Books like “A Good Girl's Guide to Murder”

What to read after “A Good Girl's Guide to Murder” by Holly Jackson: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
A Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham · 2022
Similar setting: “Small Town Secrets”
As a child she helped put her father away for killing girls. Twenty years later she is a therapist about to marry, when young women in her town begin to disappear again and the old case follows her into the present.
2
Where the Crawdads Sing
Delia Owens · 2018
Same genre: “Mystery”
- Small Town Secrets
- Coming of Age
Abandoned by her family as a child, Kya grows up alone in a North Carolina marsh, shunned by the nearby town as the Marsh Girl. She teaches herself to survive on the land and inches toward love, until a local man is found dead and she becomes the chief suspect.
3
In the Woods
Tana French · 2007
Same genre: “Mystery”
- Small Town Secrets
- Missing Person
When a girl is found dead in a wood outside Dublin, detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox take the case. For Rob the woods hold an old horror: as a child he was found there after two friends vanished, and he has never told anyone the full truth.
4
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Agatha Christie · 1926
Similar setting: “Small Town Secrets”
- Small Town Secrets
- Twist Ending
In the village of King's Abbot, the wealthy Roger Ackroyd is stabbed hours after learning a secret. Hercule Poirot, retired nearby to grow marrows, is drawn into the case, where everyone, including the narrator, seems to be telling less than the whole truth.
5
The Silent Sister
Diane Chamberlain · 2014
Similar setting: “Small Town Secrets”
- Small Town Secrets
- Twist Ending
After her father's death, Riley returns to their North Carolina house to settle his estate. Sorting through his papers, she finds evidence that her older sister, long believed to have killed herself as a teenager, may be alive and living under another name.
6
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn · 2009
Same genre: “Mystery”
- Small Town Secrets
- Twist Ending
Years after her mother and sisters were killed and her teenage brother was convicted, Libby Day is approached by a group of true-crime enthusiasts who believe he is innocent. Short of money, she agrees to ask questions, and the answers force her to revisit what she remembers of that night.
7
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon · 2003
Similar plot moves: “Missing Person” and “Coming of Age”
- Missing Person
- Coming of Age
Fifteen-year-old Christopher discovers the neighbour's dog stabbed to death and sets out to solve the mystery in the style of his favourite detective stories. His investigation uncovers hidden truths about his own family and forces him into a world he finds overwhelming.
8
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Alan Bradley · 2009
Same genre: “Young adult fiction”
- Small Town Secrets
Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, a chemistry-obsessed girl with a bicycle and a talent for poisons, finds a dying man in the cucumber patch of her family's crumbling English manor and sets out to solve the murder before the police can.
9
The Inheritance Games
Jennifer Lynn Barnes · 2020
Same genre: “Young adult fiction” and “Mystery”
- Twist Ending
Avery Grambs, a sharp high-schooler sleeping in her car, learns that a billionaire she never met has left her almost his entire fortune. To claim it she must move into the family mansion, where four disinherited grandsons and a house full of puzzles await.
10
The Dry
Jane Harper · 2016
Similar setting: “Small Town Secrets”
- Small Town Secrets
- Twist Ending
A federal agent returns to the drought-stricken town he left twenty years ago, for the funeral of a childhood friend believed to have killed his family. Old questions about the death that drove him away surface again while he helps the local police look into a new one.
11
The Vanishing Half
Brit Bennett · 2020
Similar setting: “Small Town Secrets”
- Small Town Secrets
- Coming of Age
Twin sisters from a small Southern town where everyone is light-skinned choose opposite lives: one returns to raise a Black daughter, the other passes as white and hides her past. Across the decades, their daughters' paths unexpectedly cross.
12
Clown in a Cornfield
Adam Cesare · 2020
Similar setting: “Small Town Secrets”
- Small Town Secrets
- Coming of Age
After her mother's death, Quinn moves with her father to Kettle Springs, a Missouri town split between resentful adults and bored teenagers. At the Founder's Day party in a cornfield, the town mascot, Frendo the Clown, begins killing students, and Quinn has to work out who can be trusted.