Recommendations based on The Boys from Brazilby Ira Levin

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Day of the Jackal

    by Frederick Forsyth
    An assassin attempts to kill the president of France in a thrilling race against time.

    The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle 's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart : ... (Wikipedia)

  2. The Odessa File

    by Frederick Forsyth
    The uncovering of a sinister Nazi plot, while searching for the truth of a young boy's death.

    In November 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter, follows an ambulance to the apartment of Salomon Tauber, a Holocaust survivor ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Eye of the Needle

    by Ken Follett
    A thrilling tale of espionage and wartime romance, set in the chaos of WWII.

    In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a stiletto , is working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. ... (Wikipedia)

  4. Rosemary's Baby

    by Ira Levin
    A woman's descent into darkness as she is unknowingly forced to carry a child of the Devil.

    The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young married woman who has just moved into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a ... (Wikipedia)

  5. The Stepford Wives

    by Ira Levin
    An unsuspecting woman discovers a sinister conspiracy in her seemingly perfect suburban town.

    The premise involves the married men of the fictional Fairfield County town of Stepford, Connecticut and their fawning, submissive, impossibly beautiful wives. The protagonist is Joanna Eberhart, a ... (Wikipedia)

  6. Gorky Park

    by Martin Cruz Smith
    A thrilling murder mystery, set in the Soviet Union, uncovering secrets and conspiracies.

    The story follows Arkady Renko , a chief investigator for the Moscow militsiya , who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park , an amusement park in Moscow. The victims - two ... (Wikipedia)

  7. The Devil's Alternative

    by Frederick Forsyth
    A political thriller about a Soviet plot to blow up a British oil rig and the choices faced by the British government.

    The story opens with the discovery of a castaway in the Black Sea . Recovering in hospital in Turkey , the man is visited by Andrew Drake, an Anglo-Ukrainian . The castaway, Miroslav Kaminsky, is a ... (Wikipedia)

  8. A Kiss Before Dying

    by Ira Levin
    A young man's quest to uncover the truth behind the death of his lover.

    Bud Corliss is a young man with a ruthless drive to rise above his working-class origins to a life of wealth and importance. He serves in the Pacific in World War II, and upon his honorable discharge ... (Wikipedia)

  9. Marathon Man

    by William Goldman
    A young man's race against time to save his family from a deadly conspiracy.

    Tom "Babe" Levy is a runner in every sense: racing tirelessly toward his goals of athletic and academic excellence–and endlessly away from the specter of his famous father's scandal-driven suicide. ... (Goodreads)

  10. Red Dragon

    by Thomas Harris
    A serial killer stalks the night, and a former FBI agent is the only one who can stop him.

    In 1975, Will Graham , a brilliant profiler of the FBI , captured the serial killer Hannibal Lecter . However, Graham suffered serious injuries from the encounter and retired afterwards. Four years ... (Wikipedia)

  11. 2001: A Space Odyssey

    by Arthur C. Clarke
    An interstellar journey of exploration, confronting humanity's place in the universe.

    A mysterious alien civilization uses a tool with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Thorn Birds

    by Colleen McCullough
    A powerful tale of forbidden love, set in rural Australia in the early 20th century.

    The story begins in New Zealand on 8 December 1915, the fourth birthday of Meghann "Meggie" Cleary who is the only daughter of Padriac ("Paddy"), an Irish farm labourer, and Fiona ("Fee"), his wife. ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Exodus

    by Leon Uris
    The story of the birth of Israel, following the lives of Jewish refugees from WWII to the establishment of the state.

    In 1946 American foreign correspondent Mark Parker and American nurse Kitty Fremont reunite as old friends. Kitty is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus , where thousands ... (Wikipedia)

  14. Smiley's People

    by John le Carré
    Retired spy Smiley is thrust back into the world of espionage to uncover a deadly conspiracy.

    John le Carre's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge and have earned him – and his hero, British ... (Goodreads)

  15. The Eagle Has Landed

    by Jack Higgins
    A daring mission to kidnap Winston Churchill from his English home in World War II.

    In November of 1943, an elite team of Nazi paratroopers descends on British soil with a diabolical goal: to abduct Winston Churchill and cripple the Allied war effort. The mission, ordered by Hitler ... (Goodreads)

  16. Six Days of the Condor

    by James Grady
    A CIA researcher returns from lunch to find his colleagues murdered. He must evade the killers and uncover the truth.

    Ronald Malcolm is a CIA employee who works in a clandestine operations office in Washington, D.C. responsible for analyzing the plots of mystery and spy novels. One day, when he should be in the ... (Wikipedia)

  17. QB VII

    by Leon Uris
    A courtroom drama that explores the aftermath of a libel suit brought by a Polish doctor against an American author.

    A famous author, Abraham Cady, stands trial for libel. In his book The Holocaust , he named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of the Jadwiga concentration camp 's most sadistic inmate/doctors. ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Airport

    by Arthur Hailey
    An airport becomes a microcosm of human drama, revealing the stories of those who pass through its gates.

    The story takes place at Lincoln International, a fictional Chicago airport based very loosely on O'Hare International Airport . The action mainly centers on Mel Bakersfeld, the Airport General ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Russia House

    by John le Carré
    An espionage mission filled with suspense and intrigue set during the Cold War.

    In 1987, Bartholomew "Barley" Scott Blair, a British publisher , is at a book fair in Moscow . With business friends he goes on a drunken retreat to a secluded dacha in the forest near Peredelkino . ... (Wikipedia)

  20. Fatherland

    by Robert Harris
    A thriller set in an alternate history of Nazi Germany, where secrets of the past are uncovered.

    The novel opens in Nazi Germany in April 1964 during the week leading up to Adolf Hitler 's ,[note 1], 75th birthday. Detective Xavier March is an investigator working for the Kriminalpolizei ( Kripo ... (Wikipedia)

  21. The Guns of Navarone

    by Alistair MacLean
    A daring mission to destroy a fortress blocking the Allied forces from a major port.

    The island of Navarone, off the Turkish coast, has been heavily fortified as the Germans attempt to stifle British naval activity in the Aegean. A force of twelve hundred British soldiers is now ... (Wikipedia)

  22. The Runaway Jury

    by John Grisham
    A jury trial where the jury's decision is up for sale as two sides battle for a multi-million dollar verdict.

    Wendall Rohr and his team of tort lawyers have filed suit on behalf of plaintiff Celeste Wood, whose husband died of lung cancer , against the tobacco company Pynex. The trial is to be held in Biloxi ... (Wikipedia)

  23. Deliverance

    by James Dickey
    Four friends embark on a dangerous river rafting journey, facing unexpected perils.

    Narrated in the first person by Ed Gentry, a graphic artist and one of the four main characters, the novel opens with him and three friends, all middle-aged men who live in a large city in Georgia, ... (Wikipedia)

  24. The Caine Mutiny

    by Herman Wouk
    A naval officer is court-martialed after leading a mutiny against his captain.

    The story is told through the eyes of Willis Seward "Willie" Keith, an affluent but callow young graduate of Princeton University . Following a mediocre living as a nightclub piano player, he signs ... (Wikipedia)

  25. Beartown

    by Fredrik Backman
    A small-town hockey team and its community grapple with the consequences of a traumatic event.

    Peter Andersson, in his forties, is the general manager of the ice hockey club in Beartown, a small town located somewhere in Sweden. Peter grew up in Beartown and was a junior hockey star. He went ... (Wikipedia)

  26. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

    by John le Carré
    A British agent's mission to infiltrate East Germany during the Cold War, full of suspense and intrigue.

    In this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction. With unsurpassed knowledge ... (Goodreads)

  27. Hannibal

    by Thomas Harris
    A psychological thriller about a renowned FBI agent and his pursuit of a dangerous serial killer.

    Years after his escape, posing as scholarly Dr. Fell, curator of a grand family's palazzo, Hannibal lives the good life in Florence, playing lovely tunes by serial killer/composer Henry VIII and ... (Goodreads)

  28. The Postman Always Rings Twice

    by James M. Cain
    A crime drama of forbidden passion, deception and murder.

    The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young ... (Wikipedia)

  29. 'Salem's Lot

    by Stephen King
    A small town is terrorized by a vampire, forcing its citizens to fight for survival.

    Ben Mears, a writer who spent part of his childhood in Jerusalem's Lot , Maine , has returned after 25 years. He quickly becomes friends with high-school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a ... (Wikipedia)

  30. The World According to Garp

    by John Irving
    A humorous and heart-wrenching journey of life, love and literature.

    This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a ... (Goodreads)