11 books like Indiana Jones
The pleasure of Indiana Jones is a scholar who can throw a punch, a map with a hole in it, and someone worse getting there first. These are novels (and one piece of reporting) that deliver the same chase after buried things, from Victorian trek stories to modern relic thrillers and the real explorers who went out and never came back.
Updated September 2026
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Victorian treasure-hunting that Indy was built from
King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard 1885
The template for the hunt across hostile country after a legendary hoard, complete with a battered old map; its colonial attitudes are very much of 1885 and will need reading with a raised eyebrow.
The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle 1912
An expedition of squabbling experts pushes into unmapped jungle and finds something that shouldn't exist, with the same boyish glee as the films; the comedy comes from the scientists' egos rather than from wisecracks under fire.
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers 1903
Two amateurs poking about where they shouldn't stumble into a plot of national consequence, as Indy does; the setting is cold North Sea sandbanks and the tension is quiet and nautical.
Modern relic thrillers: race the villains to the artefact
The Hunt for Atlantis by Andy McDermott 2007
An archaeologist and her ex-SAS minder chase a lost city through booby-trapped ruins, which is the Indiana Jones formula almost move for move; the action is bigger, louder and faster than anything in the films.
Map of Bones by James Rollins 2005
Ancient relics, a murderous secret order and a chase across Europe, all with a scientific gloss; the heroes are a military unit with kit rather than one man and a whip.
The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry 2006
A rare-book dealer turned reluctant agent untangles a historical secret people will kill to keep, in the same vein as the Grail plot of the third film; it leans on archive research and cathedral floors more than on jungle traps.
Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly 2005
Booby-trapped tombs, a global scramble for a sacred object and set-pieces engineered like theme-park rides; Reilly strips out the character talk and runs almost entirely on velocity.
Occult artefacts and things best left in the ground
Declare by Tim Powers 2001
Shares the central Indiana Jones fear of a supernatural power falling into the wrong hands, and puts a genuine biblical horror at the top of a mountain; the mood is Cold War espionage, slow and melancholy.
Fury From the Tomb by S. A. Sidor 2018
An Egyptologist assembles an odd crew and opens something in a tomb that should have stayed shut, very much the spirit of the first film's ending; it goes properly into horror rather than pulling back at the last minute.
Real expeditions into places that swallow people
The Lost City of Z by David Grann 2009
Percy Fawcett is the flesh-and-blood version of the tweed-clad explorer heading into the green with a theory and a compass; it's reported non-fiction, and nobody gets rescued in the third act.
The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock 1992
A journalist's hunt for the Ark of the Covenant, ending up in Ethiopia — the same quest as Raiders, pursued in earnest; the scholarship is heavily contested, so read it as an adventure story about believing a theory.
If you also liked…
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
- Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan
- 1984 by George Orwell
Questions
- Which of these feels most like Raiders of the Lost Ark specifically?
- The Hunt for Atlantis for the tomb-traps-and-rivals structure, and Fury from the Tomb for the supernatural payoff. If you want the Ark itself, The Sign and the Seal chases it for real.
- I bounced off Dan Brown and Clive Cussler. Is there anything here that isn't like them?
- Yes — Declare and The Lost City of Z are written at a completely different level of prose, and The Riddle of the Sands is a quiet classic rather than a thriller-by-numbers.
- Do I need to start these series at book one?
- The Hunt for Atlantis and The Templar Legacy are the first in their series, so you're fine. Map of Bones is technically the second Sigma Force book but reads perfectly well on its own.