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67 past books matching True Crime
The Midnight Assassin revisits a year of terror that turned 1880s Austin into a city gripped by panic, suspicion, and scandal.
The Midnight Assassin
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
The Midnight Assassin revisits a year of terror that turned 1880s Austin into a city gripped by panic, suspicion, and scandal. As brutal murders spread across class and race lines, investigators chased suspects through a case that predated the language of serial killers. This fits readers looking for narrative true crime with historical detail, social tension, and an unsettling unsolved mystery.
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A New York Times bestseller, The Midnight Assassin is a sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885.
In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch.
Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city.
With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.
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Beneath the familiar image of small-town Midwestern life, violence and notoriety leave a long and unsettling trail.
No Place Like Murder
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
Beneath the familiar image of small-town Midwestern life, violence and notoriety leave a long and unsettling trail. In No Place Like Murder, Janis Thornton revisits twenty historical crimes through the lives, motives, trials, and aftermaths of the people involved. This is a true crime collection rooted in place, revealing how brutality, ambition, and desperation shaped headlines across the Midwest.
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"This engrossing collection of historical Midwest murders reads like a thriller. True crime at its best. I couldn't put it down." —Susan Furlong, author of the Bone Gap Travellers novels
A modern retelling of 20 sensational true crimes, No Place Like Murder reveals the inside details behind nefarious acts that shocked the Midwest between 1869 and 1950. The stories chronicle the misdeeds, examining the perpetrators' mindsets, motives, lives, apprehensions, and trials, as well as what became of them long after.
True crime author Janis Thornton profiles notorious murderers such as Frankie Miller, who was fed up when her fiancé stood her up for another woman. As fans of the song "Frankie and Johnny" already know, Frankie met her former lover at the door with a shotgun.
Thornton's tales reveal the darker side of life in the Midwest, including the account of Isabelle Messmer, a plucky young woman who dreamed of escaping her quiet farm-town life. After she nearly took down two tough Pittsburgh policemen in 1933, she was dubbed "Gun Girl" and went on to make headlines from coast to coast. In 1942, however, after a murder conviction in Texas, she vowed to do her time and go straight. Full of intrigue and revelations, No Place Like Murder also features such folks as Chirka and Rasico, the first two Hoosier men to die in the electric chair after they brutally murdered their wives in 1913. The two didn't meet until their fateful last night.
An enthralling and chilling collection, No Place Like Murder is sure to thrill true crime lovers.
"Thornton wittily describes heretofore unheralded true crime stories from Indiana's small towns." —Keven McQueen, author of Horror in the Heartland
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What begins as an ordinary spring break trip darkens into a case defined by absence, dread, and the slow unraveling of every parent’s worst fear.
The Snake and the Spider
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
What begins as an ordinary spring break trip darkens into a case defined by absence, dread, and the slow unraveling of every parent’s worst fear. As two teenage boys vanish after missing routine check-ins, the search gives way to the devastating truth of abduction and murder. The Snake and the Spider fits a true crime list with its intimate emotional stakes, real-world horror, and focus on how violence shatters families long before answers arrive.
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A New York Times–bestselling author and former Los Angeles Times reporter chronicles the murder and abduction of two teens during a dream spring break vacation.
Best friends Daryl Barber and James Boucher were responsible, and their parents trusted them to spend Spring Break at Daytona Beach unchaperoned. When the boys missed their agreed-upon daily check-ins, their parents were disappointed. When they failed to come home on their planned return date, their parents were terrified. They could not have known that their innocent sons would encounter two violent men on the Florida coast. They could not have imagined the torture their children would endure before their bodies turned up four months later in a Florida swamp. What starts as a dream vacation, ended as every parent's worst nightmare . . .
New York Times–bestselling author Karen Kingsbury narrates the tragic tale of a road trip gone horribly wrong in this not-to-be missed true crime novel.
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A single killing opens onto a wider landscape of fear, ideology, and inherited violence.
Anatomy of a Killing
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
A single killing opens onto a wider landscape of fear, ideology, and inherited violence. In Anatomy of a Killing, Ian Cobain reconstructs the murder of an off-duty policeman in 1978 and the political machinery surrounding it, using firsthand accounts and official records to trace the human cost of the Troubles. A stark, immersive work of investigative history shaped by grief, conflict, and moral fracture.
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"A concise and gripping history of the Troubles, revealing the people behind the pain and violence" from the award-winning investigative journalist (Vice).
On the morning of Saturday 22nd April 1978, members of an Active Service Unit of the IRA hijacked a car and crossed the countryside to the town of Lisburn. Within an hour, they had killed an off-duty policeman in front of his young son.
In Anatomy of a Killing, award-winning journalist Ian Cobain documents the hours leading up to the killing, and the months and years of violence, attrition and rebellion surrounding it. Drawing on interviews with those most closely involved, as well as court files, police notes, military intelligence reports, IRA strategy papers, memoirs and government records, this is a unique perspective on the Troubles, and a revelatory work of investigative journalism.
"As gripping as a thriller, except that this isn't fiction but cold, spine-tingling reality." —Daily Mail
"A remarkable piece of forensic journalism." —Ed Moloney, author of Voices from the Grave
"Reads like a work of fiction . . . True and harrowing." —Irish Sunday Independent (Books of the Year)
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This is true crime for readers drawn to historical cases, investigative detail, and unresolved questions that still unsettle.
Cemetery John
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
Some crimes refuse to stay settled, especially when the accepted story leaves too many gaps. In Cemetery John, Robert Zorn reexamines the Lindbergh kidnapping and builds a case for an overlooked mastermind, using research, personal documents, and new evidence to challenge decades of assumption. This is true crime for readers drawn to historical cases, investigative detail, and unresolved questions that still unsettle.
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This true crime novel examines the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping, arguing it was orchestrated by a Bronx deli clerk who got away with the crime scot-free.
In this meticulous and authoritative account of the trial and the times of the Lindbergh kidnapping, Robert Zorn clears away decades of ungrounded speculation surrounding the case. Inspired by his father's relationship with the actual accomplices—including the mastermind—he presents the clearest ever picture of a criminal partnership that would shake every class and culture of American society.
Using personal possessions and documents, never-before-seen photographs, new forensic evidence, and extensive research, Robert Zorn has written a shocking and captivating account of the crime and the original "Trial of the Century." From the ecstatic riots that followed the Spirit of St. Louis on either side of the Atlantic, to the tragic night that would shake America's sense of security, to the horror of the New Jersey morgue where Lindbergh insisted on verifying the identity of his son, Zorn's skillful treatment meets this larger-than-life story and gives it definitive shape by revealing the true events behind the crime, for the first time.
Praise for Cemetery John
"Eighty years after the kidnapping of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's baby from their Englewood, N.J., home, the case still raises questions, ones Zorn ably examines through an unusual lens. . . . Retelling the by now familiar story of Charlie Lindbergh's kidnapping, Zorn imbues it with novelistic suspense. Even if Zorn doesn't definitively prove that Knoll, who died in 1980, was the crime's mastermind and Hauptmann's accomplice, he makes a strong case." —Publishers Weekly
"Debut author Zorn makes a compelling case that the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping was orchestrated by a Bronx deli clerk who got away with the crime scot-free. . . . Zorn's research includes new forensic evidence, personal and historical documents, and interviews, laying the foundation for a thrilling true-crime tale that offers a resounding answer to the question of who was really responsible for the kidnapping." —Kirkus Reviews
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A marriage already falling apart turns into something far more horrific when violence follows a woman even into the hospital room where she should have been safest.
While She Slept
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
A marriage already falling apart turns into something far more horrific when violence follows a woman even into the hospital room where she should have been safest. While She Slept reconstructs the murder of Jill Cahill and the legal battle that followed, tracing not only the crime itself but the fierce debate over punishment, justice, and what her family was left to endure.
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The true crime story of a Syracuse man's 1998 murder of his wife in her hospital bed to ensure her silence and the trial that followed.
UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH…
By 1998, Jill and Jeff Cahill's marriage was already over. With a divorce pending, his life was in shambles. Then, a pre-dawn argument between them came to an end when Jeff crushed her skull with an aluminum baseball bat. Fearing her testimony in an assault trial, he slipped unnoticed into her Syracuse hospital room and gave her a dose of potassium cyanide, killing her instantly. It took the jury only five hours to find him guilty.
BUT THE CONTROVERSIAL CASE AGAINST JEFF CAHILL WAS JUST BEGINNING…
Jeff Cahill's trial would provoke one of the most passionate and furious debates about the death penalty in recent New York history leaving Jill Cahill's grief-stricken family survivors to wonder...
WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO SEAL HER KILLER'S FATE AS SURELY AS HE HAD SEALED HERS?
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Violence feels even more disturbing when it comes from someone no one believed capable of it.
A Need to Kill
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
Violence feels even more disturbing when it comes from someone no one believed capable of it. A Need to Kill examines the murder of a family through the confession, writings, and behavior of a teenage killer whose apparent normalcy only deepens the horror. This is true crime centered on psychology, motive, and aftermath, with a grim focus on the mind behind an unthinkable act.
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About the book
***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.***
Alec Krieder knew his best friend's family never locked their doors—making Kevin Haines and his family the perfect targets for a crime. One night, he waited until they were asleep…then entered the house with a knife. Alec burst into the master bedroom and stabbed Tom and Lisa Haines first. Then he attacked Kevin, who fought for his life. Meanwhile, at the end of the hall, Kevin's sister Maggie awoke to the sound of violence—and was the only one who made it out alive.
Clean-cut and academically gifted, Alec seemed to have no motives, no history of psychosis—and no remorse. Some believed he was a serial killer in the making, a soulless monster plagued by "demons." Now, for the first time, acclaimed author Michael W. Cuneo shares the inside story—with shocking details of Alec's confession to his father, disturbing messages to his classmates, and chilling excerpts from his diaries—and takes you inside the dark, troubled mind of this teenage killer.
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What begins as the story of a woman terrorized by a violent stalker becomes something even more unnerving once the truth starts to surface.
The Pursued
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
What begins as the story of a woman terrorized by a violent stalker becomes something even more unnerving once the truth starts to surface. The Pursued follows Ruth Finley’s years-long ordeal with threatening letters, escalating attacks, and a case that kept police chasing the wrong answers. More than a true-crime account, it digs into fear, deception, and the devastating fallout of a reality far stranger and darker than anyone expected.
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The terrifying true story of a woman at war with a violent stalker who eluded the police for years—until they found the truth in the last place anyone would have dared to look.
From 1977 to 1981, Ruth Finley, an ordinary wife and mother from Kansas, was tormented by an elusive maniac known as the Poet. The police, already on edge from BTK’s reign of terror, spent years searching for the stalker. Meanwhile, his cryptic letters in rhymed verse grew more disturbing and violent, spilling into deeds like stabbing and kidnapping.
In this propulsive nonfiction account, as Ruth is surveilled from all sides, her nightmare takes a chilling turn: The stalker is no stranger at all. It’s someone the police have been close to for years, someone nearer to home than Ruth dared to admit. The revelation recasts what seemed like a cruel twist of fate as something far more disturbing.
The Pursued is not just a gripping true-crime story. It’s also a darkly textured portrait of the deceptions that drive us and the explosive reckonings that occur when they finally tumble down.
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It’s a strong fit for readers who like true crime with vivid storytelling, strange real-life details, and cases that feel as unsettling as they are compulsively readable.
She Kills
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
Some true crime stories are horrifying. Some are bizarre. Some make you pause and wonder what on earth was happening in that town, that house, or that person’s head. She Kills collects true crime cases centered on female perpetrators, from poisonings to murder-for-hire plots, all told through sharp, immersive reporting from longtime Texas Monthly writer Skip Hollandsworth. It’s a strong fit for readers who like true crime with vivid storytelling, strange real-life details, and cases that feel as unsettling as they are compulsively readable.
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About the book
"I love Skip Hollandsworth. I love his extraordinary stories, I love his rabid curiosity, and I love that as a writer, he personifies toeing the line between horror, humor, and absurdity. I am inspired by every single character he has introduced us to. "—Laura Dern
A superb collection of true-crime stories—written by Texas Monthly’s legendary feature writer Skip Hollandsworth—that reminds us why America is perennially obsessed with the genre.
Skip Hollandsworth has been covering true crime since long before the podcasts, networks, and television shows discovered it. Raised in Texas, the revered journalist joined Texas Monthly in 1989, and the stories he has written over three-plus decades have helped define a locale and a culture.
Curated by Hollandsworth, She Kills brings together beloved stories that focus in particular on female perpetrators—from the high schooler who was so desperate to move back in with Mom that she had no choice but to poison her father’s refried beans, to the wallflower nurse in small-town Texas who one day started killing off her patients, to the lovelorn dental hygienist who ordered a hit on her rival.
These are expertly crafted tales that will stop readers in their tracks and leave them gasping with shock and pleasure. Each story is updated by Hollandsworth, who provides background on his original storytelling and new information on the perpetrators and victims, where available.
She Kills is a jaw-dropping, addictively readable compendium of women whose often sensational crimes and circumstances put them on the wrong side of the law.
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A young babysitter becomes a deadly liability after she agrees to testify in court.
Don’t Tell a Soul
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
A young babysitter becomes a deadly liability after she agrees to testify in court. In Don’t Tell a Soul, Cherry Walker’s brutal murder in Texas exposes a chilling attempt to silence a witness whose honesty threatened to reveal a mother’s hidden crimes. This true crime investigation follows the unraveling of Kim Cargill’s deception and the disturbing psychology behind a calculated act of violence.
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The New York Times bestselling author of If You Only Knew shares the true-crime story of a babysitter murdered to hide a mother's dark secret.
Cherry Walker was a devoted, trusting, uncommonly innocent young woman who loved caring for a neighbor's little boy. But when she was asked to testify in court against his abusive mother, Cherry never got the chance. She couldn't lie if her life depended on it—and it did. Cherry's body was found on the side of a Texas road, after being doused with lighter fluid and set aflame.
Attractive, manipulative, and violent, mother of four Kim Cargill had a wealth of dirty secrets she'd do anything to keep hidden. This in-depth account by bestselling investigative journalist M. William Phelps takes you inside Cargill's shocking trial—and into the mind of one of the most conniving female psychopaths in recent history—and on death row.
Praise for M. William Phelps
“One of America's finest true-crime writers.” —Vincent Bugliosi, New York Times bestselling author of Helter Skelter
“Phelps is the Harlan Coben of real-life thrillers.” —Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of Tell No Lies
“Anything by Phelps is an eye-opening experience.” —Suspense Magazine
“Phelps is the king of true crime.” —Lynda Hirsch, Creators Syndicate columnist
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A quiet American city lives in fear as a serial rapist stalks the streets at night.
Son: A Psychopath and his Victims
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
A quiet American city lives in fear as a serial rapist stalks the streets at night. In Son, the shocking arrest of a suspect in Spokane, Washington reveals that the attacker is the respected son of a prominent local family. This true crime investigation examines the unraveling of a household and the disturbing psychology behind violence hidden beneath privilege and respectability.
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“Remarkably well done. . . Olsen brings his strange subjects to vivid life in this memorable reconstruction.” - Publisher's Weekly
“A chilling story . . . Gruesomely spellbinding.” - Glamour
"A classic from “the dean of true crime”. This 1983 masterpiece tells the incredible story of a Spokane, Washington serial rapist who was exposed as the handsome, privileged son of one of the city’s most elite families." - The Washington Post
For more than two years, a rapist prowled the night streets of the homey, All-American city of Spokane, Washington, terrorizing women, sparking a run on gun stores, and finally causing one newspaper to offer a reward—the calls taken by the distinguished managing editor himself, Gordon Coe. In March 1981, luck and inspired police work at last produced an arrest, and Spokane shuddered. The suspect was clean cut and conservative…and Gordon Coe’s son.
For eighteen months, Jack Olsen researched the cases of Fred and Ruth Coe to try to learn not only what happened within that family, but how and why. He interviewed more than 150 people and built up a portrait not only of that extraordinary family, but of the mind of a psychopath. And searching the memories of the women in Fred Coe’s life, he unearthed a most horrifying question: What is it like to love and live with a man for years—and then discover he is a psychopathic criminal?
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A missing husband exposes a life built on deception when a suburban story begins to unravel.
Dancing with Death
Biographies & Memoirs · True Crime
Our take
A missing husband exposes a life built on deception when a suburban story begins to unravel. In Dancing with Death, investigators in Phoenix confront the brutal murder of art dealer Jay Orbin after his wife reports him missing weeks after his disappearance. As evidence mounts against Marjorie Orbin, this true crime account reveals how secrets, betrayal, and violence shattered a carefully constructed life.
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About the book
A former stripper turned suburban housewife is exposed as a brutal killer in this shocking true crime tale of a loving husband beheaded in Phoenix.
Phoenix, Arizona, 2004. Marjorie Orbin filed a missing person's report on her husband, Jay. She claimed that the successful art dealer had left town on business after celebrating their son's birthday more than a month before. But no one believed that Jay would abandon the family he loved. Authorities suspected foul play . . .
As the search for Jay made local headlines, Marjorie's story starting coming apart. Why did she wait so long before going to police? If Jay was away on business, why were there charges made to his credit card in Phoenix? Then, the unthinkable happened.
Jay's headless, limbless torso was discovered on the outskirts of the Phoenix desert—and all evidence pointed to Marjorie as the killer. The investigation revealed surprising details about her life—six previous marriages, an ongoing affair with a man from her gym, and alleged ties to the New York mafia.
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