Books like Prayer for the dead by James Oswald
When a missing journalist’s body is found in a secret chamber deep beneath Edinburgh’s Gilmerton Caves, Detective Inspector Tony McLean sees a carefully staged murder that appears to be part of an occult ritual. Faced with a stark lack of forensic evidence and bewildering revelations, McLean must navigate a labyrinth of hidden passages and ancient secrets to track a killer driven by dark compulsions and a higher authority. The case pulls him deeper into a subterranean world where every clue leads closer to an unsettling truth, and the detective’s own safety—and life—hang in the balance.
First publish date: 2016
Genre: Mystery & Detective/Police Procedural
Authors: James Oswald
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 (0 community ratings)
How are these books recommended?
The books recommended for Prayer for the dead by James Oswald are shaped by reader interaction. Votes on how closely books relate, user ratings, and community comments all help refine these recommendations and highlight books readers genuinely find similar in theme, ideas, and overall reading experience.
Have you read any of these books?
Your votes, ratings, and comments help improve recommendations and make it easier
for other readers to discover books they’ll enjoy.
Books similar to Prayer for the dead (15 similar books)
Alicia Berenson, a celebrated painter, shoots her husband Gabriel and then falls silent, becoming a media sensation. In North London’s Grove secure unit, psychotherapist Theo Faber devotes himself to uncovering why she became the Silent Patient and his own true motives.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
When Belgian detective Hercule Poirot returns to the English village of King's Abbot, he confronts the murder of industrialist Roger Ackroyd, unraveling a web of family secrets and hidden motives that reveal the culprit was nobody he expected.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Miss Marple investigates a chilling murder witnessed on a London train, a case that begins with only a lone witness, no suspects and no body.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
After a tragic gunshot wound, former chief detective Carl Mørck is reassigned to cold‑case work, where he is drawn into a five‑year investigation of a missing Danish politician.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
At the seaside town of Crowdean, typist Sheila Webb discovers a corpse surrounded by five clocks at 19 Wilbraham Crescent, a place she was never meant to visit. When the blind owner, Mrs. Pebmarsh, denies any connection, the mystery deepens, compelling intellectual Gordon “Colin” Lamb to turn to the famed detective Hercule Poirot for help.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A parlor game in Snowbound Sittaford House turns deadly when a curse appears to predict murder. Amateur occultists must confront a spirit world to uncover the killer.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
When the first snow falls in Oslo, a missing‑mothers investigation leads Inspector Harry Hole into a deadly serial‑killer game that threatens to unhinge him.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A detective must untangle a baffling murder case in which an amnesiac doctor discovers his pivotal alibi, while the convicted killer’s wrongful trial leaves the truth hidden and the danger still looming.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Detective Vera Stanhope teams up with a reluctant old adversary to reopen a cold case that may reveal secrets about her father's past.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A gripping psychological suspense novel set in Dublin, focusing on two detectives investigating a series of murders in the woods.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Sixty years after a ritualistic murder in Edinburgh, Detective Inspector McLean is drawn into a new wave of grisly killings that mirror the old case, forcing him to confront buried secrets and the possibility that crime is not what it seems.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A Edinburgh bookseller becomes a detective when a friend’s murder and a priceless collection of antique medical tomes collide, forcing her to navigate the city’s hidden corners and the mysteries of the past.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
In the Shetland Isles, inspector Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves investigate the mysterious disappearance and subsequent death of friend Eleanor, whose obsession with a local ghost may hide a decades‑old secret worth killing for.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
LAPD detective Hieronymous (aka Harry) Bosch is a loner and a nighthawk. Called out on a routine drug overdose case, Bosch soon realises that the victim found lying in the Mullholland Dam drainpipe is no accident case. Billy Meadows was a fellow 'tunnel rat' in Vietnam and Harry swears to bring the killer to justice.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Some Other Similar Books
The Sound of Rain by Camilla GrebeBefore I Go to Sleep by S J Watson
The Surgeon by Martin Tremblay
Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson
The Dinner by Herman Koch
The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn
The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup
Have a similar book in mind? Let others know!
Please login to submit books!