18 books like The Thief

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

Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell · 1949 · ★ 4.2 · 244p · ≈ 8h · Challenging Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often referred to as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by the English novelist George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair). It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and… Shares: Community pick

All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr · 2014 · ★ 4.3 · 544p · ≈ 18h · Moderate From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are… Shares: Community pick

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1920 · ★ 3.9 · 431p · ≈ 14h · Challenging Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate – a marvelous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period – which reveals a hero like no other – one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts. "There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to… Shares: Community pick

Sex, Lies & Serious Money Stuart Woods · 2016 · ★ 4.0 · 339p · ≈ 11h · Moderate "Stone Barrington takes on a client who gives him a run for his money in the newest heart-stopping thriller from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author. Fresh off the runway at Teterboro, Stone Barrington arrives home to find an unexpected new client on his doorstep, anxiously soliciting his help. But everything is not as it seems, when the client reveals the true nature--and value--of his… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Private James Patterson & Maxine Paetro · 2008 · ★ 3.9 · 387p · ≈ 12h · Moderate The police can't help you Former CIA agent Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. It is where you go when you need maximum force and maximum discretion. The secrets of the most influential men and women on the planet come to Jack daily--and his staff of investigators uses the world's most advanced forensic tools to make and break their… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

The Seven Dials Mystery Agatha Christie · 1920 · ★ 3.8 · 193p · ≈ 6h · Challenging Brings back several characters from an earlier novel, The Secret of Chimneys, in a story that can best be described as a John Buchan thriller told by P.G. Wodehouse. (https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/The_Seven_Dials_Mystery) Consummate young silly ass Gerry Wade is the despair of hosts and hostesses across the land, with his inability to make it to breakfast before the eggs are congealed,… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Moonlight Mile Dennis Lehane · 2010 · ★ 4.0 · 381p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl, only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is sixteen and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Knave of Diamonds Laurie R. King · 2025 · 320p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Mary Russell’s allegiances are tested by the reappearance of her long-lost uncle—and a tantalizing case not even Sherlock Holmes could solve.When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years, and she assumed that his ne’er-do-well ways had brought him to a bad end somewhere—until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Gone, Baby, Gone Dennis Lehane · 1998 · ★ 4.2 · 510p · ≈ 17h · Moderate PI Patrick Kenzie is hired to find a four-year-old girl, abducted while the mother was out drinking. The search takes Kenzie through Boston's underworld of drug dealers, kidnapers and pedophiles. Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Peril at End House Agatha Christie · 1932 · ★ 4.0 · 279p · ≈ 9h · Challenging Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckley. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo. Poirot quickly takes a particular interest in the young woman. Recently, she has narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

A Catskill Eagle Robert B. Parker · 1985 · ★ 4.0 · 311p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Spenser loves just one woman, even though she's the one he's just lost. So when her desperate letter arrives, he doesn't think twice. He has to free his best friend from a life sentence, and get Susan out of trouble. Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

When We Were Orphans Kazuo Ishiguro · 2000 · ★ 3.5 · 372p · ≈ 12h · Moderate 'You seldom read a novel that so convinces you it is extending the possibilities of fiction.' Sunday TimesEngland, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Evil Under the Sun Agatha Christie · 1941 · ★ 4.0 · 230p · ≈ 7h · Challenging Set at the Jolly Roger, a posh vacation resort for the rich and famous on the southern coast of England, Evil Under the Sun is one of Agatha Christie’s most intriguing mysteries. When a gorgeous young bride is brutally strangled to death on the beach, only Hercule Poirot can sift through the secrets that shroud each of the guests and unravel the macabre mystery at this playground by the sea. Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

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: Detectives, Private investigators

After the Funeral Agatha Christie · 1953 · ★ 3.9 · 193p · ≈ 6h · Moderate When Cora is savagely murdered with a hatchet, the extraordinary remark she made the previous day at her brother Richard's funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richard's will, Cora was clearly heard to say: 'It's been hushed up very nicely, hasn't it. But he was murdered, wasn't he?' In desperation, the family solicitor turns to Hercule Poirot to unravel the… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Whose Body? Dorothy L. Sayers · 1923 · ★ 3.8 · 155p · ≈ 5h · Challenging The first of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, in which the suave and witty gentleman foregoes a rare-book auction to investigate the presence of a bespectacled nude body in an architect's bathtub near the Wimsey's Denver estate Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Curtain Agatha Christie · 1975 · ★ 4.1 · 232p · ≈ 7h · Moderate wheelchair-bound Poirot returns to Styles, the venue of his first investigation, where he knows another murder is going to take place… The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings; there was his own daughter Judith, an inoffensive ornithologist called Norton, dashing Mr Allerton, brittle Miss Cole, Doctor Franklin and his fragile wife Barbara , Nurse Craven, Colonel… Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

Certain Prey John Sandford · 1999 · ★ 4.3 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Lucas Davenport confronts an entirely new kind of adversary in this harrowing "Prey" novel. Her name is Clara Rinker, an attractive, pleasant Southern woman--the best hitwoman in the business. But when she's hired for a job in Minnesota and a witness survives, that's when Davenport gets on her case--with no idea of the toll that it will take on him. Shares: Detectives, Private investigators

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