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Must-Read True Crime Books
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items My love for true crime started with my grandmother. She always had a stack of mystery novels and real-life crime stories by her side, and she passed down that fascination with human psychology, justice, and the stories behind the headlines. This coll...
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is a groundbreaking true crime classic that reconstructs the chilling 1959 murder of the Clutter family in rural Kansas. Blending journalistic detail with novelistic storytelling, Capote explores not only the crime itsel...
In Cold Blood
When longtime Malibu neighbors Verna Roehler and her young son Doug die in a tragic boating accident, journalists Ivor and Sally Davis are devastated—especially when their close friend Fred Roehler is arrested for their murder. What begins as a quest...
The Devil in My Friend: Malibu Murder Story
Set in 1932 Memphis, The Pink Bonnet follows Cecile Dowd, a widowed mother whose worst nightmare becomes reality when her young daughter is taken by Georgia Tann—the real-life director of the corrupt Tennessee Children’s Home Society. As Cecile teams...
The Pink Bonnet: True Colors Crime Stories
This gripping true crime account dives deep into one of America's most infamous divorce cases—one that spiraled into betrayal, obsession, and ultimately murder. Bella Stumbo masterfully chronicles the unraveling of Dan and Betty Broderick’s seemingly...
Until the Twelfth of Never: Dan & Betty Broderick
A brutal murder, a city gripped by obsession. In The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy reimagines the infamous 1947 slaying of Elizabeth Short through the eyes of two LAPD detectives whose hunt for the killer leads them into the seedy heart of postwar Los A...
The Black Dahlia
A chilling true crime classic, The Boston Strangler recounts the terrifying two-year spree that left thirteen women dead and a city gripped by fear. With meticulous research and gripping narrative, Gerold Frank traces the investigation that led to Al...
The Boston Strangler
In this gripping true crime and spiritual exploration, Dr. Michael Caparrelli shares the results of 100 hours of interviews with David Berkowitz—once known as the Son of Sam. Through 34 sessions, Caparrelli delves into the psychological, emotional, a...
Monster Mirror: 100 Hours with David Berkowitz
For over a century, the names Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane have been overshadowed by the myth of Jack the Ripper. In this groundbreaking and compassionate work, historian Hallie Rubenhold shifts the focus from the killer to the l...
The Five: Untold Lives of Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Part true crime, part historical drama, this bestselling nonfiction work interweaves the visionary triumph of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with the chilling crimes of H.H. Holmes—America’s first known serial killer. As architect Daniel Burnham races...
The Devil in the White City: Murder & Madness
A mesmerizing blend of true crime, botany, and obsession, The Orchid Thief follows journalist Susan Orlean’s journey into the eccentric world of orchid collectors in Florida. Centered on the arrest of plant dealer John Laroche and his attempt to clon...
The Orchid Thief
A powerful true story of justice, mercy, and the fight for human dignity, Just Mercy follows attorney Bryan Stevenson as he defends the wrongly condemned and marginalized through the Equal Justice Initiative. At the heart of the book is the case of W...
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Part true crime, part Southern Gothic, this modern classic dives into the eccentric heart of Savannah, Georgia, where charm and darkness intertwine. When a prominent antiques dealer is accused of murder, journalist John Berendt finds himself swept in...
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
A modern true crime classic, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark chronicles journalist Michelle McNamara’s relentless investigation into the terrifying spree of the Golden State Killer—a serial rapist and murderer who eluded capture for decades. Through meticul...
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: Search for Golden State Killer
In this riveting blend of true crime and political history, Patrick Radden Keefe unravels the haunting mystery of Jean McConville’s 1972 abduction and murder during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Through meticulous reporting and intimate interview...
Say Nothing: True Story of Murder in NI
Between 2000 and 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died under suspicious circumstances in Thunder Bay, Ontario—far from their families and communities. In this powerful work of investigative journalism, Tanya Talaga traces their stories and...
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death & Truths
On April 14, 2014, 276 Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in a shocking act of terror that sparked global outrage. In this powerful account, journalist Isha Sesay—who covered the story firsthand—follows the lives of several girls who s...
BENEATH TAMARIND TREE
Why are so many women drawn to true crime? In Savage Appetites, journalist Rachel Monroe explores this question through four riveting case studies—each centered on a woman who became obsessed with a crime, whether as a detective, victim, defender, or...
Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women & Crime
When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered in 1892, their daughter Lizzie was arrested—launching one of the most sensational trials in American history. In this meticulously researched true crime narrative, Cara Robertson draws on court trans...
The Trial of Lizzie Borden
A preacher accused of killing five family members. A vigilante shooting at a funeral. A courtroom drama that captivated the South. And in the audience—Harper Lee, hoping to write her own In Cold Blood.
In Furious Hours, Casey Cep masterfully weaves ...
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud & Harper Lee Trial
In the summer of 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes shocked Victorian London when he confessed to murdering his mother. While he and his younger brother spent days enjoying seaside trips and theater outings, their mother’s body lay decomposing upstairs...
The Wicked Boy: Infamous Victorian Murder
In the glittering chaos of Prohibition-era America, George Remus rose from pharmacist to “King of the Bootleggers,” amassing a fortune and throwing Gatsby-esque parties in his Cincinnati mansion. But when his glamorous wife Imogene betrays him with a...
The Ghosts of Eden Park: Bootleg King & Murder
In the 1920s, members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma became some of the wealthiest people in the world after oil was discovered beneath their land. But their prosperity made them targets. One by one, Osage individuals were murdered under mysterious ...
Killers of the Flower Moon: Osage Murders & FBI
When novelist Cagney Nowak begins researching the 1905 shooting death of baseball legend Ty Cobb’s father—killed by his mother just a week before Cobb joined the Detroit Tigers—he doesn’t expect the past to haunt him so personally. As he dreams the n...
The Cobb Legacy: Life, Death, and Ty Cobb
On a summer night in 1931, three white women were attacked on a secluded ridge near Birmingham, Alabama. Two were killed. The survivor accused a Black man—launching a reign of terror on the city’s Black community and the largest manhunt in Jefferson ...
Murder on Shades Mountain: Willie Peterson Case
In the summer of 2002, Baton Rouge was gripped by fear as a serial killer targeted successful women across the city. Despite mounting evidence, investigators were misled by an inaccurate suspect profile—allowing the killer to continue his spree unche...
AN Invisible Man: Hunt for Serial Killer
A chilling deep dive into one of Canada’s most disturbing criminal cases, Invisible Darkness unravels the twisted partnership of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka—seemingly a picture-perfect couple who concealed a horrifying secret. With access to excl...
Invisible Darkness: Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka
In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi after allegedly whistling at a white woman—an act that ignited national outrage and helped spark the civil rights movement. In this powerful and deeply researched account, historia...
The Blood of Emmett Till
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Devil in the Grove tells the harrowing true story of four young Black men falsely accused of rape in 1949 Florida—and the courageous legal battle led by future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to save them. As the...
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall & Groveland Boys
In this gripping true crime memoir, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell recounts his decades-long quest to bring justice to the victims of some of the most notorious racially motivated murders of the Civil Rights era. Through relentless reporting...
Race Against Time: Reporter Reopens Civil Rights Murders
In 1978, Ron Stallworth became the first Black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department—and pulled off one of the most audacious undercover investigations in American history. After responding to a newspaper ad recruiting for the Ku Klux K...
Black Klansman
In 1948, 11-year-old Sally Horner was abducted by a man posing as an FBI agent—a harrowing ordeal that lasted nearly two years. Decades later, her story would resurface as the hidden inspiration behind Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita. I...
The Real Lolita: Lost Girl & Scandalous Crime
At just 14 years old, Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home by a religious fanatic and held captive for nine terrifying months. In My Story, she recounts her harrowing ordeal—enduring abuse, manipulation, and constant fear—and the...
Elizabeth Smart: My Story - Abduction Memoir
When Ann Rule agreed to write a book about a series of brutal murders in the Pacific Northwest, she had no idea the killer would turn out to be her friend and former coworker—Ted Bundy. A former police officer turned true crime writer, Rule had worke...
The Stranger Beside Me
In 1969, Harvard graduate student Jane Britton was found murdered in her Cambridge apartment—an ambitious young woman silenced in a world dominated by powerful men. Decades later, journalist Becky Cooper, then a Harvard undergrad herself, became obse...
We Keep the Dead Close: Murder at Harvard
In the shadowy corners of 1990s New York, a serial killer targeted gay men who sought refuge in the city’s piano bars—safe havens during a time of rampant homophobia and the AIDS crisis. In this Edgar Award–winning true crime narrative, Elon Green un...
Last Call
When Shannan Gilbert vanished in 2010 after fleeing through a gated Long Island community, few took notice—until police discovered the bodies of four other young women nearby, all Craigslist escorts. In this haunting true crime investigation, Robert ...
Lost Girls: American Mystery of Gilgo Beach
What began as the mysterious death of a British businessman in a luxury Chinese hotel unraveled into one of the most explosive political scandals in modern China. This gripping exposé traces the downfall of Bo Xilai—a powerful Communist Party figure—...
A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel by Ho & Huang
For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been murdered along Highway 16 in British Columbia—a stretch now known as the Highway of Tears. In this powerful work of investigative journalism, Jessica McDiarmid gives voice to the victi...
Highway of Tears: True Story of Justice
As Mexico descends into chaos amid a brutal drug war, veteran journalist Alfredo Corchado risks everything to uncover the truth. When he receives a tip that he may be the next target of the Zetas cartel, he has just 24 hours to find out if the threat...
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For over a decade, the border city of Juárez, Mexico, has been the epicenter of a horrifying wave of violence against women—hundreds of young, poor, and often overlooked victims kidnapped, raped, and murdered with impunity. In this groundbreaking inv...
The Daughters of Juarez: True Story of Murder
Set in 1900 Denver, this suspenseful historical novel follows ambitious reporter Polly Blythe as she investigates a string of mysterious attacks on women. Teaming up with a skeptical policeman, she risks everything to uncover the truth behind the sha...
The Silver Shadow Vol 11 (True Colors)