Which Book to Read Based on Your Favorite Wake Up Dead Man Character

The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz is a unique and meta reinvention of the classic crime novel. Horowitz writes a fictionalized version of himself into the story as the eccentric detective's investigative partner.

The crime is peculiar enough to catch the attention of any Benoit Blanc fan: Just after 11 am one spring morning, a woman in London walks into a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later, the woman is strangled to death in her own home.

Even more peculiar than the crime is disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne. Prepared with a brilliant mind and an equally brilliant repertoire of verbal barbs, he arrives to crack the case.

Alongside him is crime novelist Horowitz, trying to farm more material for his writing as he aids in the investigation. But this is one story he can't control, especially as Hawthorne's own closet of skeletons enters the picture.

The Wall Street Journal said this book poses the question, “Which is of greater interest to the reader, the crime or the detective?”

That is a vital question for anyone desperate to capture Benoit Blanc's chaotic yet methodical brilliance, alongside his cutting and quirky wit.

In Last Things, Father Dowling is well seasoned in the art of counseling people through delicate situations. He's had quite a long career in it.

When Eleanor Wygant comes to pay him a visit, he greets her as if it's any other counsel, even though she's a stranger.

Two things quickly clarify: Eleanor's family members are actually longtime parishioners of St. Hillary's, and her problem is anything but typical.

Father Dowling has been asked to persuade Eleanor's niece, Jessica, to discard the tell-all family novel she's been penning. After all, the family has quite the sordid history.

Beyond a patriarch with a wandering eye, there's also a vastly underachieving academic as well as a son who abandoned the priesthood to get cozy with a former nun.

Oh, and there's also a previously unknown murder in the mix that Dowling must put to rest.

Father Jud Duplenticy may be rough around the edges, but he values compassion and empathy above all else, which readers will find plenty of in the pages of this clerical mystery.

If Martha Delacroix's complex religious devotion piqued your interest, then you may like The Sacrament.

In her younger days, Sister Johanna was sent to a Catholic school in Iceland to investigate allegations of misconduct. While she looks into rumors of abuse, a young student watches Father August Franz, the headmaster, fall to his death from the tower.

20 years later, the student is now a grown man, haunted by this defining moment. He asks Sister Johanna back to the scene of the crime to find closure.

Leaving her peaceful convent in France, Sister Johanna makes the trek back to Iceland, where she examines the faulty nature of memory and the complexity of joy and trauma — and the marks left behind by dark truths.

Not only is Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd narrated by a doctor like Nat Sharp, but this book is also referenced in the movie itself!

Acclaimed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot has retired to an English village, happy to hang up his investigative hat. But when his friend Roger Ackroyd is murdered in a curious crime, he must get back into the game to figure out the how, who, and why.

It seems the man's fate may be linked to dark secrets, in connection to his late fiancée, who died the day before.

Did the complicated and tormented nature of Vera and Cy Draven's unwilling mother-son dynamic get you hooked? Then watch the tensions rise in Rachel Edward's Darling.

Lola has no interest in getting a new stepmother, especially when she comes out of nowhere after dating her dad for just three months. And it surprises her doubly so to learn that she's a Black woman.

Darling wasn't excited about having a new stepdaughter, either, particularly considering that Lola was so spoiled and mean. But she loves her dad, so they'll just have to get used to one another.

Unless one of them could think of a way to get rid of the other.

Did Monsieur Jefferson Wick's crude priestly behavior captivate you? Then the religious hypocrisy woven through Death in Holy Orders is sure to delight.

A small theological college on the East Anglian coast has its reputation on the line when the body of a student is found in the sand. The boy's prominent father places a call to Scotland Yard demanding an investigation.

Detective Adam Dagliesh spent many of his own summers at this school, making him the perfect man to sniff out the truth in this remote community. But as another death crops up, one bad deed spirals into many, leaving a path of murder, betrayal, incest, and other grave sins in its wake.