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Recommendations based on The Big Nowhereby James Ellroy
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
L.A. Confidential
by James Ellroy
An epic crime noir set in 1950s Los Angeles, exploring the dark underbelly of the city.
The story is about several Los Angeles Police Department officers in the early 1950s who become embroiled in a mix of sex, corruption and murder following a massacre at the Nite Owl coffee shop. The ... (Wikipedia)
The Black Dahlia
by James Ellroy
A 1940s Los Angeles detective story, exploring the depths of a gruesome unsolved murder.
On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia—and so begins the greatest manhunt in California ... (Goodreads)
American Tabloid
by James Ellroy
A riveting crime drama set in the 1950s, featuring a complex web of characters and their dark and twisted agendas.
"Shakedowns" covers just 26 days, introducing the three principal characters, and establishing their relationships, history, and career trajectories. Pete Bondurant is a former LASD deputy; he ... (Wikipedia)
The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett
Detective Sam Spade must solve a mysterious case involving a precious artifact and a deadly trio of criminals.
‘Sam’ Spade is a private detective in San Francisco , in partnership with Miles Archer. The beautiful "Miss Wonderley" hires them to follow Floyd Thursby, who has run off with her sister. Archer ... (Wikipedia)
The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
Private eye investigates a complex case involving a wealthy family and blackmail.
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of the wealthy and elderly General Sternwood, in the month of October. He wants Marlowe to deal with an attempt by a bookseller named Arthur ... (Wikipedia)
No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy
A gripping tale of violence and pursuit in Texas' desolate landscape.
The plot follows the interweaving paths of the three central characters (Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh , and Ed Tom Bell) set in motion by events related to a drug deal gone bad near the ... (Wikipedia)
The Postman Always Rings Twice
by James M. Cain
A crime drama of forbidden passion, deception and murder.
The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young ... (Wikipedia)
Double Indemnity
by James M. Cain
Insurance salesman and femme fatale plot to murder her husband for the insurance money. Things go awry.
Walter Huff, an insurance agent, falls for the married Phyllis Nirdlinger, who consults him about accident insurance for her unsuspecting husband. In spite of his instinctual decency, and intrigued ... (Wikipedia)
The Killer Inside Me
by Jim Thompson
A suspenseful psychological thriller about a small-town sheriff with a dark, violent side.
The story is told through the eyes of its protagonist, Lou Ford, a 29-year-old deputy sheriff in a small Texas town. Ford appears to be a regular, small-town cop leading an unremarkable existence; ... (Wikipedia)
Smiley's People
by John le Carré
Retired spy Smiley is thrust back into the world of espionage to uncover a deadly conspiracy.
John le Carre's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge and have earned him – and his hero, British ... (Goodreads)
American Psycho
by Bret Easton Ellis
A corporate psychopath's descent into homicidal madness, exposing the dark side of 1980s New York.
Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho follows the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, in his mid-20s when the story begins, ... (Wikipedia)
The Long Goodbye
by Raymond Chandler
A hard-boiled detective's journey to unravel the truth behind a mysterious disappearance.
The novel opens outside a club called the Dancers. It is late October or early November. No year is given for the events but internal evidence and the publication date of the novel place them between ... (Wikipedia)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John le Carré
A retired spy is called back into action to uncover a mole in the British Secret Service.
Control , chief of the Circus, suspects one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus to be a long-standing Soviet mole and assigns code names with the intention that should his agent ... (Wikipedia)
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)
Farewell, My Lovely
by Raymond Chandler
A hard-boiled detective's adventures as he investigates a complex case of murder and corruption.
Private detective Philip Marlowe is investigating a dead-end missing person case when he sees a felon, Moose Malloy, barging into a nightclub called Florian's, looking for his ex-girlfriend Velma ... (Wikipedia)
City of Glass
by Paul Auster
A detective story that blurs the lines between reality and fiction.
A 2006 reissue by Penguin Books is fronted by new pulp magazine -style covers by comic book illustrator Art Spiegelman . The first story, City of Glass , features an author of detective fiction who ... (Wikipedia)
The Book of Illusions
by Paul Auster
A grieving professor is transported on a journey of the past, unlocking secrets of his deceased wife.
Six months after losing his wife and two young sons, Vermont Professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then one night, he stumbles upon a clip ... (Goodreads)
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
A Franciscan friar investigates a series of murders in a medieval monastery, uncovering a sinister plot.
In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk , a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological ... (Wikipedia)
Red Dragon
by Thomas Harris
A serial killer stalks the night, and a former FBI agent is the only one who can stop him.
In 1975, Will Graham , a brilliant profiler of the FBI , captured the serial killer Hannibal Lecter . However, Graham suffered serious injuries from the encounter and retired afterwards. Four years ... (Wikipedia)
A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
A fictionalized account of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, exploring the history of Jamaica.
On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert, gunmen stormed his house, machine guns blazing. The attack nearly ... (Goodreads)
Sophie's Choice
by William Styron
A survivor of the Holocaust is confronted with a devastating moral dilemma.
Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in ... (Wikipedia)
Me and You
by Niccolò Ammaniti
A 14-year-old boy fakes a school ski trip to spend a week alone in his family's basement, but his plan is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of his older half-sister.
The action takes place in Rome in 2000. The main character is Lorenzo, a 14-year-old highly introverted boy who has had problems socialising and relating to other children since he was little. He is ... (Wikipedia)
Lucky Jim
by Kingsley Amis
A story of a young lecturer struggling to make it in academia, while learning the importance of self-discovery.
Jim Dixon is a lecturer in medieval history at a red brick university in the English Midlands . He has made an unsure start and, towards the end of the academic year, is concerned about losing his ... (Wikipedia)
The Bonfire of the Vanities
by Tom Wolfe
An ambitious Wall Street banker's moral downfall in New York City.
The story centers on Sherman McCoy, a successful New York City bond trader . His $3 million Park Avenue co-op , combined with his aristocratic wife's extravagances and other expenses required to keep ... (Wikipedia)
The Crossing
by Michael Connelly
Thriller involving a homicide detective's search for a serial killer in Los Angeles.
In this "tense" thriller and #1, New York Times, bestseller, Detective Harry Bosch teams up with Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller to track down a killer who just might find them first (,Wall Street ... (Barnes & Noble)
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway
A soldier's story of courage and survival in the Spanish Civil War.
The novel graphically describes the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. It is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. It draws on Hemingway's own ... (Wikipedia)
A Drink Before the War
by Dennis Lehane
Private detectives investigate a kidnapping case, uncovering dark secrets of the city.
Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro receive a job from three state politicians, Sterling Mulkern, Jim Vurnan and Brian Paulson, to recover documents from a former cleaning ... (Wikipedia)
Underworld
by Don DeLillo
A sweeping narrative of two people, their pasts and their parallel paths through history.
The prologue is a fictionalized account of The Shot Heard 'Round the World , a home run by Bobby Thomson on October 3, 1951, that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants against their ... (Wikipedia)
The Naming of the Dead
by Ian Rankin
A detective investigates a serial killer during the G8 summit in Edinburgh, Scotland.
An underlying thread throughout the book is that of familial relationships; the book opens with Detective Inspector John Rebus attending the funeral of his brother Michael, who has died suddenly from ... (Wikipedia)
The Alienist
by Caleb Carr
A gripping murder-mystery set in 19th century New York, exposing the dark underbelly of the city.
Narrated from the first-person perspective of John Moore, a crime reporter for, The New York Times, , the novel begins on January 8, 1919, the day that Theodore Roosevelt is buried. Moore has dinner ... (Wikipedia)
