Seeking recommendations - strong books w/dialogue chunks making big reveals

Try J.A. Konrath. His books rely heavily on dialogue. Lee Child might be another good choice.

For a more well-known example:

Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

In my humble opinion, the true climax of both books are in the revelation of dialogue. Whether it worked well enough is up to debate. I think it did.

Sounds like a courtroom scene. I'm the wrong guy to ask where one is though.

I'd be worried about an infodump. Can you show rather than tell?

As for Hallows... are you talking about the pensieve series of memories (she said vaguely for anyone who's not read the book)? I reckon so but as I recall, Rowling "shows" it gorgeously there. I'll check em out until I get a hold of the other two authors previously recommended.

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I was thinking more the piece of dialogue between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, where Harry reveals that he is the true owner of the Elder Wand.

Read mystery. A lot of time the reveal is done through dialogue -- the detective telling us what really happened and whodunit.

If you're up for some doorstoppers, try A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. Much of the plot is driven by political intrigues, often presented through dialogue. The thousands-of-POVs format ensures people are getting correct and incorrect information via dialogue. As for reveals, well, one big revelation in the third book, done entirely through dialogue, made me jump out of my chair and swear. Masterful.

It's been a while since I read it, but John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany has some big reveals within dialogue.

But I'm also of the belief that Owen Meany should be required reading for everyone.

In my WIP, I have almost an entire chapter that is monologue from one character with only very occasional and very brief interruption from another character (such as, "Oh?" and "You didn't!") It's basically an info-dump, filling in important information that will be crucial to the plot later on. Because it was a massive wall of speech and a large dumpage of "history," I was sure my very tough beta reader was going to tell me to cut it. And I would have listened to her, too; she's damn good. The only comment I got from her after that scene, though, was "Sorry I didn't have many comments to throw in there. I was too engrossed by the backstory to say anything." I was pleasantly surprised that my Tidal Wave O' Monologue That Is Also Exposition (TM) passed the Lori test.

So I think it definitely can be done without losing the reader's interest and without coming across as "Woooo! Here is the BIIIIIG REVEEEAAL!" that can feel so cheesy in fiction.

I can't think of any books off-hand that have examples. I know I've read them, but none are coming to mind at present except for Atlas Shrugged, and I personally think that is a dismally bad book, in part because of its awkward info-dumping dialogue and characters' grand-standing for pages and pages without STFUing. Sorry.

I can tell you what worked for me: Break up the talking with action. I don't mean scenes where people run around and do things, but actual description of the kind of action that goes on while people talk. You've seen people talk before, of course. Maybe you've seen them when they're desperate to convince a person to see something their way. Pause in the dialogue to describe a hand gesture, the way a character looks around, the intensity of eyes or voice, etc. and then pick up again with the speechifying. And be sure your dialogue "sounds" real. Make the word use natural for your setting and character.

Strong books with big dialogue reveals aren't all that common, as they're generally considered weak writing, but I think in this case you (thread starter) are looking at something slightly different from the dreaded expositional dialogue.

I think if it's one character explaining to another character who is in a position of ignorance you can get away with a lot more. The real danger is when it's a character explaining things directly to the reader.

The most recent example I've come across is in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.
There are a number of mysteries surrounding the main character's situation throughout the book, and these end up being explained in a very large chunk of dialogue toward the end.
I think he gets away with this (just) as the dialogue comes from a character that the MC has tracked down to ask the big questions. It does seems as the dialogue is for the MC's benefit rather than directly for the readers.

I can't glowingly endorse the book, as I had other issues with it, but it's only short so might be worth your reading just to see if you think the dialogue reveal works successfully.