Books like “The Great Train Robbery”

What to read after “The Great Train Robbery” by Michael Crichton: 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 Study in Scarlet Women
Sherry Thomas · 2016
Similar setting: “Victorian London Atmosphere”
- Victorian London Atmosphere
Too clever for Victorian society and blamed when three people die, Charlotte Holmes flees to London and takes the name Sherlock Holmes. With a kind widow, a police inspector and a man who loves her, she works the case while hiding who she really is.
2
A Train in Winter
Caroline Moorehead · 2011
Similar setting: “Train Journey”
- Train Journey
Between 1941 and 1943 the German and French police arrested hundreds of women who had worked for the Resistance. Drawn from interviews and archives, this book follows 230 of them from prison in France onto the trains to Auschwitz, and the friendships that sustained them.
3
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Scott Lynch · 2006
Similar plot moves: “Gentleman Thief” and “Heist”
- Gentleman Thief
- Heist
In a city of canals and thieves, Locke Lamora leads a small band of con artists who rob the nobility. A hidden power turns the tables, and the crew find themselves caught in a scheme far larger than any of their own.
4
Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie · 1934
Similar setting: “Train Journey”
- Train Journey
A snowdrift halts the Orient Express, and by morning an American passenger is found stabbed in his locked compartment. With the train stranded, Hercule Poirot questions thirteen passengers whose accounts do not add up, and uncovers the threads of an old crime.
5
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter
Theodora Goss · 2017
Similar setting: “Victorian London Atmosphere”
- Victorian London Atmosphere
Mary Jekyll, orphaned and poor, sets out to find her father's old colleague, the missing Doctor Hyde. Instead she gathers a family of young women who are the daughters or creations of famous scientists, from Moreau and Jekyll to Rappaccini. Together they investigate a series of murders in Victorian London.
6
The House of Silk
Anthony Horowitz · 2011
Similar setting: “Victorian London Atmosphere”
- Victorian London Atmosphere
Sherlock Holmes is asked to guard a London art dealer who is being followed, and the case opens onto two mysteries: a gang known as the House of Silk, and a crime so dangerous that Watson can only set it down years later, in a final untold adventure.
7
Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens · 1838
Same genre: “Crime fiction”
- Victorian London Atmosphere
An orphan raised in a workhouse runs away to London, where the thief Fagin takes him into a band of child pickpockets. Kind strangers try to rescue him while the criminals want him back for their own plans. The novel follows his search for a home and the mystery of his birth.
8
The Arctic Fury
Greer Macallister · 2020
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
Virginia Reeve is hired to lead a dozen women into the Arctic in search of a lost expedition. When only some of them come back, she is tried for murder in Boston. The courtroom testimony and the journey north slowly reveal what happened out on the ice.
9
The Gilded Wolves
Roshani Chokshi · 2019
Similar plot moves: “Heist”
- Heist
Paris, 1889. Severin Montagnet-Alarie, a hotelier and treasure-hunter, is offered the chance to reclaim the inheritance his family was denied. To earn it he must assemble a crew and steal an ancient artifact, a job that takes them into the secret society that rules the city's magic.
10
The Spirit Thief
Rachel Aaron · 2010
Similar plot moves: “Gentleman Thief”
- Gentleman Thief
Eli Monpress is a wizard and a thief who would rather have a larger bounty than a heavier purse. To raise it he kidnaps a king, which brings the Spirit Court's envoy Miranda Lyonette after him. Eli's easy charm hides a plan that puts more than his own bounty at stake.
11
The Quantum Thief
Hannu Rajaniemi · 2010
Similar plot moves: “Gentleman Thief” and “Heist”
- Gentleman Thief
- Heist
Jean le Flambeur is a thief imprisoned in a city where residents trade their memories and time. He is offered his freedom if he can pull off one more impossible heist, with a warrior from a distant society watching his every move.
12
Foundryside
Robert Jackson Bennett · 2018
Shared in the plot: thief, steal
- Heist
Sancia Grado is a thief in Tevanne, a city where scribing commands objects to obey written orders. Hired to steal a key, she finds it holds power that could break the four merchant houses' grip on magic, and the houses will kill to keep that power buried.