Morally grey main characters you root for anyway

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Morally grey characters doing awful things, with you on their side the whole time. Books that make you complicit and let you enjoy it.

Readers decide what's on this shelf.

Drayfus

Stacked by Drayfus · Updated 3 hours ago

The 10 books on this stack

Tap “Want to read” on the ones that catch your eye. No account needed, we'll keep them for you.

  • Oyinkan Braithwaite 2018

    Sunday Times bestseller and The Times #1 bestseller Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019 Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 Winner of the 2019 LA Times Award for Best Crime Thriller Capital Crime Debut Author of the Year 2019 __________ 'A literary sensation' Guardian 'A bombshell of a book... Sharp, explosive, hilarious' New York Times 'Glittering and funny... A stiletto slipped between the ribs and through the left ventricle of the heart' Financial Times __________ When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other...

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    1 want to read

  • Iain Banks 1990

    A stunning new reissue edition of the third Culture novel from Iain M. Banks - one of the most important and influential writers in modern science fiction. The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past. Praise for the Culture series: 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata The State of the Art Other books by Iain M. Banks: Against a Dark Background Feersum Endjinn The Algebraist Also now available: The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.

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  • Glen Cook 1984

    Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hardbitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead. Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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  • Holly Black 2018

    This deluxe collector's edition of the New York Times bestselling The Cruel Prince- the book that started it all- from bestselling and award-winning author Holly Black features a gorgeous new velvet cover, a slipcase, a ribbon bookmark, gorgeous illustrated endpapers, and more! Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe. Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him--and face the consequences. In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

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  • Mark Lawrence 2011

    When he was nine, he watched his mother and brother killed before him. By the time he was 13, he was the leader of a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By 15, he intends to be king. It's time for Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath to return to the castle he turned his back on and take what's rightfully his.

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  • Mario Puzo 2004

    The Godfather is the Mafia leader Vito Corleone, a benevolent despot who stops at nothing to gain and hold power. Set in Long Island, Hollywood and Sicily this is a story of a feudal society within society which does not hesitate to consolidate its power.

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  • Hilary Mantel 2009

    Now a major TV series Winner of the Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good' Daily Mail 'Our most brilliant English writer' Guardian In this brilliant novel, Hilary Mantel brings the opulent, brutal world of the Tudors to bloody, glittering life. It is the backdrop to the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell: lowborn boy, charmer, bully, master of deadly intrigue and, finally, most powerful of Henry VIII's courtiers, determined to bring England into a modern age. Heralded as the greatest English novels of this century, the Wolf Hall trilogy has won two Booker Prizes and been adapted into hugely successful stage plays. The first two books, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, were transformed into a BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning BBC television series, starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis. The cast will return in the long-awaited concluding series, Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light.

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  • Donna Tartt 1992

    Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.

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    2 want to read

  • Joe Abercrombie 2001

    Infamous Logen Ninefingers has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he's on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian. He is caught in murderous conspiracies and old scores, along with Captain Jezal dan Luthar, Inquisitor Glokta and the wizard Bayaz, who all must try to survive the coming war.

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  • Patricia Highsmith 1973

    A beautiful, hardback edition of the iconic crime classic, now a MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES. Tom Ripley wants money, success, and the good life - and he's willing to kill for it. Struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors, and the law, Ripley leaps at the chance to start afresh on a free trip to Europe. But when his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking. This is the first in Highsmith's classic series featuring the character of Tom Ripley. The Talented Mr Ripley inspired the Academy Award-winning film starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law, and is now a major Netflix series starring Andrew Scott. 'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times 'Ripley, amoral, hedonistic and charming, is a genuinely original creation' Daily Telegraph *One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.* *As seen on Write Around the World with Richard E Grant.* VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS: Bound to be beautiful.

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