35 books like Raven Black

This book begins with only the most famous first line of a novel in English literature. (Move over, Jane Austen.)

Wistful, mysterious, and yearning, the unnamed narrator of Rebecca follows her much older husband to his luxe estate in England after a hasty marriage in France. There, she encounters a housekeeper bent on humiliating her (or worse) and the specter of her new husband’s perfect first wife, who died unexpectedly.

Even knowing what will happen, I am sucked in every time. This hits that great spot between outright horror and suspense, and my next book will be heavily influenced by this one. 

French’s Dublin Murder Squad series introduces readers to the Dublin-based Gardai, who investigate and solve violent crimes in and around Dublin, Ireland. What I love most about this series is that each book follows a different detective within the same unit and their unique relationships with Dublin and the surrounding areas. French explores not just the crime but also the men and women who solve it. I love how these people are flawed, and they make mistakes while doing their jobs. 

In this installment, Rob Ryan returns to the site of his own childhood trauma to investigate a repeat of a twenty-year-old crime. I love a facing-one-demons plot, and this one doesn’t disappoint. 

The Black House is a Scottish-based mystery featuring the remote Hebridean island of Lewis. I loved how May captures the essence of this island in this trilogy and uses actual historical and cultural events to weave the plot. Each of the Scottish Isles has its own unique culture, and I love how May explores this through the interactions between the characters from Lewis and mainland Scotland. 

I also really enjoyed the character arc and the prodigal-son-esque storyline of jaded detective Fin Macleod returning home. As he solves the murders, he has to face his own dark past.  

In this book, the protagonist escapes to modern-day London and uncovers a centuries-old mystery. The story is told in parallel timelines juxtaposing modern-day and Victorian London, and it’s such a cool vibe. I loved how the FMC, Caroline, walks the same roads and travels the same paths as the long-dead apothecary and how their stories of women in a misogynist society mirror each other.  

I loved following Caroline as she pieced together the story of the poisoners and the “crimes” they committed and how she stepped into her own and found her confidence.

Louise Penny has become a Canadian icon. I often believed that Louise Penny belongs in a category of her own because her writing, plot lines, and characters are all so unique. That said, her Armand Gamache Series is a must-read for all mystery lovers. Filled with humorous and layered characters that each contribute to the unfolding of the plot. Everyone has a part to play in Louise Penny novels. Set in an idyllic town in Quebec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is soon investigating a crime as the village prepares for a Christmas celebration. A woman is electrocuted in the middle of a frozen lake in front of the entire village, and there seem to be no witnesses. A Fatal Grace is a perfectly layered whodunnit with a contemporary twist, and as always, the compassionate and brave Gamache is never far from danger himself as he searches for truth among the… show more.

I’m a fan of speculative fiction and those rare novels set on Svalbard. This novel satisfies both cravings. 

Spurred by a desire to change his life, Jack Miller joins an expedition to northern Svalbard in January 1937 and is abandoned by his companions as the dark season approaches. Paver mines the psychological page-turning quality of a great ghost story with beautiful language and palpable descriptions of the Arctic landscape and its natural wonders. 

Left alone, Jack must deal with loneliness and isolation and their effects on his psyche. It’s hard to avoid such themes when you’re dealing with an extreme setting like the High Arctic, especially during the months of total darkness, but they are themes that make me think about the great philosophical questions such as how one finds meaning in life.

The scene is set at the start of this book with a prologue, a journal entry from one of the main characters, Dr Sheehan. It’s as if I’m reading his mind, or he is talking to me, the reader, and so we hit the ground running instantly–because when someone is talking to you, you listen.

The author took the time to paint vivid images in my head, but the story wasn’t slow. He was scene-setting, and it drew me right in. The twists were clever, the dialogue was natural, and it is understandable why Hollywood snapped up the rights to this book. For me, though, the way we get to know and understand Teddy Daniels and his troubles was just great storytelling. 

A young girl lives in secret on a lonely Danish island – some time earlier, hoping to protect his daughter from the outside world, her father faked her death. And so she lives, with her increasingly infirm mother, the imagined ghost of her dead brother, and her (as we eventually discover) totally insane father, in a house of accumulated rubbish and rodents. 

I met Ane Riel at a festival in Sweden a couple of years ago and liked her enormously, so was very keen to read her award-winning book. I wasn’t disappointed. It is a deeply original and truly disturbing story.

Pied Pier, soul stealer, serial killer. Who is Mr. Clarinet? On the island of Haiti – not yet recovered from the sickeningly corrupt rule of Papa Doc Duvalier – children are vanishing amidst rumours of black magic and voodoo. Private investigator, Max Mingus, is hired to track down the son of a wealthy islander. Nick Stone lived for many years in Haiti, and his in-depth knowledge of the place seeps through the book like the blood of its numerous victims. The Haiti of this novel is dark, lawless, dangerous, and utterly fascinating. 

This book has inspired an entire genre of content where a group of people find themselves in a situation similar to her secluded island...and they cannot leave. I just ticked off a handful of books and TV shows that use this model, and I enjoy them all.

In the novel, multiple points of view drive the narrative, and the perpetrators choose the victims based on their own dubious, possibly criminal, histories. I found the reduction of the soldiers on the dining room table as each person dies to be diabolically brilliant, ratcheting up an already unbearable tension.

I strive to achieve her novel’s seemingly effortless pacing…as the clue drops sprinkled meticulously throughout the book. This is one I re-read simply because I always learn something new.