If you found yourself drawn into Charles Unwin’s surreal investigation and the dreamlike world of The Manual of Detection, you’ll be fascinated by The City & the City. Inspector Tyador Borlú must solve a murder that spans two cities occupying the same physical space, separated only by the inhabitants’ willful blindness. The book’s mind-bending setting and off-kilter noir sensibility make for an equally strange and compelling puzzle.

If you loved the blend of noir detective tropes with an offbeat alternate reality in The Manual of Detection, you’ll relish The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Detective Meyer Landsman investigates a murder in a reimagined Jewish settlement in Alaska, navigating a labyrinth of conspiracies and oddball characters. Chabon’s witty prose and imaginative setting evoke a similar sense of playful mystery.

If you enjoyed the surreal logic and dreamlike puzzles of The Manual of Detection, Kafka on the Shore will captivate you. Following the journeys of Kafka Tamura and Nakata, the narrative weaves together mysterious prophecies, talking cats, and shifting realities, leaving you piecing together meaning in a wonderfully strange world.

If you delighted in the playful, self-referential tone and metafictional elements of The Manual of Detection, you’ll adore The Eyre Affair. Literary detective Thursday Next chases a criminal through the pages of classic novels, with reality and fiction colliding in humorous and inventive ways. Fforde’s book is a witty, genre-bending romp for book lovers.

If the elaborate, whimsical worldbuilding and secret societies of The Manual of Detection enchanted you, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell will offer a similarly immersive experience. This novel unfolds in an alternate England where magic is real but shrouded in bureaucracy and secrecy, and follows two magicians whose ambitions and rivalry change the fate of the nation.