72 books like A Private Disgrace

City of Thieves occupies the top shelf in my library. Why? Is it because now I’m watching the people of Ukraine battle a merciless enemy or because David Benioff has packed a tale that swings between unlikely comrades, a tender courtship, and the Nazis’ siege of Leningrad in WWII? Maybe both answers. But I read this book years ago. The deep humanity of the story is also a thriller that made me laugh and shudder through its short length of 258 pages. It doesn’t hurt that Benioff is a gifted screenwriter, too.

Though not technically an island, perhaps, the world depicted in this mystifying novel is unlike any I’ve experienced before, a maze of chambers and thunderous tides where secrets are hidden out in the open.

The reader is dropped into this disorienting world with only its titular protagonist as a guide. What follows is a beguiling journey of philosophy, magic, and wide-eyed innocence—a triumph of the imagination. 

Hazel Micaellef, 62, a police officer in a small town in Ontario, is divorced, overweight, has back problems, and drinks too much. I am from a small town and divorced. Liquor is not my vice. I am, however, completely at home in the fictional and slightly seedy Port Dumas where locals have long memories. When human bones are found on land that formerly housed orphans, many of the town’s ugly secrets bubble up. The plot is complex and the setting immersive. I would not necessarily want to live in a place like Port Dumas…but I have.

This is the last Bernie Gunther novel, in a series that is über noir, and whose protagonist is a police detective who is a member of the SS in Nazi Germany. 

In Metropolis, Gunther learns that murder has become the subject of an art movement, Lustmord, or “lust murders” which focused on the brutal, sexual-tinged serial killings of women and prostitutes in 1930s Berlin.

A scene in the book of a famous German expressionist sketching a murder victim in the morgue is all the more chilling, since I know it to be true. I’ve been fascinated with the art movements of this era, and have seen the exhibits of Lustmord paintings, which are still in museums today. 

There have been loads of books written about Lizzie Borden, but very few that I have enjoyed as much as this one. It's brilliantly well-written and extremely accurate. Taylor does a thorough job of explaining the history and circumstances that led to the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. Plus, he puts forth a theory on who the killer was, a theory that a), I had not heard before, and b), makes a whole lot of sense. When I do presentations on the Borden murders, this is the book I always recommend people read for a detailed look at the crime. 

Riley Sager has become one of my favorite new authors, and his latest book is marvelously inspired by one of the most famous news stories of all time: The infamous Lizzie Borden murders of her parents in Fall River, Mass. back in 1892.

Like most people, I can still remember the famous lyric chanted from that long-ago crime: “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks; when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”

In this book, I loved the way Sager used this idea to create a modern-day story of a Lizzie Borden-type character, even though the book really has nothing else to do with the original case. I found it all absolutely fascinating! 

The 1892 ax murder of Andrew and Abby Borden has become a staple of American popular culture. Everyone familiar with the case has a firmly held opinion on the guilt or innocence of their daughter Lizzie. There are many theories on what may have happened that day, but we have no way of knowing the whole truth. Then, as today, the best we can do is a trial by jury. The Trial of Lizzie Borden is a detailed and well-researched book presenting evidence, testimony, and events surrounding that momentous trial, leaving the reader with the same question that faced the jury—did Lizzie do it? Though unlikely to change many opinions, it gives the reader a greater understanding of why that jury found Lizzie Borden not guilty.

I’ve long admired Sebastian Junger, who writes with precision, empathy, and intelligence.

He’s best known for A Perfect Storm, but in A Death in Belmont, a 1962 photograph shows him as an infant in his mother’s lap, posing with the two carpenters who’d just added an art studio to the Jungers’ home: The younger man is Albert DeSalvo, later known as The Boston Strangler.

Junger argues, convincingly but not definitively, that DeSalvo may have been responsible for the rape-murder of Bessie Goldberg, who lived near the Jungers, despite the conviction, based on circumstantial evidence, of Roy Smith, an African-American man seen walking the neighborhood,

My copy is feathered with Post-it notes marking passages that speak to the nature of murder and the difficult process of investigating a wrongful conviction.

As a Harvard undergrad, Cooper hears a story about an anthropology professor who murdered a female graduate student with whom he was having an affair, burning her body with cigarette butts and surrounding her in red ochre.

This “macabre legend” illustrates a common critique of true crime—a victim provided no name and no identity beyond the way she was brutalized. A former New Yorker editorial staff member, Cooper performed meticulous research on the 1969 murder, debunking the affair rumor and instead exploring a more interesting story about memory, institutional power, and misogyny in academia.

She also excavates the story of the crime’s victim, 23-year-old Jane Britton. Full of twists and turns, this real-life whodunit provides an exacting portrait of who Jane was and what her loved ones lost.

This book is on my list of all-time favorites. I read it more than a decade ago, but I still can’t get the ending out of my head. The book is intriguing and fast-paced, and I found the characters so relatable–normal, middle-class people, much like my own family.

Maybe that is why the ending hit me so hard. I didn’t see it coming, but I should have. Maybe I didn’t want to believe it could happen or even consider the possibility. Who would? What a twist. All the evidence is there. The motive is there. It is the only ending that makes sense. It’s perfect.