True Crime / Murder Books

This nonfiction novel about a celebrated Savannah murder case--an upper-crust antiques dealer was accused of shooting his male lover--is also a love song to the city of Savannah.

Jon Krakauer's true-crime investigation, which explores the sick reality behind the murder of an innocent woman and her baby in 1984, goes further and looks at the history and the present-day practices of the Mormon Church. The two self-confessed murderers, both devout Mormon fundamentalists, claimed that God instructed them to kill their brother's wife and daughter, and that therefore they did nothing wrong. Krakauer traveled North America, interviewing Mormons of all varieties, from fanatical polygamists to 13-year-old brides and incest victims, to expose the truth about the horrifying extremist sect that these two men embody.

True-crime queen Rule tells the story of Sheila Bullush, who was murdered by her conniving, cross-dressing ex-husband.

Truman Capote's masterpiece, IN COLD BLOOD, a sterling early example of the New Journalism, was part of an evolving genre that filtered events both big and small through the writer's own experiences and feelings. IN COLD BLOOD is the intensely researched story of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and the two men who brutally murdered them on a November night in 1959 for 40 dollars and a radio. Capote spent six years working on the book; his research included not only long stays in Kansas but a sympathetic relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers. The result, which Capote termed a "nonfiction novel," combined what he knew with what he imagined to present a chilling and vividly documented tale. IN COLD BLOOD was one of the first popular books to look deeply into the mind of a killer, finding both evil and humanity, and has been an important influence on the "true crime" genre that became popular in the years after its publication.

Robert Graysmith was a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle when the newspaper began receiving letters from the Zodiac, the mysterious serial killer who plagued the Bay Area for several years in the late 1960s and early 1970s and then disappeared. Police confirm at least seven victims of the Zodiac's attacks, but in his letters he claimed responsibility for many more. Graysmith became obsessed with the macabre details of the case: the Zodiac's taunting letters and ciphers claiming to contain his name, the map with the Zodiac's signature mark over Mt. Diablo, and of course the vicious and bizarre nature of the murders themselves. In ZODIAC, his bestselling account of the murders, Graysmith places the many grisly elements of the case into a clear and riveting narrative, and even describes the man he considers to be the true killer. In 2007 the book became the basis for the film ZODIAC directed by David Fincher and starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith.

Mystery author Cornwell reportedly spent a small fortune in pursuing her own investigation into the infamous Jack the Ripper case. Here, she presents what she believes to be new evidence in the crimes and offers her own solution to what is arguably the most famous unsolved crime in the world.

The author of DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY takes on another suspenseful double history in THUNDERSTRUCK, which intertwines the stories of the notorious murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen and the obsessively single-minded, Nobel prize-winning inventor of the wireless telegraph, Guglielmo Marconi. As in his other best-sellers, Larson proves adept at bringing both technological and sociological histories to vivid life with a generous amount of extrapolative detail and a keen sense of pacing.

HELTER SKELTER is an exhaustive account of Charles Manson's crimes, as well as the investigation and trial that led to his conviction. The story is told in the affable voice of Vincent Bugliosi, Manson's prosecutor. Bugliosi provides information on a host of characters involved in the crimes--from the wealthy and glamorous victims to the hippie-cult perpetrators, along with Hell's Angels, cowboys, Scientologists, and so on. As such, HELTER SKELTER transcends its subject and becomes an unparalleled portrait of Southern California culture at the dazed, confused tail end of the 1960s.

The true story of a wealthy female doctor who killed two of her children and tried to slowly poison her husband. A noted true-crime writer, Ann Rule shows how the doctor's relaxed manner, especially during her interviews with the police, disguised her long descent into alcoholism and prescription drug addiction, as well as her tendency toward dramatic mood swings.

In this account of crime, investigative journalist James B. Stewart recounts the 1985 conviction of Michael Swango, a doctor who allegedly murdered five of his colleagues. Assuming that Swango was guilty, Stewart examines reputable, yet secretive medical establishments that he believes helped Swango evade arrest. A New York Times Notable Book of 1999.

In this combination of investigative journalism and conspiracy theory, a Texas lawyer presents a case that LBJ had a role in JFK's assassination. McClellan presents motive, opportunity, and method.

In this addition to her "Crime Files" series, Ann Rule explores true stories of intimate relationships that end in murder. The central story concerns Steve Sherer and Jami Hagel, a wealthy couple who walked on the dark side of life.

Ann Rule's compelling account of the case of serial killer Ted Bundy has become a classic in the true crime category. Rule's account of Bundy's crimes, her insightful rendering of the psychology of a killer, and the dramatic police search for the man named "Ted" gains even more interest when it is revealed, to her and to her readers, that she actually knew Bundy years earlier. They had worked together in Seattle at a crisis clinic, where they became, for a time, good friends. Bundy was executed in 1989; Rule is now one of the top true crime writers in America.

This tenth entry in a series by master true-crime writer Ann Rule collects real-life tales of murderous sociopaths, ostensibly charming but secretly narcissistic, selfish individuals who commit their crimes without the slightest hint of remorse. The title story, the longest in the book, recounts the tangled history of Roland Pitre who, over a period of 25 years, most likely murdered his girlfriend's husband, paid someone to kill his first wife, robbed his second wife, and attempted to kidnap his stepson. Other cases include the story of a rapist who intended to murder his victims so that they couldn't identify him; the account of how a woman's obsession with her former lover, a married man 40 years her senior, led to a deadly shootout in a parking lot; and the tragedy of a woman who vanished after she announced plans to leave her controlling husband.