100 books like A Murder in Virginia

In one of my very favorite books of the past twenty years, Tim Tyson describes the brutal racist murder of a Black man in small-town North Carolina in 1970. He also goes into the aftermath, which Tim personally observed with the eyes of the ten-year-old son of the town’s Methodist minister. His father tried sincerely, with little success, to bridge the town’s racial divide as militant young Blacks took to the streets, burning warehouses. Tim is a remarkably poignant storyteller, and every page is stamped with his compassion, his wit, his keen eye for human nature. And most especially, with the wisdom that he learned from his father over the years. Some folks have compared it with To Kill a Mockingbird, and I definitely agree. And on a personal note, Tim’s father, Reverend Dr. Vernon Tyson, was a friend of my family for many years.

The story of a horrific miscarriage of justice in rural Canada in 1959. Fourteen-year-old Steven Truscott was charged with the rape and murder of a 12-year-old schoolmate, mostly because he was the last person seen with the victim, riding a bike along a country road. Today, modern crime analysts would look at this case and see immediately that the likely perpetrator was an adult pedophile, not an adolescent boy. But at the time, local law enforcement jumped to the wrong conclusion. Steven was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging, and although the sentence was commuted on humanitarian grounds, he spent ten years in prison. It took more than four decades of work by attorneys, and a few diligent journalists, to clear Steven’s name. This book tells the whole tale.

Frank Lloyd Wright is undoubtedly America’s most famous architect. Everyone knows his name, and those who study the field know how his distinctive styles changed the face of architecture in the early 1900s. But few realize the impact that a brutal mass murder had upon Wright’s life and work. It happened at his Taliesin estate in rural Wisconsin in 1914. One of Wright’s house servants, Julian Carlton, went on a rampage with an axe, hacking to death Wright’s lover Mamah Borthwick Cheney and her two children. Four others also were killed when Carlton set the house on fire. Of course the tragedy was personally devastating for Wright, and it also changed the creative course of his life. After Taliesin was destroyed, he moved away from the Prairie House style of organic architecture, for which he had originally become famous.

A story of a brutal crime, of a long hunt for justice, and of small-town corruption at its worst. In June 1970, Nancy Morgan was murdered in a remote mountain cove in Madison County, North Carolina. The case lay dormant until 1984, when one of Nancy’s friends was unexpectedly charged with the crime. But the prosecution’s case fell apart at trial, and the author lays out a persuasive theory that the county sheriff—long known for his family’s style of local machine politics—instigated the charges against an innocent man in order to boost his re-election bid, when he knew full well that the real murderer was the son of one of his political supporters. For anyone who has ever posed the question—how bad can politics get?—this story provides a very disturbing answer.

Of the many books that explore African-Americans’ experience in the South’s antebellum Criminal Justice System this work stands out.  In this comprehensive study of the criminal justice system of a slave state. Glenn McNair traces the evolution of Georgia’s legal culture by examining its use of slave codes and slave patrols, as well as presenting data on crimes prosecuted, trial procedures and practices, conviction rates, the appellate process, and punishment. Based on more than four hundred capital cases, McNair’s study deploys both narrative and quantitative analysis to get at both the theory and the reality of the criminal procedure for slaves in the century leading up to the Civil War.

Cohen offers a comprehensive sweep of the financial and non-financial consequences of criminal behavior, crime prevention, and society’s response to crime, public and private.  

Crime costs are far-reaching, including medical costs, lost wages, property damage, pain and suffering, and reduced quality of life for victims and the public at large, as well as public expenditures on police, courts, and prisons, and the costs borne by offenders and their families, who often suffer consequences apart from the punishments they receive for committing crime. 

Against the backdrop of a speculative future in which extra shadows have become the alternative to prison and cameras watch our every move, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself takes a raw, honest look at grief, family, queerness, and how we survive.

Kris has lost her wife Beau and gained an extra shadow—along with a child who also has an extra shadow. As she navigates her new reality, Kris can either sink deeper into her grief, accepting a life of surveillance and oppression for herself and her kid, or she can choose love and hope.

Crane’s approach to storytelling, open and vulnerable and using small fragments and pop quizzes, allowed me deep into Kris’s heart, and I rooted for her as she forged a life against all odds.   

Is our criminal justice system too harsh or too lenient on crime? To answer this question, Barry Latzer, retired professor at John Jay, offers both facts and historical perspective in his history of punishment since colonial days. Latzer does not gloss over the historic racism and cruelty of policing in the U.S. but shows that today most people in prison are actually there for committing violent crimes, and that the new technology of “e-carceration” can further reduce prison populations while improving public safety.

Charged reveals criminal prosecutors’ massive power and discretion.

And Emily Bazelon makes the stakes and consequences of this massive power and discretion come alive by telling the stories of two people charged with two different crimes by two different prosecutors.

By tracking every step of each case—from arrest to charging to trial to sentencing—she shows the harms the overzealous prosecutors can impose, as well as the mercy prosecutors can show. And she traces the work of progressive prosecutors across the country, offering an alternative path forward. 

We’ve all seen those movies about courtroom battles and a determined prosecutor, speaking up for innocent victims. In Nazir Afzal we have the real deal. Coming from a working-class, migrant family, he knows what it’s like for the powerless. As Chief Prosecutor he won milestone cases involving criminals, honour killings, domestic violence, human trafficking, and many others. This engrossing book takes us behind the scenes. Nazir Afzal is recognised as a man who changed British justice for the better.