The most recommended books about fugitives

April 1865 was one of the most consequential months in American history. After the fall of Richmond and Lee’s surrender to effectively end the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was tragically assassinated while Jefferson Davis attempted to escape to keep the war effort alive.

I was riveted by the dual history of the American and Confederate presidents, as Swanson’s storytelling matches the drama, tension, and uncertainty of the moment.

Translated from the French children’s novel by Timothée de Fombelle, this sequel to Toby Alone is miles deeper in emotion and pathos than most books for children today.

Set in a civilization of minuscule people living in and around a tree, Toby and the Secrets of the Tree is an exploration of human nature at its best and worst, encapsulating what the essence and beauty of life truly is. This heartfelt little epic hit me at just the right time in my life, and the message of hope through intense trials is an uplifting one for anyone who has faced adversity.

If you love character-driven books, this one is for you!

Honestly, I could choose so many of Harlan Coben’s books. I love books about missing people–or people who are allegedly missing, disappeared years ago–but are they really gone? What happened? The guessing, the twists, the unraveling of the mystery hooks me from the beginning until the end. That’s what Coben does well with his stories about missing people, and in Gone For Good the secret of why the brother is missing and apparently–and surprisingly–not dead pulls you into a big, juicy mystery with tons of twists and turns. 

I might have picked A Maiden’s Grave for the title alone, though you’ll have to read it to learn the subtle double meaning packed into those three words. But of course there’s a lot more to this fast-paced story of a school for the deaf caught in the crossfire of a police standoff. Jeffery Deaver deftly intertwines full-bodied characters, crackling tension, and emotionally affecting backstories. Reading it, I realized that it could have been a pretty ordinary police procedural and that only the author’s determination to add layers of depth and detail lifted it to a new level. 

This is a grand adventure of a novel that, like India itself, contains pretty much everything.

A compelling tale of a man who escaped from prison and tried to lose himself in the vastness of India, beautifully rendered here in all its sensory splendor and squalor. Lin does lose himself, and in the process, it’s how he finds himself.

This is very much a story of how the inner reflects the outer and vice versa, it is a love story between a man and a woman, a man and a culture, and a man and himself, as Lin re-learns to live and connect in the rawest and most vital place on earth.

This is a popular book among travelers, and I can see why, as the attention to detail, character, culture, and history serves as a superlative travel guide to the subcontinent.

You’re fifteen years old, living unhappily with your feckless parents and unstable older sister in a small town in Montana. And then your family implodes: your parents are arrested for bank robbery and your sister flees to parts unknown. As troubling as the premise is, Canada becomes even darker and more ominous as young Dell Parsons travels alone to Saskatchewan to live with erstwhile family friends, but in fact enters a whole new world of intrigue and violence. Dell is a stoic character, and you desperately want to see his life take a turn for the better. What you get instead is a case study in resiliency and survival. Ford’s prose is powerful; every word counts, every sentence pulls you deeper into the story.

How could so many Nazi perpetrators escape to South America? Most relied on the help of a bishop of the Catholic Church in the Vatican, Alois Hudal.

Sands describes the structure of this support system (the so-called ratline) through the story of former SS-Obergruppenführer Otto Gustav Wächter, the governor of Galicia (1942–1944), who was responsible for the deportation of nearly 500,000 Jews to the Nazi death camps.

Wächter's post-war escape to Argentina actually ended in Rome, where he died of an infection in July 1949. Sands offers a riveting analysis of how this man found his way into the Nazi party, rose to a position that implicated him in mass murder, and how, with the support of his wife, he managed to hide in the Austrian mountains for years after the war. Sands also reflects on how difficult it is for the next generation to face up to the… show more.

My son was really taken by the ways that the author portrays kids—not much older than him and not so long ago—dealing with an unsafe social scene in ways that are far above their maturity level.

He also loved the pack loyalty among the greaser gang, as well as the small bursts of empathy between the rival gangs after both groups have lost members.

Legend is one of those books that feels nostalgic when you read it. It perfectly mixes all of the elements from the 2010 dystopian classics, with a wonderful dual narration. In Legend we read the story through Day and June’s eyes. Both are from completely opposite parts of society, which makes the story twice as interesting. It even has elements of enemies to lovers! What this book does so well with its dual narration, is it lets you see more of the world that the author has created, which we wouldn’t normally get had she chosen to tell the book from one of these characters. Personally, I preferred Day’s POV, and the arc his story took. 

This book delves into several themes that scare me about the present, including identity and personhood, surveillance states, and capitalism.

It’s set in futuristic Nigeria, now run by Ultimate Corp, a global corporation that reads like a billionaire tech bro dream-come-true, AKA bad news for everyone else. We follow Anwuli Okwudili, a disabled young woman with cybernetic prosthetics who’s on the run from the law. With a relentless pace, this book effortlessly weaves between the deeply personal struggles of its protagonist and big, world-changing ideas. It forces readers to confront terrifying questions about where we're heading.