I have always been fascinated by the dark side of human nature and the socio-psychological aspects of criminal behavior, especially those of serial killers, and my legal training and experience afforded me apt tools for exploring and writing about true crime. I have been interviewed and appeared on a wide range of podcasts, radio, and TV shows about true crime for nearly a decade.
JT Hunter began researching serial killer Israel Keyes in 2014. He spent the next two years interviewing witnesses, reviewing police files, studying videotaped interrogations of Keyes, and visiting the sites where Keyes committed his crimes. He also obtained the transcript of an interrogation of Keyes that federal authorities tried to keep secret.
Although not as well known to the public as past killers such as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer chronicled in these pages was just as calculating, cruel, and cunning. This is the first detailed account of Israel Keyes and his terrible crimes, a monster who was arguably the most methodical killer in the modern age.
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The seminal true crime book, Capote’s self-proclaimed “nonfiction novel” was my first true crime read, and one I return to again and again. Capote used the elements of fiction to craft a compelling story about a horrific true crime. Every true crime fan should read this book. (Bonus: for new theories of the case, see Gary McAvoy’s recent book, And Every Word is True).
This is a fascinating account of H.H. Holmes, a fiendish serial killer from the late nineteenth century. Larson weaves the tale of Holmes within the broader background of 1890’s era Chicago and the real-life characters of that time are interesting by themselves. Larson’s stuff is always good and this is one of his best.
McNamara’s account of the long-unsolved case of the Golden State Killer is gripping by itself, but her decision to include the story of her obsession with solving the case is what really sets this book apart. You feel like you’re right there with her as she pursues theories of the killer’s identity. The timing of the book was also noteworthy as the GSK’s identity was at last determined through familial DNA testing almost contemporaneously with the book’s publication.
Written by one of the founding fathers of the FBI’s vaunted Behavioral Sciences Unit, this book covers an amazing array of cases that he worked, including those of Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Edmund Kemper, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Richard Trenton Chase (and even the lesser-known John Crutchley). Full of great details from the perspective of a veteran serial killer expert, this book belongs on any serious true crime aficionado’s bookshelf.
5,215 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about serial killers, journalism, and Illinois.
We think you will like First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875-1920, Murder Notes (Lilah Love), and The Holmes-Pitezel: Case a History of the Greatest Crime of the Century and of the Search for the Missing Pitezel Children if you like this list.
From Peter's list on death and violence of late-19th-century America.
Lynching is central to the late 19th century and thus the theme that I explore in my recommendations, but Shepherd.com covers this tragic subject elsewhere. Instead, for my last book, I offer Adler’s study that explains the persistently high and even increasing rates of violence and homicide in Chicago during an era when varied modern social controls—urban reform, the discipline of the factory floor, expanding education and the bureaucratic state—swept over that city as they did over America, too. According to older theories about social turbulence and murder, these should have declined. Instead, the opposite was true, though the forms that violence took did change. Perhaps it was Adler’s intention to leave frighteningly unanswered what it is about people generally, and Americans specifically, that the dark impulses they have run so deeply that they are impervious to social control.
From Nancy's list on romantic thrillers to escape your busy life.
From Katherine's list on single-case serial murder investigations.
Geyer describes the painstaking work he did over two months in 1895 as the lone detective on a highly challenging case. He’d recently lost his wife and daughter in a fire, but he set out to find the missing children of Benjamin Pitezel, a man just murdered by the notorious serial killer, H. H. Holmes. The difficulty of this investigation lay not just in the killer’s clever maneuvers but also in the many places he’d taken the children and the different names he’d adopted to accomplish his dirty deeds. Holmes might have killed and discarded the children anywhere along his circuitous route. This book demonstrates the best work of a master detective. Geyer used the most tenuous leads to develop more. Some lead to dead ends, while others sent hm in a productive direction. Since reporters covered his journey from town to town, he enlisted them to elicit interest from witnesses in key locations. Piece by excruciating piece, Geyer completed the tragic puzzle.