Books like “The Postman Always Rings Twice”

What to read after “The Postman Always Rings Twice” by James M. Cain: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Nightmare Alley
William Lindsay Gresham · 1946
From the same world: “Noir”
Stan Carlisle works the carnival, watching the geek at the bottom of the show and vowing never to fall that low. Clever and ambitious, he moves from a mind-reading act to spiritualist con, fleecing the rich, until his own past catches up with him.
2
Strangers on a Train
Patricia Highsmith · 1950
From the same world: “Noir”
On a train, a charming stranger proposes an idea to architect Guy Haines: each man could murder the person ruining the other's life, since no one would suspect them. Guy dismisses it as a joke, until the other man acts on the plan and pulls him into a nightmare of guilt that neither can escape.
3
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler · 1939
From the same world: “Noir”
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a dying general to deal with a blackmailer, and the case leads him through a family of drifters and gamblers to a missing man and a tangle of secrets. He keeps working even when the general tells him to stop.
4
The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett · 1929
From the same world: “Noir”
A woman walks into Sam Spade's San Francisco office with a story about a missing sister, and the case becomes a hunt for a jewel-encrusted black bird. Spade's partner is killed, and he must decide whom to trust among liars, thieves and double-crossers.
5
Double Indemnity
James M. Cain · 1936
From the same world: “Noir”
Insurance salesman Walter Huff is drawn to Phyllis, the alluring wife of a client, and agrees to help her kill her husband and make it look like an accident. Their scheme is carefully plotted, but the company's claims investigator begins to notice details that do not add up.
6
Brighton Rock
Graham Greene · 1938
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Betrayal
Seventeen-year-old Pinkie Brown runs a small gang on the Brighton seafront and commits a murder to hold his position. A cheerful, persistent woman who barely knew the victim decides to find out what really happened, closing in on a boy who believes he is beyond ordinary justice.
7
The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson · 1952
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
Deputy sheriff Lou Ford seems like an ordinary small-town man, but his mild manner hides a violence he has carried since childhood. When old secrets and a woman from his past resurface, his two selves begin to pull him toward more killing.
8
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith · 1955
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
Tom Ripley, a poor young man in New York, is sent to Italy by a rich shipbuilder to bring home his son Dickie. Instead Tom is drawn into Dickie's comfortable world and, when it is threatened, does whatever it takes to keep it.
9
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Same genre: “Crime fiction”
- Femme Fatale
- Betrayal
On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted tells a stranger that he wishes his cheating wife were dead. Lily calmly offers to help him plan it. As their murder scheme takes shape in Boston, each of the narrators hides a past the others know nothing about.
10
Storm Front
Jim Butcher · 2000
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
Harry Dresden is Chicago's only professional wizard, listed in the phone book and usually broke. When the police consult him on a double murder, he finds a sorcerer using black magic in a city where vampires and crime bosses all want a piece of the investigation.
11
The Dry
Jane Harper · 2016
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
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.
12
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick · 1968
From the same world: “Noir”
- Noir
- Morally Grey Character
In a dust-choked future, a bounty hunter is paid to retire androids that have escaped to Earth and passed as human. As he tracks them down he starts to question what makes a life real, and whether he can trust his own memories.