Books like High life by Matthew Stokoe

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.

A weary father and his young son journey across a bleak, post‑apocalyptic America, battling cannibals, starvation, and a harsh winter in a desperate quest for safety and a glimpse of remaining civilization.

A 2012 crime thriller that explores a marriage in turmoil as one wife disappears, leaving her husband to confront suspicion and secrets.

When Libby Day’s family is brutally murdered, she blames her older brother Ben, who is imprisoned for life. Twenty‑four years later, a coaxing group suggests Ben’s innocence and forces Libby to revisit the night’s trauma and unravel the truth.

Balram Halwai rises from servant to entrepreneur, revealing the brutal path of ambition and survival in modern India.

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.

Irvine Welsh’s debut novel follows a tight-knit group of Edinburgh young men as they navigate drug addiction, friendship, and the harsh realities of everyday life.

George Orwell’s autobiographical essay, *Down and Out in Paris and London*, chronicles his years of poverty and unemployment in the city streets and hostels of Paris and London, revealing the harsh realities of 1930s street life.

In early 1980s Los Angeles, a privileged youth returns home for Christmas, confronting a generation steeped in excess, drugs, and nihilism as he navigates love, friendship, and moral decay.

Livvy, a woman haunted by the murder of her mother when she was five, confronts her trauma with the help of writer Noah as she hunts the truth behind her past.

Written in debtor's prison in 1784, Memoirs of Fanny Hill is the first modern English erotic novel that follows a young woman forced into prostitution by poverty, who navigates love, betrayal, and personal growth to find her own ending.

Roman fantastique. Roman policier (suspense).

Renée Ballard, a night‑shift detective in Hollywood, refuses to hand over her cases after filing a sexual‑harassment complaint. She tackles a brutal beating of a prostitute and a nightclub murder, risking her career to seek justice.

Private investigator Burke teams with a disgraced former sex‑crime prosecutor to expose a conspiratorial assault that threatens to destroy a city’s justice system.

A ragged band of homeless outcasts, led by a former sensei in search of redemption, band together to protect a valuable book collection in the face of threats from a looming demolition and a blackmail plot.

Set across rural Ohio and West Virginia from World War II to the 1960s, this novel weaves interlocking tales of war‑torn veterans, serial killers, and a preacher, exploring Southern life and its hidden darkness.

A darkly humorous account of addiction and self-discovery.

Jack Till, who has retired from the LAPD after a respected career as a homicide detective, now works as a private investigator, comfortable chasing down routine cases while visiting his 24-year-old daughter, Holly, who has Down Syndrome. But when the parents of a recently murdered young girl, about Holly's age, ask for his help when the police come up empty, Till reluctantly takes the case. It was discovered after her death that the victim had been working as a high-class prostitute, and the police are content to assume she was killed by a client, common in such a dangerous line of work. Yet as Till digs deeper, he realizes that the victim is just one of several young female escorts killed in different cities in the exact same way--all had strawberry blonde hair, and all were shot with a 9mm handgun in the sanctity of their apartments. Till must find his way around the tawdry and secretive online escort business, and decode ads placed by young women who all use false names, sometimes advertise using other women's pictures, and move from city to city every few months. Yet when Till is finally able to catch up with the killer, he finds that the man he's after is far more dangerous and volatile than he ever could have imagined. As the body count rises, Till must risk his life to find this seductive and ruthless killer whose murderous spree masks a far deadlier agenda.

In 1892, Sarah Gilchrist becomes the first woman at Edinburgh’s medical school. Facing sexism and moral scorn, she trains at a charitable hospital, where a prostitute’s murdered body forces her into a dangerous quest for justice amid a city of brothels, bribery, and body snatchers.

Benjamin Thorpe, a Los Angeles architect, slips into New York’s underbelly in search of companionship, becoming entangled in a prostitution murder that forces a detective team to investigate his possible involvement.

After a gruesome murder, a self‑sufficient New York writing‑teacher tests her limits through a risky liaison, only to find her own desires and suspicions intertwined with terror and violence.

"Have you ever wanted something so bad you was willing to crawl over bodies to get it? I mean, fiend for it so hard it didn't matter who you hurt, how low you had to scrape, it was gonna be yours? That's what music and balling did for me. They were the fundamentals behind my rise . . . and the perpetrators of my fall. They called me Harlem's black prince--a rising star who carried street dreams on his back. But the streets, ya know. They got a way of coming for theirs. A method of sneaking up on you when you ain't looking . . ."Andre "Thug-A-Licious" Williams came up on Harlem's meanest streets. But thanks to his nearly ankle-breaking hoop moves and explosive mic skills, he makes it out--and dominates the rap scene with chart-topping urban hits.Thug has sexed all the hottest freaks and has a slew of baby mamas to show for it. But no matter how many women he takes to his bed, only one can claim his heart: successful beauty salon owner Carmiesha "Lil Muddah" Vernoy, his ride-or-die queen who has stuck by his side and guarded his back through thick and thin.But Thug also has a nightmarish history with someone else. Pimp Williams, his older cousin and ex--partner in crime, is a cold-blooded killer who spreads havoc all over Harlem and will stop at nothing to get what he wants--even if it means betraying his own family, crushing Carmiesha, and forcing Harlem's black prince down to his knees and back to his bloody beginnings."Urban erotica has never been hotter!"--Nikki Turner, author of Riding Dirty on I-95From the Trade Paperback edition.

A seduction artist’s affair with Mimi Lessing derails marriages, unleashes a hunting obsession, and leads to a series of murders that turn investigators’ suspicion toward Jake Teller.

A sharp‑witted satire from Emmy‑winning "Frasier" writer Joe Keenan pokes fun at Hollywood's pretense while exposing the industry's humor, secrets and the hidden lives of closeted gay writers in Los Angeles.

After her best friend’s suicide, 17‑year‑old Lela Santos is thrust into a hellish realm where she must navigate monstrous Guards and a cunning leader to save Nadia’s soul.