Books like “Red Sparrow”

What to read after “Red Sparrow” by Jason Matthews: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “Red Sparrow”

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1
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
John le Carré · 1974
From the same world: “Spy Thriller”
- Spy Thriller
- Morally Grey Character
After a mission fails, George Smiley is quietly brought back to find a Soviet mole inside British intelligence. Working from old files and a few wary colleagues, he sifts the careers of his former friends to discover which of them is the traitor.
2
Code Name Verity
Elizabeth Wein · 2012
From the same world: “Spy Thriller”
- Spy Thriller
A British wireless operator and a pilot become close friends before a mission goes wrong over occupied France. Captured by the Gestapo, the operator is forced to write down what she knows, and her account of the two women slowly reveals more than it first seems.
3
The Secret Agent
Joseph Conrad · 1907
From the same world: “Spy Thriller”
- Spy Thriller
- Morally Grey Character
In late-Victorian London, a shopkeeper who is also a paid spy for a foreign power is ordered to carry out a bombing. The people around him, including his wife and her vulnerable brother, are pulled into the consequences of a plot he cannot control.
4
The Alice Network
Kate Quinn · 2017
From the same world: “Spy Thriller”
- Spy Thriller
In 1947, pregnant and unmarried Charlie follows a lead about her missing cousin to a ruined woman in London. Their search draws on the story of Eve, a spy who ran a network in occupied France during the First World War, and the betrayals that broke it.
5
The Rook
Daniel O'Malley · 2012
From the same world: “Spy Thriller”
- Spy Thriller
A woman wakes in a London park with no memory, surrounded by bodies, holding a letter from her former self. It explains that she is an officer in a secret agency guarding Britain from supernatural threats. To find the traitor who tried to kill her, she must live a stranger's life.
6
The Shadows Between Us
Tricia Levenseller · 2020
Shared in the plot: someone, target, feelings
Alessandra will do anything to gain power, including marry the young king and then kill him. The Shadow King, feared and rumoured to have killed his own family, is the perfect target. But court intrigue and unexpected feelings complicate her cold plan, and someone is hunting them both.
7
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing · 2019
Similar plot moves: “Femme Fatale” and “Morally Grey Character”
- Femme Fatale
- Morally Grey Character
A husband and wife in a Florida suburb look like an ordinary couple, but they share a secret pastime that has to stay hidden. As the double life grows harder to manage, the narrator finds the person he knows best is the one he trusts least.
8
A Memory Called Empire
Arkady Martine · 2019
From the same world: “Spy Thriller”
- Spy Thriller
Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives at the heart of the Teixcalaanli Empire to replace a predecessor who died under unclear circumstances. Guided by his recorded memories, she must survive court politics, assassins, and a capital that hides its own plans.
9
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Similar plot moves: “Femme Fatale”
- Femme Fatale
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
The Last Mrs. Parrish
Liv Constantine · 2017
Similar plot moves: “Femme Fatale”
- Femme Fatale
An ambitious woman works her way into the life of a rich, seemingly perfect couple, planning to take the wife's place. The household she longs to join has secrets of its own, and neither woman is quite what she pretends to be.
11
The Postman Always Rings Twice
James M. Cain · 1934
Similar plot moves: “Femme Fatale” and “Forbidden Love”
A drifter called Frank takes a job at a roadside diner and begins an affair with the owner's unhappy wife. Their plan to be together, a murder made to look like an accident, sets off a chain of events that neither of them can control.
12
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Similar plot moves: “Morally Grey Character”
- Morally Grey Character
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears from a rented house and her husband Nick becomes the prime suspect. Two narrators tell very different versions of the same marriage.