If you liked
Books like No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy
No Country for Old Men is Cormac McCarthy in thriller mode: a hunter takes a satchel of drug money, an unstoppable killer comes for it, and an aging sheriff watches the violence outrun him. Lean, tense and bleak. If you want more crime and dread with real literary muscle, these are the picks.
The shortlist
What to read next
Blood Meridianby Cormac McCarthy
“Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 1985 review. A nameless teenager joins a band of Indian-hunters along the Texas-Mexico border in 1849. The most violent American novel of the late twentieth century and the rare McCarthy book that demands the prose attention it requires.”
The Roadby Cormac McCarthy
“The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2006 review. A father and son walk south across a burned-out post-apocalyptic America toward an uncertain coast. Pulitzer Prize 2007 and one of the great American novels of the twenty-first century.”
Suttreeby Cormac McCarthy
“Suttree by Cormac McCarthy 1979 review. An educated Knoxville man lives as a fisherman among the city's underclass. McCarthy's pre-Blood-Meridian comic-tragic masterwork.”
The Passengerby Cormac McCarthy
“The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy 2022 review. A New Orleans salvage diver investigates a submerged private-jet wreckage. The first of McCarthy's two final novels.”
The Lincoln Lawyerby Michael Connelly
“The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 2005 review. Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who works out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, takes a case that pulls him into something larger. The novel that launched a series and a film franchise.”
Killers of the Flower Moonby David Grann
“Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann 2017 review. The 1920s murders of dozens of Osage people in Oklahoma after the discovery of oil. The Apple TV / Scorsese film source and Grann's narrative non-fiction breakthrough.”
FAQ
Common questions about No Country for Old Men read-alikes
- I want more Cormac McCarthy.
- Blood Meridian is the essential one, the violent, biblical Western that is his towering achievement. The Road is the more accessible masterpiece, and Suttree is the warmest, funniest, most human book he wrote. Take your pick based on how much darkness you want.
- I want a propulsive crime novel.
- The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly gives you the tension and the momentum in a straight-ahead legal thriller. Less bleak philosophy, more courtroom and hustle, if the chase was the part you loved.
- I want the true-crime-as-literature angle.
- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann investigates the 1920s murders of the Osage with a novelist's control. It shares No Country's interest in American violence and the people who profit from it, told as gripping narrative non-fiction.
- I want late McCarthy.
- The Passenger, published the year before he died, is the strange, grief-heavy companion to Stella Maris. Nothing like No Country on the surface, but the same intelligence runs underneath, older and sadder.
The original