Books like Darker Than Amber (Travis McGee Mysteries) by John D. MacDonald

Hard‑boiled detective Sam Spade races to recover a priceless, gem‑encrusted statuette while double‑crosses and danger creep from every corner.

Reporter Camille Preaker returns to her hometown after a brief stay in a psychiatric hospital to cover the murders of two preteen girls, and must confront the trauma of her own past to uncover the truth.

In The Big Nowhere, three men become entangled in a vast web of ambition, perversion, and deceit amid the gritty backdrop of Los Angeles.

A bus driver and a summer mine worker navigate unexpected career changes, youthful longing, and hidden motives in this contemporary tale of age, ambition, and the mineral-rich world of an amethyst mine.

Travis McGee: The Turquoise Lament

Travis McGee #17

The Last One Left (1966) is a mystery novel by John D. MacDonald. The story largely takes place in southern Florida and the Bahamas, and is similar to many of the author's Travis McGee stories. The book is in fact dedicated to McGee "who lent invaluable support and encouragement," and a named runabout motorboat later appears in the McGee novel Pale Gray for Guilt. It was originally published in 1967, appearing in paperback by Fawcett (reprinted 1981) and in hardcover by Doubleday. From internal evidence (the Bay of Pigs Invasion is mentioned but the Bahamian dollar is not yet in circulation) the action occurs in late May and early June, circa 1965. A yacht explodes in the Bahamas, apparently killing 6 people and leaving its burned captain temporarily marooned on a small island. Sam Boyleston, an attorney from Texas and the brother of one of the victims, investigates the circumstances, as does Raoul Kelly, a newspaper reporter. As the plot develops it becomes apparent that one person is ruthlessly manipulating events, but proving guilt appears impossible. The book's subtitle is A story about money and dying, and it is written on several different levels. Throughout the plot are subtle discourses on what it means to have a "good" life, how people deal with stress and uncertainty, and at what point will someone reach out for healthy human contact, or else take self-interest as their highest goal.

Shyster real estate developers in Florida

Travis McGee, the sharp‑witted detective, uncovers a crime while fishing with his friend Meyer; a bound woman’s body is tossed over a bridge, setting off a mystery that reveals darker currents beneath the surface.

Travis McGee #18

Travis McGee #2

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.

In the third Charlie Parker thriller, a private detective disappears and the wry investigator is hired to find him while an FBI agent with secret motives follows a trail of killings linked to hauntings, leading to a deadly supernatural conspiracy.