Lots of people read to escape – if tales of investigation, evidence, murder, and mayhem help you unwind, we have the list for you! Enjoy these true crime titles from the past couple years.
Does the name George Remus mean anything to you? It will after you read The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott! Learn all about Remus’ tango with Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the First Lady of Law.
Meet Rose Dugdale in The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist by Anthony M. Amore. Dugdale is history’s first and only female mastermind and art thief of high-value, highly recognizable masterpieces. Fascinatingly, Dugdale’s heists were completed in the service of Irish Republicanism.
Gone at Midnight: The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam by Jake Anderson takes an empathetic and humanizing look at the mysterious death of Elisa Lam, whose body was found in the Cecil Hotel’s rooftop water tank in 2013.
While the hunt is overby page 60, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan is an engrossing profile of Israel Keyes. Caught when he commits a murder in his hometown, the it quickly becomes clear in the investigation that it wasn’t his first kill.
You probably know Harper Lee as the author of To Kill a Mockingbird and as a contributor to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, but did you know she also wrote about true crime herself? Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep delves into Lee’s true crime writing on the gripping and intertwined cases of Willie Maxwell and Robert Burns. The title is also available as an audiobook.
Author Edward Humes, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, explores the story of Jo Ann Parks, a mother convicted of the first-degree murder of her three children in Burned: A Story of Muder and the Crime That Wasn’t. Investigating how criminal evidence is accepted into trials, Humes dives deep into the world of forensic labs and crime-scene investigation. This title is also available in large print.
Described as a must-read for fans of spy novels, this nonfiction tale follows the life of an English village housewife, before she became an English village housewife. Read Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy by Ben MacIntyre to learn more about the real Ursula Kuczynski, a highly trained and dangerous Soviet spy. This title is also available in large print and as an audiobook.
If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood by Greg Olsen is the chilling story of the Knotek family and the abuse suffered at the hands of their sadistic matriarch, Shelley.
A heavily researched and engaging tome, in The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story author Cara Robertson takes a new look at the well-known Borden case. Drawing evidence from recently discovered letters, Robertson uses her lawyer’s mind to analyse the investigation and trial. Taking contemporary attitudes about women and crime into account, as well as the Borden family’s social standing, Robertson lets readers make up their own minds about who the real murderer was. This title is available in large print and as an audiobook.
When the Lindbergh kidnapping gripped the nation in 1932, kidnapping really was on the rise. Join author David Stout for his The Kidnap Years: The Astonishing True History of the Forgotten Kidnapping Epidemic that Shook Depression-Era America.
Last but not least, You may know James Patterson from one of his several fiction series, but did you know he does nonfiction, too? Murder Thy Neighbor: True Crime Thrillers also available in large print and The Last Days of John Lennon are two recent nonfiction titles from Patterson.