in New York and a husband and child in San Francisco. Caught in the middle is their longtime friend, a gay man whose own future is even more uncertain. Wistful and compassionate, yet subversively funny, Sure of You could only come from Armistead Maupin. Shares: San Francisco, California

Further Tales of the City Armistead Maupin · 1982 · ★ 4.0 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Tales of the City is a series of novels by Armistead Maupin. Shares: San Francisco, California

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman P. D. James · 1972 · ★ 3.8 · 224p · ≈ 7h · Moderate A Cordelia Gray MysteryMeet Cordelia Gray: twenty-two, tough, intelligent and now sole inheritor of the Pryde Detective Agency. Her first assignment finds her hired by Sir Ronald Callender to investigate the death of his son Mark, a young Cambridge student found hanged in mysterious circumstances. Required to delve into the hidden secrets of the Callender family, Cordelia soon realizes it is not… Shares: Women private investigators, Private investigators, Mystery

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