1

Scoundrel, by Sarah Weinman

Now 57% Off

What do William F. Buckley, Jr., an aspiring book editor, and a convicted killer have in common? More than you’d expect. In Scoundrel, Sarah Weinman traces the path of destruction of Edgar Smith, a manipulator and misogynist who was sentenced to death for the murder of a teenage girl in 1960s New Jersey. While on death row, Smith caught the attention of conservative pundit Buckley, who advocated for Smith’s release and also got him a deal with a book editor at Knopf. Weinman goes deep into the archives to show how Smith, a provocative letter-writer, convinced a wide variety of people of his innocence even as she makes a larger, salient point about whose lives get cut short, and who gets second chances (and book contracts!).

2

Doubleday Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe

Now 63% Off

A saga that’s more about intergenerational greed than intergenerational trauma, Empire of Pain chronicles the rise and fall of the Sackler family. Although their name can be found on many buildings and museums, the Sacklers are now most widely known for owning Purdue Pharma, the drug company that marketed the painkiller Oxycontin knowing it would be addictive. Patrick Radden Keefe traces the family’s earliest days in America when the patriarch’s compulsive work ethic launched the family up by the bootstraps, and the latter generations who became so inured to wealth that they seemingly lacked awareness or compunction for significantly contributing to the opioid epidemic that destroyed so many lives.

3

We Keep the Dead Close, by Becky Cooper

Now 58% Off

As a Harvard undergrad, Becky Cooper had heard rumors about an ambitious female grad student in anthropology who had an affair with a professor, and who had then been murdered in 1969. The killer was never found. Forty years later, Cooper begins an investigation herself, slowly and steadily becoming more and more obsessed with the case. Even as Cooper reveals a complicated list of suspects that expands rather than narrows through the book's unfolding, We Keep the Dead Close implicates the institution of Harvard as a whole and the ways its centuries of elitism and discrimination have caused many kinds of violence.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

4

Vintage Furious Hours, by Casey Cep

Now 38% Off

A winning combination of true crime and literary biography, Furious Hours introduces readers to the book that Harper Lee meant to write after the wild success of her 1960 debut, To Kill a Mockingbird. In the 1970s, Lee began to study the real-life case of the Reverend Willie Maxwell, a Southern preacher who was accused of murdering five family members for insurance money, and who was later killed himself at a family member’s funeral. Cep details how Lee became obsessed with getting all of the nuanced details of the case right (unlike her childhood friend Truman Capote did in his true crime opus In Cold Blood), and writes an illuminating chunk of the book that Lee was never able to finish.

5

Vintage Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou

Now 38% Off

More business books should show up on best true crime lists. Here’s a juicy one that’s about the miraculous machine that can pull detailed health data from just a small drop of blood. It once was worth millions. Trouble is, it doesn’t work and has never worked. The focus of Bad Blood is on Elizabeth Holmes, the young and ambitious CEO of Theranos, who hoodwinked some of the most prominent businesspeople and politicians in America in her quest to build a company and girlboss the device to market. Wall Street Journal reporter Carreyrou takes readers from the first tip he ever received about the wild misdeeds happening at Theranos, to the many hours he spent building a case, to the moment when he finally published his exposé and the dominos began to fall.

6

Celadon Books Last Call, by Elon Green

Now 28% Off

In the 1980s while the AIDS epidemic was ravaging New York City, it was also turbocharging anti-queer hate crimes. Such crimes were often unreported because victims didn’t trust that the police would help or protect them. Against this backdrop, a serial killer lured victims from the relative safety of Manhattan’s piano bars, those oases in the city where all were welcome to schmooze over music and drinks. Elon Green’s extraordinary reporting uncovers a case that has gone under the radar too long, giving victims and their loved ones the attention they deserve

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

7

Scribner Savage Appetites, by Rachel Monroe

Now 39% Off

Savage Appetites is not so much a straightforward true crime book as it is a captivating exploration into why women in particular are drawn to the darkest and most depraved of real life stories. Rachel Monroe is a generous guide through the world of true crime, never dismissive of enthusiasts even as she turns a critical eye toward our consumption of the genre and the problems that arise when we look for simple stories to explain complicated situations. Savage Appetites is a great book to have on hand and refer back to as you’re reading other titles on this list.

8

Simon & Schuster Party Monster, by James St. James

Now 28% Off

Originally titled Disco Bloodbath, this is a true account of a murder within a particular subculture: the New York City club kids of the late eighties and early nineties who partied like it was their jobs. Written by one of the most over the top insiders, Party Monster details the highs and lows of the scene—the fashion, the sex, the indulgence, the nasty drug hangovers. The work culminates in the 1997 conviction of a club promoter named Michael Alig, who committed a particularly gruesome crime.

9

Liveright Publishing Corporation American Fire, by Monica Hesse

Now 62% Off

A gripping, fast-paced story with an asset that few true crime books have: no body count. The story of serial arsonists who tore through the economically depressed rural Accomack County, American Fire is more about the good people of the area and the volunteer firefighters working overtime than it is about the villains—but even then, and with no spoilers, the Freudian motivation of the culprits are fascinating.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

10

Harper I'll Be Gone in the Dark, by Michelle McNamara

Now 46% Off

Author Michelle McNamara died suddenly in the process of writing this game-changing investigation of the Golden State Killer. That the book feels triumphant even after tragedy upon tragedy is a testament to McNamara’s skill as a reporter and the determination of her husband (comedian Patton Oswalt) to tie up loose ends and push forward with the publication.

11

Anchor Shot in the Heart, by Mikal Gilmore

Now 35% Off

Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song told the story of Gary Gilmore, the first murderer to be executed in the United States (in 1977) in nearly a decade. That Gary’s younger brother Mikal is a celebrated journalist in his own right makes him the ideal writer to tell the story from a much different perspective, weaving a multigenerational story of dysfunction, abuse, and what drives a person to become a killer.

12

Bloomsbury USA The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, by Kate Summerscale

Now 15% Off

At a time when the job of the detective was fairly new, Inspector Jonathan Whicher was the best of the bunch in Victorian London. When a young child was found dead with a slit throat in 1860, Whicher was brought in to investigate. Unfortunately, his hunch that the child’s family was involved was true, although there was no way for him to prove such a thing at the time. Although his story ends with perceived failure, the clever and tough Whicher became the real life model on whom so many of literature’s best detectives are based.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

13

Twelve Columbine, by Dave Cullen

Now 15% Off

In an age when school shootings take place in America nearly every day, it can become way too easy to tune them out. Dave Cullen’s reportage on the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 is more important now than ever. Even as he details how Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold managed to plan and execute a massacre, he is careful to give dignity to all involved—the teachers, the students, their parents.

14

FLATIRON The Fact of a Body, by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Now 42% Off

Part memoir, part investigation into the murder of a six year old boy in the early nineties, The Fact of a Body explores how our personal experiences shape how we see crimes and the people who perpetrated them. The author’s own experience with sexual abuse is the lens through which she approaches the pedophile and confessed murderer who she’s supposed to help defend in court.

15

Penguin Books The Poisoner's Handbook, by Deborah Blum

Now 37% Off

In the early days of the twentieth century, murdering people with arsenic or cyanide was easy-ish because such poisons were untraceable. That changed in 1918. Deborah Blum’s history of the birth of forensic science in New York City, when a new medical examiner made great strides in toxicology, is a must-read for fans of Jazz Age transgressions with a generous dose of chemistry.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

16

Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments, by Dominick Dunne

Now 36% Off

No one covered the lifestyles of the rich and infamous better than Dominick Dunne. His novels covered ripped from the headlines gossipy tales of upper class evil, but his Vanity Fair columns still had keen observations with the extra bonus of being fact-checked. Ranging from subjects like O.J. Simpson and the Menendez Brothers, to Claus von Bülow and the man who murdered Dunne’s own daughter, the essays in this collection are unmissable and haunting.

17

Vintage My Dark Places, by James Ellroy

Now 25% Off

One of the best living crime writers, James Ellroy reveals the personal tragedy from which his obsessions emerged in his most personal book. Ellroy’s mother was murdered in 1958 when he was ten years old, and as an adult in 1994 he teams up with an LAPD officer to find her killer. Even when the murderer appears to be in reach, it’s clear that the chaos he brought to the author’s life remains unresolved

18

Vintage Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt

Now 40% Off

A 1981 shooting and its fallout are the subject of this epic about life and death in the city of Savannah. Rich with the kind of diverse cast of characters you’d find in a novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is as rich in ambience and local color as it is in plot.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

19

Doubleday Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

Now 43% Off

A wonderfully researched, beautifully written history of injustice taken to horrifying lengths. When a string of murders plagued the oil rich Osage Indian nation in the 1920s, the Feds were brought in to investigate. David Grann traces their probe, revealing corruption at every layer of law enforcement and government, and the inhumanity that rampant greed so often breeds.

20

Riverhead Books The Brothers, by Masha Gessen

It isn’t enough to just track the American experience of the two Chechnyan brothers who were responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Journalist and activist Masha Gessen provides context for the actions of the siblings, tracing their lineage through a stream of war-torn countries so that by the time they arrived in America, their (often righteous) anger elevated to unforgivable, murderous levels.

Watch Next

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pr%2FQrqCrnV6YvK57xKernqqklravucSnq2ian6S4tHvGanBpcWRnfXd7wZ6qrWWkp8KmecKroKadXZe8sLfSaA%3D%3D