Books like The second confession by Rex Stout

Dan Brown’s thriller follows symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu as they race through Paris to solve a murder at the Louvre, uncovering a conflict between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over a controversial religious secret.

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.

In a small East Texas town, a convicted football star faces execution while the true perpetrator, now paroled, must decide whether to confess and risk his own life to save an innocent man.

When a Soviet plot threatens to ignite revolution in Britain, MI5 investigator John Preston races against time to stop the destructive Third‑World Plan Aurora and protect his country from an unprecedented nightmare.

Amelia "Amy" DeNovo enlists rookie detective Archie to uncover her unknown father’s identity while navigating a begrudging partnership with Nero Wolfe in New York’s underbelly.

When a street‑car window washer discovers a terrified woman and reports it to detective Nero Wolfe, the boy is murdered the next day, followed by a second witness, leaving only a pair of distinctive golden‑spider earrings as a clue.

Nero Wolfe investigates the murder of his old friend Marko Vukcic, taking him back to Montenegro—where both Yugoslav and Russian communists threaten him and a perilous mountain climb awaits.

"I very much need to be dead." These are the chilling last words left by a man who had everything to live for but took his own life. In the void that remains stands his widow, FBI agent Jane Hawk, surrounded by questions destined to go unanswered unless she does what all the grief and fury inside her demand: Find the truth, no matter what. People of talent and accomplishment, people seemingly happy and sound of mind, have recently been committing suicide in surprising numbers. A disturbing pattern is beginning to emerge. Jane is determined to give up everything to find out why. And if that means going rogue and becoming America's Most Wanted, then so be it. Those arrayed against her are legion, and devoted to protecting something profoundly important-or terrifying-enough to exterminate any and all in their way. But Jane is as clever as these enemies are cold-blooded, as relentless as they are ruthless. And she is driven by a righteous rage they can never comprehend. Because it is born of love.

AKA "And Be a Villain"

Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin investigate the death of Isabel Cather, while Orrie Cather, her fiance, fights to clear his name amid secrets and a murder in New York.

A compilation of seven classic Nero Wolfe mysteries featuring the astute detective and his assistant, Archie Goodwin, solving crimes in New York.

Nero Wolfe reluctantly joins forces with young Sally Blount to clear her father's name after a chess club murder, navigating suspects, arsenic, and his own disarray.

Detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin unravel a murder linked to a flower show while confronting a series of threatening poison‑pen letters.

Nero Wolfe is called to solve the murder of a powerful government official scheduled to address a group of millionaires, a case that rattles New York’s business world.

Nero Wolfe is hired by a Nebraska businessman to locate his estranged son, who is on trial for murder, leading the detective and his assistant into a tangled web of deceit that could cost them dearly.

Nero Wolfe reluctantly investigates a kidnapping and a subsequent murder as his client, Mrs. Vail, fears harm to her husband.

Nero Wolfe is called upon in New York to investigate three murder cases, each wrapped in political intrigue and personal danger, ranging from a left‑wing activist’s death to a homicide involving political refugees, and even a cartoonist’s deadly plot.

A collection of seventeen Rex Stout short stories first published in All-Story Magazine, including his earliest crime fiction and early foreshadowing of the famous Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.