True crime books may be written by journalists, lawyers, law enforcement professionals, literary writers, or historians.
The Silk Road website launched in 2011, an anonymous marketplace on the dark web where one could buy drugs, fake IDs and firearms. It took 2 years and multiple agencies working together for the government to shut it down. This gripping book covers the rise and fall of the website and its creator, Dread Pirate Roberts.
The story of Nicolas de la Reynie, lieutenant general of the Paris police in the 1660s, is part true crime novel, part history, part sordid romance, and part political suspense drama. An engaging read which presents a Paris of the past that is both exotic and strangely familiar.
Arthur Conan Doyle may resemble, by his own admission, Watson more than he does Sherlock Holmes. But in this book he redeems himself because we find a man dedicated to justice and capable of using Holmesian logic against the police, and against his own prejudice, to reopen a cold case, a murder, and to find justice.
In the early 1980s, a serial killer was preying on women in South Central Los Angeles, stumping LAPD detectives. Residents, relatives and community leaders were angered because of the long time it was taking to find the culprit, 1988 - 2002; police were frustrated by a lack of evidence. In 2010, familial DNA testing connected the murders to Lonnie Franklin, Jr., a mechanic and former city worker. His long-delayed arrest and trial took a toll on victims’ families, and the author, a former Los Angeles Weekly reporter who grew close to several family members, and stayed with the story for ten years.
The incredible work of the late Michelle McNamara, who dedicated so much of her life to tracking down the Golden State Killer, a prolific and terrifying serial killer who haunted California during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Though he was not found in her lifetime, her work helped detectives who arrested the main suspect shortly after the release of her book. This one will keep you up at night
In 2011, reporter Gwen Florio exposed a pattern of mismanagement of, and failure to prosecute sexual assault cases in Missoula.The scandal eventually led to a Justice Department investigation and settlement. Krakauer describes the courageous struggle of several assault survivors to find justice, as well as the ways rape culture and a corrupt and adversarial judicial system allow repeat offenders to continue to assault new victims and threaten communities.
In 1840, the savage murder of Lord William Russell--his throat slashed while he slept--sent shock waves through Victorian London. When his most trusted personal servant was arrested for the crime, it became a sensation. Then the accused claimed that reading England's most popular novel motivated him to kill his master, and a national frenzy ensued.
What happens when a journalist dedicates herself to unearthing an unsavory family secret? Stapinski travels to the "boot of Italy" to interview, learn and discover her family's past and yet - she is met with resistance from those who stayed in the old country. She is given the cold shoulder and the evil eye by descendants of her grandparents' contemporaries. Not one to be deterred, Stapinski returns to Italy several times to research, talk and eventually shed light's truth on the family secret.
This book tells the story of Anders Breivik and the horrific killing spree he undertook in Norway. It provides an in-depth look at both the perpetrator and a selection of his victims, as well as a disturbingly thorough look at the actual man hunt Breivik executed.
Former LAPD sergeant Wambaugh tells the story of the 1963 kidnapping of two LAPD officers during a traffic stop, and the execution of one of them in an onion field outside Bakersfield.
Historian and New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe brings meticulous research to this examination of a murder committed during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. On a December night in 1972, Jean McConville, a 38-year-old mother of 10, was abducted at gunpoint from her Belfast home by a group of masked intruders. No trace of her was found for over 30 years.