If Alter tracking the killer of Jewish boys—while shadowed by Yakov’s dybbuk—hooked you, you’ll love how Arent Hayes hunts a string of impossible deaths aboard a 1634 Indiaman in The Devil and the Dark Water. Like Alter and Frankie piecing together sigils and secrets across the World’s Fair, Arent must decode occult symbols, whispered curses, and hidden motives at sea. The investigation barrels forward with tangible stakes, red herrings, and gut-punch reveals—right up to a finale that recontextualizes everything, much as Alter’s case does when the truth behind the killings finally surfaces.

If the dybbuk possession and Jewish folklore threaded through 1893 Chicago captivated you, The Golem and the Jinni builds a similar magic-on-the-margins feel. As Alter navigates Maxwell Street markets and synagogue life, Wecker’s golem (Chava) and jinni (Ahmad) roam tenements, bakeries, and workshops of 1890s New York’s immigrant neighborhoods. The supernatural is intimate and rooted in tradition—less spell lists, more everyday wonder and danger—echoing how Yakov’s spirit alters Alter’s steps without turning the world into high fantasy.

If you were gripped by Alter’s descent into Chicago’s underbelly—morgues, alleys, and newspaper offices—to confront violence against Jewish boys, The Alienist mirrors that stark intensity in 1896 New York. Dr. Laszlo Kreizler’s team conducts a relentless, often harrowing pursuit of a killer preying on marginalized youth, much like Alter and Frankie sift through corruption, prejudice, and power. The tone stays unflinching and somber, channeling the same moral urgency that drives Alter to face horrors others refuse to see.

If Alter’s journey—haunted by Yakov, torn between fear, desire, and duty, and pushed toward self-recognition through his bond with Frankie—moved you, Summer Sons hits a similar vein. Andrew is haunted by the violent, intimate ghost of his best friend and must unravel secrets that force him to examine masculinity, longing, and identity. The way the haunting in The City Beautiful pries open Alter’s heart and history finds an echo here, where supernatural terror becomes the crucible for who the protagonist will become.

If you valued how The City Beautiful foregrounds Jewish immigrant life and queer desire amid historical spectacle, The Chosen and the Beautiful similarly centers an outsider—Jordan Baker, a queer, Vietnamese American socialite—within the Jazz Age, but with paper-cutting magic and deals with demons laced through the glitter. Like Alter negotiating antisemitism and class barriers at the World’s Fair, Jordan navigates closed doors and coded prejudice, using a touch of the uncanny to recast an era we think we know.