Riot Recommendation

23 Books About A Character Accused Of A Crime

Kelly Jensen

Editor

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

This Riot Recommendation is sponsored by Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig

last-seen-leavingFlynn’s girlfriend, January, is missing. All eyes are on Flynn—he must know something. After all, he was—is—her boyfriend. They were together the night before she disappeared. But Flynn has a secret of his own. As he struggles to uncover the truth about January’s disappearance, he must also face the truth about himself.

 

 

 


A favorite tropes in mystery/thriller/ok any fiction is when a character is accused of a crime (falsely or not falsely) and has to defend his honor, even if he has no honor to defend. Will justice prevail? Did the character actually do it? Just how unreliable is this narrator, anyway?

We asked you to share your favorite books about a character accused of a crime, and you answered. Here are 23 of your favorites!

 

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

The Confession by John Grisham

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little

Deathwatch by Robb White

Dolores Claibourne by Stephen King

Exit Strategy by L.F. Falconer

Gilt Hollow by Lorie Langdon

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Green Mile by Stephen King

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov

Kindness for Weakness by Shawn Goodman

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J Gaines

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Crime by Tamar Myers

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Trial by Franz Kafka