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The Two-Bear Mambo

Joe R. Lansdale · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

Rusty Puppy

Joe R. Lansdale

Dialogue-HeavyAmerican SouthCrimeRacism
❤️

A Time to Kill

John Grisham · 515 pages

Before The Firm and The Pelican Brief made him a superstar, John Grisham wrote this riveting story of retribution and justice. In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in the small southern town of Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by tw

Racial ViolenceDialogue-HeavyRacismAmerican South
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The Round House

Louise Erdrich · 352 pages

A young man is upended after a violent attack on his mother, which leaves his family in turmoil. Well-written page turner that is hard to put down!

Racial ViolenceRacismCrimeSmall Town
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Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino

"Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-top-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz. Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the B

Racial ViolenceDialogue-HeavyRacismAmerican South
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The Quiet Game

Greg Iles · 564 pages

Widower Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, where, finding that his father is being blackmailed, he reopens a notorious murder case that involves powerfully dangerous town forces, the FBI, and his own past.

Racial ViolenceRacismAmerican SouthSmall Town
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The White Road

John Connolly · 405 pages

In South Carolina, a young black man faces the death penalty for the rape and murder of Marianne Larousse, daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the state. It's a case that nobody wants to touch, a case with its roots in old evil, and old evil is private detective Charlie Parker's speciality. But Parker is about to make a descent into the abyss, a confrontation with dark forces that threaten al

Racial ViolenceRacismAmerican SouthCrime
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Sunset Limited

James Lee Burke · 401 pages

In a land soaked with sin, Dave Robicheaux is dueling with killers, ghosts, and a woman's revenge.... The townspeople of New Iberia, Louisiana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a barn wall with sixteen-penny nails. Decades later, Megan, now a world-famous photojournalist, has come back to the bayou, looking for cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave

Racial ViolenceRacismCrimeAmerican South
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Bluebird, Bluebird

Attica Locke · 320 pages

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules--a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home. When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small

Racial ViolenceRacismAmerican SouthCrime
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Arctic-Nation

Juan Diaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido · 72 pages

Racial ViolenceRacismMissing PersonCrime
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Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Tom Franklin · 305 pages

"In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas '32' Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and sh

Racial ViolenceAmerican SouthMissing PersonCrime
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Paris Trout

Pete Dexter · 320 pages

An expertly crafted and bleakly fascinating tale of social conflict and madness in the deep South, this novel centers on the eponymous Paris Trout, owner of a general store and other property in Cotton Point, Ga., during the years just after World War II. A cunning, violent man, with deep roots in the community, Trout has become an economic predator of the town's poor blacks by running a loan serv

Racial ViolenceRacismAmerican SouthCrime
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The Help

Kathryn Stockett · 464 pages

Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women: Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will

Racial ViolenceRacismAmerican SouthDialogue-Heavy
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The Affair

Lee Child · 543 pages

Everything starts somewhere. For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997. A lonely railroad track. A crime scene. A cover-up. A young woman is dead, and solid evidence points to a soldier at a nearby military base. But that soldier has powerful friends in Washington. Reacher is ordered undercover to find out everything he can and

American SouthDialogue-HeavyCrimeSmall Town
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Kiss the Girls

James Patterson · 466 pages

First came the stunning number-one bestseller Along Came a Spider. Now comes the scariest, most unforgettable novel in several years. In Los Angeles, a reporter investigating a series of murders is killed. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a beautiful medical intern suddenly disappears. Washington D.C.'s Alex Cross is back to solve the most baffling and terrifying murder case ever. Two clever patter

Missing PersonCrimeAmerican SouthViolent
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A Thousand Never Evers

Shana Burg · 310 pages

IN KUCKACHOO, MISSISSIPPI, 1963, Addie Ann Pickett worships her brother Elias and follows in his footsteps by attending the black junior high school. But when her careless act leads to her brother's disappearance and possible murder, Addie Ann, Mama, and Uncle Bump struggle with not knowing if he's dead or alive. Then a good deed meant to unite Kuckachoo sets off a chain of explosive events. Addie

Racial ViolenceRacismAmerican SouthMissing Person
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A Drink Before the War

Dennis Lehane · 335 pages

Taking on a seemingly simple assignment to pinpoint the whereabouts of a cleaning woman who has allegedly stolen confidential State House documents, private investigators Patrick Mckenzie and Angela Gennaro uncover a ring of extortions, assassination, and child prostitution.

Racial ViolenceCrimeRacismViolent
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Crazy in Alabama

Mark Childress · 383 pages

The tale of Peejoe, an orphan boy who comes of age during a racially restless summer in the Alabama, and his aunt Lucille, who jumps at the chance to escape her life for a role on the "Beverly Hillbillies."

Racial ViolenceRacismAmerican SouthDark Comedy
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Razorblade Tears

S. A. Cosby · 247 pages

*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer • New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books of 2021 • Washington Post’s Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year • TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 • New York Public Library’s Best Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • Book of the Month’s Book of the Year Finalist “Provocative,

RacismAmerican SouthCrimeDialogue-Heavy
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A Calamity of Souls

David Baldacci

Racial ViolenceAmerican SouthRacismCrime
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The Silkworm

J.K. Rowling · 464 pages

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days--as he has done before--and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a

Dialogue-HeavyCrimeMissing PersonDark Comedy
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Home Fires

Margaret Maron · 243 pages

Racial ViolenceAmerican SouthRacismSmall Town
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Birthdays for the Dead

Stuart MacBride · 496 pages

The gritty new standalone crime novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Shatter the Bones and Dark Blood Detective Constable Ash Henderson has a dark secret! Five years ago his daughter, Rebecca, went missing on the eve of her thirteenth birthday. A year later the first card arrived: homemade, with a Polaroid picture stuck to the front--Rebecca, strapped to a chair, gagged and terrified. Every

Missing PersonCrimeDark ComedyFirst Person Narrator
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Criminal

Karin Slaughter · 518 pages

"1974: in the blistering heat of an Atlanta summer, a killer prowls the streets, searching for the weak, the vulnerable and the lost. Forty years later, a young woman is found brutally murdered in a sordid high-rise apartment. The specifics of her death are detailed and macabre, but for Special Agent Will Trent they are startingly familiar, and can only mean one thing. Desperate to deny this might

Missing PersonCrimeAmerican SouthRacism
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In the Heat of the Night

John Dudley Ball · 186 pages

RacismAmerican SouthCrimeSmall Town

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