Short Straw

No middle name

Lee Child2017

A collection of twelve short stories and one novella featuring Jack Reacher. The stories span his life from childhood to his time as a drifter.

Same sardonic register, still crime

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Blood on the dining-room floor

Gertrude Stein1948

A repetitive, circular narrative about a death in a country house. It uses experimental prose to obscure the facts of a traditional mystery.

sardonic → playful

pace-2·prose+3·bleak0

The Doves Necklace

Raja Alem2014

A detective investigates an unidentified woman's body found in a Mecca alleyway. The city itself narrates parts of the story.

sardonic → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1

American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis1991

A wealthy investment banker details his daily routines, consumer habits, and graphic murders. The narrative is cold and repetitive.

sardonic → cold

pace-1·prose+3·bleak+2

The case of the beautiful beggar

Erle Stanley Gardner1960

Perry Mason helps a woman whose uncle's bank account has been drained. When the uncle is committed to a sanitarium, Mason enters the courtroom.

sardonic → propulsive, still legal thriller

pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Medusa

Clive Cussler2009

The NUMA team investigates a missing undersea lab and a bathysphere attack. They uncover a corporate plot involving a deadly virus and jellyfish.

sardonic → propulsive

pace+1·prose0·bleak-1

The cat who blew the whistle

Lilian Jackson Braun1994

A journalist and his two Siamese cats investigate a missing railroad enthusiast and a bank scandal. It is a small-town mystery.

sardonic → playful

pace-1·prose0·bleak-1

You

Caroline Kepnes2014

A bookstore manager becomes obsessed with a customer and uses social media to orchestrate a relationship. He removes obstacles through murder.

Same sardonic register, still crime

pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

Extreme Prey

John Sandford2016

While working on a presidential campaign, Lucas Davenport tracks an armed man planning to assassinate the governor.

sardonic → propulsive, still crime

pace+1·prose0·bleak0

First Lie Wins

Ashley Elston2024

A professional con artist takes an assignment to infiltrate a man's life in a small town. She must balance her job with her growing feelings.

sardonic → propulsive, still crime

pace+1·prose+1·bleak-1

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Douglas R. Hofstadter1979

An exploration of how cognition emerges from hidden neurological patterns. It uses math, art, and music to explain self-referential systems.

sardonic → playful

pace-2·prose+3·bleak-1

Ulysses

James Joyce1914

Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

sardonic → playful

pace-2·prose+3·bleak0

A maça no escuro

Clarice Lispector1961

A man flees into the Brazilian interior believing he killed his wife. He works on a remote farm while navigating his own internal monologue.

sardonic → meditative

pace-2·prose+3·bleak+1

Páradais

Fernanda Melchor2020

Two teenagers in a luxury housing complex plot a crime to escape their lives. The prose consists of long, rhythmic, and breathless sentences.

pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

Full Dark, No Stars

Stephen King2010

Four novellas explore the themes of retribution and the capacity for violence. Characters commit and suffer from crimes in isolated settings.

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides

A group of neighborhood boys obsessively observes five sisters in 1970s Michigan. They document the girls' lives leading up to their suicides.

sardonic → tense, still crime

pace0·prose+2·bleak+2