Top 30 True Crime Books -
Voted by You
“The world of true crime is a rabbit hole that once entered, is impossible to escape.” ​
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True crime books are factual narratives that investigate actual criminal cases, outlining the circumstances of the crime, the investigation that followed, and the aftermath for those affected. These works often examine the mindset of offenders, the legal proceedings, and occasionally how the media covers these events. Well-known true crime titles frequently feature biographies of notorious criminals, stories of infamous murders, or discussions on societal issues tied to crime, attracting readers who are intrigued by the more sinister sides of human behavior and the intricacies of justice.
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★ BOOK CLUB TOP PICK ★
Killer Triggers by Joe Kenda
The most common triggers for homicide are fear, rage, revenge, money, lust, and, more rarely, sheer madness. This isn't an exact science, of course. Any given murder can have multiple triggers. Sex and revenge seem to be common partners in crime. Rage, money, and revenge make for a dangerous trifecta of triggers, as well.
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This book offers my memories of homicide cases that I investigated or oversaw. In each case, I examine the trigger that led to death. I chose this theme for the book because even though the why of a murder case may not be critical in an investigation, it can sometimes lead us to the killer.
And even if we solve a case without knowing the trigger, the why still intrigues us, disrupting our dreams and lingering in our minds, perhaps because each of us fears the demons that lie within our own psyche--the triggers waiting to be pulled.
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Our Review -
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Joe Kenda is an incredible storyteller. He did everything in his power, and alongside his fellow officers, contributed to making our world a little safer through his sacrifices. His true cases are packed with personal insights and emotions. If you're into True Crime, you’ve likely heard of Joe, his TV show, or his book. His writing style mirrors how he shares stories on his show, keeping you well-informed from start to finish! Joe did a fantastic job of presenting all the facts in an engaging way, clearly highlighting the violent behavior while also sprinkling in some light humor when it fit.
Stolen by Rebecca Petty
“Andi’s missing,” said the frantic caller. A call that changed the trajectory of many lives.
May 15, 1999, 12-year-old Andi Brewer, disappeared from the living room of her rural Arkansas home. Vanishing without a trace, the community was left wondering how a child could be there one second and gone the next. Local law enforcement, Arkansas State Police, and the FBI launched a three-day massive statewide search for the young girl.
STOLEN takes you along the heartbreaking journey of a mother’s trip down the road of child abduction as a community pulls together to search for one missing girl as the minutes turn to hours, and hours turn to days. Experience the helplessness a parent goes through when their child seemingly vanishes into thin air.
This is the extraordinary true story of one little girl, her mother, and the shocking finality.
One of Us by Åsne Seierstad
A harrowing and thorough account of the massacre that upended Norway, and the trial that helped put the country back together.
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On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb outside government buildings in central Oslo, killing eight people. He then proceeded to a youth camp on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 more, most of them teenage members of Norway's governing Labour Party. In One of Us, the journalist Åsne Seierstad tells the story of this terrible day and what led up to it. What made Breivik, a gifted child from an affluent neighborhood in Oslo, become a terrorist?
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As in her best seller The Bookseller of Kabul, Seierstad excels at the vivid portraiture of lives under stress. She delves deep into Breivik's troubled childhood, showing how a hip-hop and graffiti aficionado became a right-wing activist and Internet game addict, and then an entrepreneur, Freemason, and self-styled master warrior who sought to "save Norway" from the threat of Islam and multiculturalism. She writes with equal intimacy about Breivik's victims, tracing their political awakenings, aspirations to improve their country, and ill-fated journeys to the island. By the time Seierstad reaches Utøya, we know both the killer and those he will kill. We have also gotten to know an entire country - famously peaceful and prosperous, and utterly incapable of protecting its youth.
Evil at Lake Seminole by Steven B. Epstein
Did Mike accidentally drown in a Florida lake?
Or was his disappearance the result of a sinister plot to kill him?
The crisp, predawn hours of December 16, 2000, began much as they had many Saturdays for avid duck hunter Mike Williams—on Lake Seminole, where he’d go to relax after a stressful workweek. The Florida State grad was juggling fatherhood with a thriving real estate appraisal career. And that very evening? He and his high school sweetheart, Denise, planned to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary.
But Mike Williams never returned home.
When an intense search of the lake’s marshy waters turned up only his hunting boat and a camouflage hat, investigators reached the morbid conclusion he’d fallen overboard and drowned, his body eaten by alligators. Nearly two decades passed before the dark secrets hidden at Lake Seminole—and elsewhere—were finally revealed.
EVIL AT LAKE SEMINOLE is a diabolical tale of betrayal, greed, and deception—and of a courageous mother who devoted her life and savings to uncovering the truth of what really happened to her son.
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move, and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.
All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance they could not explain -- until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood to Washington and beyond.
This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability, and silence victims of abuse. And it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement.
Both a spy thriller and a meticulous work of investigative journalism, Catch and Kill breaks devastating new stories about the rampant abuse of power and sheds far-reaching light on investigations that shook our culture.
American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything—drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons—free of the government’s watchful eye.
It wasn’t long before the media got wind of the new Web site where anyone—not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers—could buy and sell contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site’s elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. All the investigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts.
The Silk Road quickly ballooned into $1.2 billion enterprise, and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin. He enlisted a loyal crew of allies in high and low places, all as addicted to the danger and thrill of running an illegal marketplace as their customers were to the heroin they sold. Through his network he got wind of the target on his back and took drastic steps to protect himself—including ordering a hit on a former employee. As Ross made plans to disappear forever, the Feds raced against the clock to catch a man they weren’t sure even existed, searching for a needle in the haystack of the global Internet.
Drawing on exclusive access to key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left behind, Vanity Fair correspondent and New York Times bestselling author Nick Bilton offers a tale filled with twists and turns, lucky breaks and unbelievable close calls. It’s a story of the boy next door’s ambition gone criminal, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning, anonymous, decentralized Web advocates and the old world of government control, order, and the rule of law. Filled with unforgettable characters and capped by an astonishing climax, American Kingpin might be dismissed as too outrageous for fiction. But it’s all too real.
Killer Show by John Barylick
On February 20, 2003, the deadliest rock concert in U.S. history took place at a roadhouse called The Station in West Warwick, Rhode Island.
That night, in the few minutes it takes to play a hard-rock standard, the fate of many of the unsuspecting nightclub patrons was determined with awful certainty.
The blaze was ignited when pyrotechnics set off by Great White, a 1980s heavy-metal band, lit flammable polyurethane “egg crate” foam sound insulation on the club’s walls. In less than 10 minutes, 96 people were dead and 200 more were injured, many catastrophically. The final death toll topped out, three months later, at the eerily unlikely round number of 100.
The story of the fire, its causes, and its legal and human aftermath is one of lives put at risk by petty economic decisions―by a band, club owners, promoters, building inspectors, and product manufacturers. Any one of those decisions, made differently, might have averted the tragedy.
Together, however, they reached a fatal critical mass.
Killer Show is the first comprehensive exploration of the chain of events leading up to the fire, the conflagration itself, and the painstaking search for evidence to hold the guilty to account and obtain justice for the victims.
Anyone who has entered an entertainment venue and wondered, “Could I get out of here in a hurry?” will identify with concertgoers at The Station.
Fans of disaster nonfiction and forensic thrillers will find ample elements of both genres in Killer Show.
Homicide by David Simon
​From the creator of HBO's The Wire, the classic book about homicide investigation that became the basis for the hit television show
The scene is Baltimore. Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death. At the center of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is possible in a deadly world.
David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and this electrifying book tells the true story of a year on the violent streets of an American city. The narrative follows Donald Worden, a veteran investigator; Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, an earnest rookie who takes on the year's most difficult case, the brutal rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl.
Originally published fifteen years ago, Homicide became the basis for the acclaimed television show of the same name. This new edition―which includes a new introduction, an afterword, and photographs―revives this classic, riveting tale about the men who work on the dark side of the American experience.
Dark Secret by Nyssa Rebecca Corbin
When a young girl goes missing in Kentucky, thousands join the search for her.
From military stationed at the nearby base to the local police department and many civilian residents who never even knew the young girl or her family - the effort put forth to find her is immense.
But, when the FBI become involved, the missing girl's case takes a different turn.
Only three people know what really happened to the little girl. Will any of them talk? Will there ever be justice for little Alex Suleski?
Includes a first hand account from a witness to the entire case, as well as court transcripts and wire tape transcriptions.
The Edge of Malice by David Miraldi
In the heart of a moonlight night, Marie Grossman’s seemingly perfect life—a loving husband, cherished children, and a flourishing career—takes a sinister turn.
As she pulls into the dark parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, danger lurks just moments away. When she lowers her car window, anticipating nothing more than a mundane drive-thru order, a menacing figure emerges from the shadows, pressing cold steel against her temple. In seconds, her world is catapulted into the chilling abyss of her darkest fears.
“The Edge of Malice” isn’t just a story; it’s an electrifying demonstration of courage in the face of evil, a visceral testament to resilience after a life-shattering crime. When the justice system fails to quench the flames of her fury and fear, Marie’s quest for closure leads her down paths she never could have imagined.
Dive deep into this riveting odyssey of pain, redemption, and unexpected transformation.
Story of a Murder by Hallie Rubenhold
On February 1, 1910, the vivacious, diamond-adorned music hall performer Belle Elmore suddenly vanished from her home, causing alarm among her friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild. Their demands for an investigation would lead to the unearthing of a gruesome secret and trigger a fevered international manhunt for Belle’s husband, medical fraudster Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.
Ethel Le Neve, Crippen’s typist and lover, who fled with Crippen in disguise, has always hidden in the shadows of this tale--was she really just "an innocent young girl" in thrall to a powerful older man? And was there an equally sinister story behind the death of Crippen’s first wife, Charlotte?
Brimming with twists and featuring a carnival cast of eccentric entertainers, star lawyers, zealous detectives, medics and liars, Story of a Murder offers an electrifying snapshot of Britain and America at the dawn of the modern era.
Levi's Eyes by Aphrodite Jones
LEVI’S EYES delves into the unspeakable murders of Christina and Levi Karlsen, as told by the killer himself... It’s a must-read for true crime addicts who dare to go deep into a killer’s mind.
In it, readers will learn how the murders of Christina Karlsen and her son Levi Karlsen, committed 17 years apart, are intricately connected.
There’s a hidden thread here, one that has not yet been revealed to the public, showing thatLevi kept dark secrets.
This book exposes both sides of the twisted marriage between Karl and Cindy Karlsen as readers are taken through increasing levels of horror, step-by-step, into the depravity inside the killer’s head. It’s the story that only the killer knows.
It’s the story that only his second wife knows. It’s a story that devolves into madness... And it’s never been exposed... Until now...
Columbine by Dave Cullen
'The tragedies keep coming. As we reel from the latest horror...' So begins the epilogue, illustrating how Columbine has become the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It makes the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this flame more urgent than ever.
What really happened on April 20th, 1999?
The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we thought we knew was wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths or the Trench Coast Mafia.
Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene, and he spent ten years on this book, the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists , and the killers' own words and drawings.
Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.
Wicked Beyond Belief by Michael Bilton
A gripping and probing account of the biggest criminal manhunt in British history.
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It is over 40 years since Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking 7 more.
Still, he remains a killer of almost mythical proportions; his surviving victims, and their families, forever attached to his infamy.
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Michael Bilton’s acclaimed account is a powerful indictment of the calamitous investigation that logged over 2 million man-hours of police work – the biggest criminal manhunt in British history.
With exclusive access to the detectives involved, the pathologist’s archives and declassified documents, this account reads like the most gripping of thrillers.
Circumstantial Evidence by Pete Earley
In Monroeville, Alabama, in the fall of 1986, a pretty junior college student was found murdered in the back of the dry cleaning shop where she worked.
Several months later, Walter "Johnny D." McMillian, a black man with no criminal record, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the crime.
As McMillian sat in his cell on Alabama's death row, a young black lawyer named Bryan Stevenson took up his own investigation into the murder of Ronda Morrison.
Finding a trial tainted by procedural mistakes, conflicting eyewitness accounts, and outright perjury, he was determined to see McMillian go free--even if it took the most unconventional means...
The Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton
The award-winning true crime classic.
Forensic psychologist Paul Britton asks himself four questions when he is faced with a crime scene: what happened: who is the victim: how was it done, and why?
Only when he has the answers to these questions can he address the fifth: who is responsible?
What he searches for at the crime scene are not frinerprints, fibres or bloodstains - he looks for the 'mind trace' left behind by those responsible: the psychological characteristics that can help the police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator.
The Jigsaw Man is not only a detective story involving some of the most high-profile cases of recent years, but also a journey of discovery into the darkest recesses of the human mind to confront the question 'Where does crime come from?'
The Edge of Innocence by David Miraldi
A Chilling Crime That Shocked Lorain, Ohio, and a Defiant Attorney Determined to Unearth the Truth.
1960s Lorain, Ohio: Casper Bennett is accused of the unimaginable—drowning his wife in a scalding bath. Rumors swirl, and whispers pervade every corner of town. But there's one man, untested in the vicious waters of murder trials, willing to wade in and defend him: the author's father.
David Miraldi unveils a riveting tale intertwined with personal history. In a time before DNA, when a man's fate hung precariously on human intuition, can true justice emerge from the fog of doubt?
But this isn't just a courtroom drama. It's a son's journey into his father's legacy, a town's desperate quest for truth, and a chapter of American history where technology was new, but deception was age-old.
"The Edge of Innocence" isn't merely a true crime narrative—it's a masterful exploration of memory, responsibility, and the ever-elusive nature of truth. Amidst shifting memories and contested facts, will you discern the reality lurking in the shadows?
Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule
“Somebody just shot my kids!” Diane Downs brought her car to a halt in front of a Springfield, Oregon, hospital, her three gravely wounded children beside her.
Thus begins the tale of a truly unthinkable crime that shattered the tranquility of a tight-knit community. As police searched for the “shaggy-haired stranger” Diane accused of shooting 8-year-old Christie, 7-year-old Cheryl, and 3-year-old Danny, a suspicion grew that was even more horrifying than the crime itself: Did Diane shoot her own children?
Haunted by this question, a dedicated district attorney searched for the answer and uncovered a chronology of incest, psychological wounding, desperate affairs, and surrogate motherhood.
Ann Rule's gripping, powerful, and ultimately terrifying true story of passion and murder will hold you in thrall as it plumbs the unimagined depths of darkness concealed within a human being.
No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson by Gardiner Harris
One day in 2004, Gardiner Harris, a pharmaceutical reporter for The New York Times, was early for a flight and sat down at an airport bar. He struck up a conversation with the woman on the barstool next to him, who happened to be a drug sales rep for Johnson & Johnson. Her horrific story about unethical sales practices and the devastating impact they’d had on her family fundamentally changed the nature of how Harris would cover the company—and the entire pharmaceutical industry—for the Times. His subsequent investigations and ongoing research since that very first conversation led to this book—a blistering exposé of a trusted American institution and the largest healthcare conglomerate in the world.
Harris takes us light-years away from the company’s image as the child-friendly “baby company” as he uncovers reams of evidence showing decades of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. He covers multiple disasters: lies and cover-ups regarding the link of Johnson’s Baby Powder to cancer, the surprising dangers of Tylenol, a criminal campaign to sell antipsychotics that have cost countless lives, a popular drug used to support cancer patients that actually increases the risk that cancer tumors will grow, and deceptive marketing that accelerated opioid addictions through their product Duragesic (fentanyl) that rival even those of the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma.
Filled with shocking and infuriating but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work of investigative journalism that lays bare the deeply rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.
Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? By Harold Schechter
One of the greats in the field of true crime literature, Harold Schechter (Deviant, The Serial Killer Files, Hell's Princess), teams with five-time Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Eric Powell (The Goon, Big Man Plans, Hillbilly) to bring you the tale of one of the most notoriously deranged serial killers in American history, Ed Gein.
Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is an in-depth exploration of the Gein family and what led to the creation of the necrophile who haunted the dreams of 1950s America and inspired such films as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.
Painstakingly researched and illustrated, Schechter and Powell's true crime graphic novel takes the Gein story out of the realms of exploitation and gives the reader a fact-based dramatization of these tragic, psychotic and heartbreaking events. Because, in this case, the truth needs no embellishment to be horrifying.
Wilder Intentions by C.J. Wynn
On a November morning in 2015, Christopher Jackson waited for his fiancée, Angila Wilder, to pick him up from work as she always did. But this time, she didn’t show—and Christopher’s calls went unanswered. The police found what looked like a scene from a horror movie at their home. The backdoor kicked in. A bedroom splattered with blood. And a pregnant young woman violently stabbed to death.
Could Christopher have murdered the woman he claimed to love? Or was the crime done by an intruder Angila had feared for weeks? Angila’s womanizing ex-husband, Richie Wilder, Jr., aimed detectives straight toward Christopher. The evidence, however, pointed squarely at Richie.
Kindergarten teacher Cynthia Wilder thought her dreams had come true when she married Richie. But while her husband sat behind bars, Cynthia grew lonely. When she shared some disturbing details with a former lover, Cynthia finally revealed the truth behind the sinister plot to kill Angila Wilder. After four years of lies and deceit, the real story would shock a community to its very core …
One of Your Own by Carol Ann Lee
On 15 November 2002, Myra Hindley, Britain’s most notorious murderess, died in prison, one of the rare women whose crimes were deemed so indefensible that ‘life’ really did mean ‘life’.
But who was the woman behind the headlines? How could a seemingly normal girl grow up to commit such terrible acts? Her defenders claim she fell under Ian Brady’s spell, but is this the truth? Was her insistence that she had changed, that she felt deep remorse and had reverted to the Catholicism of her childhood genuine or a calculating bid to win parole?
One of Your Own explores these questions and many others, drawing on a wide range of resources, including Hindley’s own unseen writings, hundreds of recently released prison files, fresh interviews and extensive new research. Compellingly well written, this is the first in-depth study of Hindley and the challenging, definitive biography of Britain’s ‘most-hated woman’.
Serpentine by Thomas Thompson
There was no pattern to the murders, no common thread other than the fact that the victims were all vacationers, robbed of their possessions and slain in seemingly random crimes. Authorities across three continents and a dozen nations had no idea they were all looking for same man: Charles Sobhraj, aka “The Serpent.”
A handsome Frenchman of Vietnamese and Indian origin, Sobhraj targeted backpackers on the “hippie trail” between Europe and South Asia. A master of deception, he used his powerful intellect and considerable sex appeal to lure naïve travelers into a life of crime. When they threatened to turn on him, Sobhraj murdered his acolytes in cold blood. Between late 1975 and early 1976, a dozen corpses were found everywhere from the boulevards of Paris to the slopes of the Himalayas to the back alleys of Bangkok and Hong Kong. Some police experts believe the true number of Sobhraj’s victims may be more than twice that amount.
Go Down Together by Jeff Guinn
Previous books and films have emphasized the supposed glamour of America's most notorious criminal couple, thus contributing to ongoing mythology. The real story is completely different—and far more fascinating.
With newly discovered material, bestselling author Jeff Guin tells the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more importantly, fame. The timing for their first heist could not have been better, when most Americans, reeling from the Great Depression, were desperate for escapist entertainment. Thanks to newsreels, true crime magazines, and new-fangled wire services that transmitted scandalous photos of Bonnie smoking a cigar to every newspaper in the nation, the Barrow Gang members almost instantly became household names. In the minds of the public, they were cool, calculating bandits who robbed banks and killed cops with equal impunity.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. Clyde and Bonnie were perhaps the most inept crooks ever, and their two-year crime spree was as much a reign of error as it was of terror. Lacking the sophistication to plot robberies of big-city banks, the Barrow Gang preyed mostly on small mom-and-pop groceries and service stations. Even at that, they often came up empty-handed and were reduced to breaking into gum machines for meal money. Both were crippled, Clyde from cutting off two of his toes while in prison and Bonnie from a terrible car crash caused by Clyde's reckless driving. Constantly on the run from the law, they lived like animals, camping out in their latest stolen car, bathing in creeks, and dining on cans of cold beans and Vienna sausages. Yet theirs was a genuine love story. Their devotion to each other was as real as their overblown reputation as criminal masterminds was not.
Now, thanks in great part to surviving Barrow and Parker family members and collectors of criminal memorabilia who provided Jeff Guinn with access to never-before-published material, we finally have the real story of Bonnie and Clyde and their troubled times, delivered with cinematic sweep and unprecedented insight by a masterful storyteller.
Extreme Punishment by Steven B. Epstein
A devoted father. One of the most accomplished criminal law
scholars in the country. Someone wanted him dead. But why?
On the morning of July 18, 2014, 41-year-old Florida State law professor Dan Markel dropped his boys off at preschool, hit the gym, and headed home to his quiet, tree-canopied neighborhood. Within seconds of pulling into his garage, two .38-caliber bullets fired from point-blank range were lodged in his brain.
His brutal slaying defied explanation. The case went stone cold for nearly two years before dogged pursuit by the Tallahassee Police and the FBI resulted in the arrest of two life-long criminals who had driven 10 hours from Miami with one singular purpose: to murder the esteemed professor. Were his ex-wife Wendi Adelson and her South Florida family the masterminds behind this horrific crime?
EXTREME PUNISHMENT is the riveting story of a divorce between two law professors that spiraled out of control, wealthy in-laws hell-bent on revenge, an unlikely love triangle, and the relentless quest to bring Dan’s killers—all of them—to justice.
Deadly Goals by Wilt Browning
A star athlete with a winning smile, Pernell Jefferson had no trouble attracting women. But his charming exterior belied his brutally violent tendencies. After walking away from a football career with the Cleveland Browns, he was addicted to steroids and nearly destitute. That’s when he set his sights on Regina Butkowski.
Pernell obsessively called and showed up to her home unannounced—and he battered her when she turned her attention toward other men. When Regina disappeared, the Butkowski family knew who was responsible. But even after police discovered Regina’s charred remains in a small Virginia town, they refused to question the man most likely linked to the brutal crime.
In Deadly Goals, veteran author Wilt Browning explores the devastating details of Pernell Jefferson’s past, the disturbing nature of his crimes, and the Butkowski family’s pleas for justice that led to his arrest.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.
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Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.
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I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Utterly original and compelling, it has been hailed as a modern true crime classic—one which fulfilled Michelle's dream: helping unmask the Golden State Killer.
The Only Living Witness by Stephen G. Michaud
Intelligent. Articulate. Evil. Killer.
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​Ted Bundy was America's first celebrity serial killer, and one of the most chilling enigmas in criminal history. Handsome, boyish and well-spoken, a law student with bright political prospects, Bundy was also a predator and sexual deviant who murdered and mutilated at least thirty young women and girls, many of them college coeds but at least two as young as twelve.
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Two journalists with unprecedented direct access speak to Ted Bundy and those closest to him - friends and family.
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What follows is a candid and chilling full account of the life and crimes of the most notorious serial killer in history.
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What Bundy had to say in over 150 hours of face-to-face interviews is as relevant today as it was at the time.
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Missoula by Jon Krakauer
Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, home to a highly regarded state university whose beloved football team inspires a passionately loyal fan base. Between January 2008 and May 2012, hundreds of students reported sexual assaults to the local police. Few of the cases were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical.
In these pages, acclaimed journalist Jon Krakauer investigates a spate of campus rapes that occurred in Missoula over a four-year period. Taking the town as a case study for a crime that is sadly prevalent throughout the nation, Krakauer documents the experiences of five victims: their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the skepticism directed at them by police, prosecutors, and the public; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them.
These stories cut through abstract ideological debate about acquaintance rape to demonstrate that it does not happen because women are sending mixed signals or seeking attention. They are victims of a terrible crime, deserving of fairness from our justice system. Rigorously researched, rendered in incisive prose, Missoula stands as an essential call to action.
Night Stalker by Philip Carlo
A bestselling masterpiece of true crime on par with Helter Skelter, this definitive account of one of America’s most feared and notorious serial killers takes you deep into the psychology of a murderer, his terrifying crimes, and the cult following that is shockingly revealed in this revised and updated edition of a true crime classic.
Decades after Richard Ramirez left thirteen dead and paralyzed the city of Los Angeles in the 1980s, his name is still synonymous with fear, torture, and sadistic murder. Philip Carlo’s classic The Night Stalker, based on years of meticulous research and extensive interviews with Ramirez, revealed the killer and his horrifying crimes to be even more chilling than anyone could have imagined. From watching his cousin commit murder at age eleven to his nineteen death sentences to the juror who fell in love with him, the story of Ramirez is a bizarre and spellbinding descent into the very heart of human evil.
After The Night Stalker was first published, thousands of women from all over the world contacted Carlo, begging to be put in touch with the killer. Carlo interviewed them and presents their disturbing stories in this updated edition along with an exclusive death row interview where the killer himself gives his thoughts on the “Ramirez Groupies”—and what he thinks they really want.
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