Recommended True Crime Books

Signature Killers is a peculiar yet valuable book--repetitious, brilliant, turgid, passionate, and indispensable for understanding serial killers. Those who persevere through the prolix writing style will be rewarded by compelling insights into the...

Thieves, liars, and killers—it's a criminal world out there, and someone has to write about it. A thrilling collection of the year's best reportage by the aces of the true-crime genre, The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 brings together the...

What's the difference between a cop and Kevin Maher? Kevin doesn't have a badge. And he doesn't play by the rules. Cop Without A Badge tracks confidential informant Kevin Maher as he helps the NYPD, the FBI, and many other law enforcement agencies...

Follows the misadventures of Budapest bank robber Attila Ambrus, who struggled in his pursuit of fast women and a haphazard career as an untalented hockey goaltender before taking up a life of crime, and profiles the virtually incompetent team of...

Ann Rule says, "Kathryn Casey is one of the best true crime writers today"—high praise indeed from the author of a host of nonfiction New York Times bestsellers including Green River and The Stranger Beside Me, the story...

The New York Times bestselling author who investigated the Zodiac case now uncovers a real-life mystery of murder, body doubles, and obsession Marli Renfro was a model who played a part in one of the most iconic scenes in American movies-...

In the years since Matt Bodine saved Sam Two Wolves' life, the bond between these bloodbrothers becomes legendary, until General George Custer's war on Indians comes to Little Big Horn River and forces the two to choose sides. Reprint.

Hero, Husband, Father . . . Monster? In Creekstone, Texas, a small, quiet suburb of Houston, football was king . . . and David Temple was a prince. A former high school and college gridiron star-turned-coach, he had a fairy-tale marriage...

From the authors of Bodies We've Buried—an uncensored look at real-life CSIs. With a foreword by Patricia Cornwell. For years, Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch trained CSIs at the National Forensic Academy in Knoxville, Tennessee. Now they...

On August 28, 2003, in the suburbs of Erie, Pennsylvania, a pizza delivery man named Brian Wells was accosted by several men who locked a time bomb around his neck. They then ordered him to rob a bank. After delivering the money, he would receive...

Thieves, liars, killers, and conspirators—it's a criminal world out there, and someone has got to write about it. An eclectic collection of the year's best reportage, The Best American Crime Reporting 2007 brings together the murderers and...

The true crime story that made international headlines: Josef Fritzl held his daughter captive as a sex slave, and fathered seven children with her, creating a hidden family no one knew about-not even Fritzl's own wife.

America may have had its fill of psychos for the last forty years, but none of them has inspired so many books and films (Pyscho, The Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) as Wisconsin's cannibalistic handyman, Ed Gein. None of them has...

Charlie Bronson has spent 28 of the last 30 years in solitary confinement, during which time he has gained a fearsome reputation as one of the world's toughest and most dangerous convicts. He has been locked in...

Arthur Conan Doyle did not rely on imagination for the amazing cases tackled by his hero, Sherlock Holmes, after all. Drawing on new research that follows the tracks the author left in the real world, Peter Costello details how Conan Doyle's...

Some may find it unbelievable that a 20-year-old Oregon woman could be enslaved by a sexual sadist for seven years--that even after being able to move freely during the day, she would allow him to lock her into a wooden box every night. ...

Part financial scandal and part Greek tragedy, this book dramatically humanizes the results of Madoff's scam by focusing on his connection to, and catastrophic impact on, the Jewish community 

The story of the American Mafia is not complete without a chapter on Kansas City. The City of Fountains has appeared in the The Godfather, Casino, and The Sopranos, but many Midwesterners are not aware that Kansas City has affected the fortunes of...

This fascinating A–Z compilation of murderous crimes spans globe and centuries and uncovers the extremes of human criminality. More than 300 cases also shed light on advances in crime detection, law enforcement, and forensic science.

Investigative journalist James Renner cracks open thirteen of Northeast Ohio s most intriguing unsolved crimes. Included are the 1964 murder of Garfield Heights teen Beverly Jarosz that still haunts baby boomers to this day; the 2003 disappearance of...

The Wall Street Journal called him "a living legend." The London Times dubbed him "the most famous art detective in the world." In Priceless, Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team, pulls back the...

The tragic death of a police officer. A potential conspiracy involving dangerous narcotics. A body mysteriously surfacing in a river. The deadly effects of domestic violence. These are just a few of the things Robert Carson has seen during his years...

Dramatic, graphic and wrenching...The reader is left to wonder--at the devastation of Carcaterra's youth, at his survival to adulthood, and at the grace that allowed him to craft this piercing memoir.'THE WASHINGTON POSTLorenza Carcaterra...

This title includes: the Torso Murderer, responsible for 12 homicides in Cleveland, investigated by Eliot Ness; Cleveland physician Samuel Sheppard's alleged murder of his wife, which inspired the TV series "The Fugitive"; Akron native and...

On Thanksgiving Day 1892, a beautiful young woman appeared mysteriously at the most exclusive resort in Southern California--the new Hotel del Coronado. There was something dark and ominous about her from the very beginning. She rented a room, and...

A collection of the best crime journalism of the past year includes Pat Jordan's interview with O. J. Simpson, Clara Bingham's account of the rape scandal and cover-up at the Air Force Academy, and other contributions from Skip Hollandsworth, Philip...

Seldom does an equestrian travel tale require its readers to exert more intellectual caution than this superbly written book. British officer Hippisley Cunliffe Marsh evaded plenty of danger in the way of Turkoman slave traders and other villains as...

The career of Donald "D.J." Vodicka encompassed the rapid expansion of the prison system. For sixteen years, he was a prison guard in California's highest security prisons, serving meals to gang leaders, serial killers in lockdown cells,...

Details the causes, motives, circumstances, and legal consequences of the 1986 murder of Long Island electrician James Pierson, while sexually abused daughter had arranged, with her boyfriend, for the murder

Ripper Notes: How the Newspapers Covered the Jack the Ripper Murders' is a collection of essays about press reports of the notorious Whitechapel serial killer as well as other related topics. 'When the People Were in Terror' by Norman Hastings...