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When I was a practicing journalist, I preferred getting my stories from the back road—“off the beaten path,” as is said. What I’m drawn to is the way a story is told, and since my game is journalism, I like the true ones. My father was a pretty good storyteller. My brother-in-law is wicked good. I hang with my jaw open, waiting on his next word. It’s like being able to tell a good joke. Few can do it. When it comes to True Crime, forget the blood and body count. Anyone can lay out the facts. It takes master storytelling to deliver us to the army of small truths that brought forth the crime—and the humanity that dissolved along the way.
I’ve read In Cold Blood at least twice, but I think three times is the actual count. The first time, I was in my early twenties, not yet a writer, and I remember being gobsmacked—love that word—by a single sentence.
I remember reading the sentence again. And again. It was a marvel to me how alive it was, and how it told me all I needed to know about a place to understand that place. Nothing happens here; move on, it said—“Like waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama in the shape of exceptional happenings had never stopped there.”
The chilling true crime 'non-fiction novel' that made Truman Capote's name, In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative published in Penguin Modern Classics.
Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock, who, vividly…
As an educator and author of many books, I was asked to write a book about the spiritual journey of a DEA agent with two PIs. They were determined to end a notorious Cartel organization operating along the U.S. Southwestern border. For over five years the two Private Investigators (PI) and DEA Agent Larry Hardin prepared the case for prosecution. The case hit one roadblock after another when presented to five different U.S. Attorneys for prosecution. The books listed below will appeal to similar customers and show connections of the criminal underworld and how the judicial system function’s; finding a way to bring them to justice. News junkies, historians, and true crime enthusiasts will enjoy reading these stories told by those who investigated the activities.
This is an excellent reading about a former FBI agent not giving up on their search to find predators. I truly honor this agent for how he never gave up on the search. From my former experience as a Special Agent with The Drug Enforcement Administration, the writers did a thorough job to focus on how the FBI Agents unselfishly dedicated long investigative hours to target the predators of children. The writers described how the FBI agent’s moral beliefs and his dedication to helping the sexually abused children; perseverance, and creative innovative investigative techniques that enable him to find the predators.
"The voice that narrates In the Name of the Children: An F.B.I. Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators, which Rinek wrote with the journalist Marilee Strong, sounds warm and humane, qualities missing from much crime writing. Their book is a professional job, filled with illuminating details about the day-to-day operations of the bureau."
—New York Times Book Review
FBI Special Agent Jeff Rinek had a gift for getting child predators to confess. All he had to do was share a piece of his soul . . .
In the Name of the Children gives an unflinching look at…
I believe my love of horror and mystery started young. My first favorite book was The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. I started writing my first mystery novel when I was in high school. It wasn’t very good, but I still have it. I have so many stories in my head that it’s hard to keep them straight. I also co-host a True Crime podcast, Nothing Happens in A Small Town.
If You Tell reads like a fiction mystery novel. I wasn’t paying attention when I started reading this, and I thought it was fiction. When I realized this book was based on a true story it bewildered me. You hear stories about people, how horrible they can be, but this mother had to be a fictional character – she’s not. She will give you nightmares.
A #1 Wall Street Journal, Amazon Charts, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen's shocking and empowering true-crime story of three sisters determined to survive their mother's house of horrors.
After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle's talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now.
For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all,…
One of my first newspaper jobs was as a crime writer, covering and discovering crime stories in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. There's a lot of chaff among the wheat in the true crime genre. Some books are padded with the author's personal lives. Some have paper-thin plots. The books I've recommended are well-told, well-researched stories that are hard to put down.
Michelle McNamara waded into a new area of criminal investigation—hive investigation.
McNamara, a crime writer, got crime buffs together online, each using specific talents to search for the burglar-kidnapper-murderer who terrorized Californians for 12 years. With their help and DNA from an ancestry website, police were able to arrest ex-cop Joseph DeAngelo.
He pled guilty to 13 counts of murder and kidnapping in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors called DeAngelo a poster boy for the death penalty.
Mc Namara's dogged detective work helped nab him and she is credited with the appellation Golden State Killer.
THE BASIS FOR THE MAJOR 6-PART HBO® DOCUMENTARY SERIES
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR:
Washington Post | Maureen Corrigan, NPR | Paste | Seattle Times | Entertainment Weekly | Esquire | Slate | Buzzfeed | Jezebel | Philadelphia Inquirer | Publishers Weekly | Kirkus Reviews | Library Journal | Bustle
Winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards for Nonfiction | Anthony Award Winner | SCIBA Book Award Winner | Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime | Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence
The haunting true story of the elusive serial rapist…
I’d always known about the Lady of the Dunes. I’d read about how she was found in the dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, on July 26, 1974. I didn’t know about the tens of thousands of other unidentified victims like her, stowed around the US in the back rooms of morgues and unmarked graves. As a journalist who has always given a voice to those who struggle to be heard, I feel compelled to research and write about these Jane and John Does and the people who work to keep their cases in the public eye. I share a unique bond with writers who do the same.
Hikers stumbled upon the body of a young woman near Boulder, Colorado, in 1954. Buried in an anonymous grave, for decades she was yet another Jane Doe, abandoned and unidentified.
Decades later, historian Silvia Pettem joined forces with law enforcement and forensic experts. Together, they exhume the Jane Doe and achieve the seemingly impossible: they identify her andher probable killer.
In 1954, two college students were hiking along a creek outside of Boulder, Colorado, when they stumbled upon the body of a murdered young woman. Who was this woman? What had happened to her? The initial investigation turned up nothing, and the girl was buried in a local cemetery with a gravestone that read, "Jane Doe, April 1954, Age About 20 Years."
Decades later, historian Silvia Pettem formed a partnership with law enforcement and forensic experts and set in motion the events that led to Jane Doe's exhumation and eventual identification, as well as the identity of her probable killer.…
I trace my interest in true crime back to the early 1970s when I worked as a staff cartoonist for a weekly newspaper in Wichita, Kansas.A former cop lent me his vast collection of mugshots.Looking into the literal face of crime awakened in me a lasting interest.He also gave me a copy of the complete police file of an unsolved murder from years earlier. Scrutinizing it gave birth to my passion for real-life mysteries like Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, Mary Rogers, and the Black Dahlia.To my mind, questions are always more fascinating than answers.
This is the most detailed account we’re likely to get of what remains an enduring mystery: the 1996 murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in her home in the affluent town of Boulder, Colorado.From the beginning, police and all other observers were baffled, although the victim’s parents remained under a cloud of suspicion.An added bizarre element was the mother’s grooming of her daughter to compete in child beauty pageants.
In Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller thoroughly recreates every aspect of the complex case of the death of JonBenét Ramsey. A brilliant portrait of an inscrutable family thrust under the spotlight of public suspicion and an affluent, tranquil city torn apart by a crime it couldn't handle, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town uncovers the mysteries that have bewildered the nation.
Why were the Ramseys, the targets of the investigation, able to control the direction of the police inquiry?
Can the key to the murder be found in the pen and writing pad used for the ransom note?
Was it possible…
For the last 19 years, I have worked narcotics K-9s for a private company called Sherlock Hounds Detection Canines. I recently retired from the K-9 work, but over the years, I loved seeing how dogs solve crimes in real life. Not only do they help us solve crimes, but dogs have a way of reaching people and changing lives. Dogs are quite literally “man’s (or woman’s) best friend,” and because of that, they become the best partners for many characters in books. There’s nothing better than discovering a new K-9 series that depicts the real-life love and bond between K-9 and handler.
I was excited to read another book with fascinating characters and of course, a great K-9. Nickless’ characters are well-developed and very believable. Her fictional K-9 Clyde is captivating and while he’s technically retired, still has the skillset to help his handler, Sydney Parnell.
I love the character arc with Sydney in each book as she recovers from the traumas of serving in the military. I also love that Nickless had Sydney return home to Denver to work as a railroad police special agent. This is a law enforcement job that I haven’t seen in any other book. I appreciated the thrilling storyline and how Nickless created strong tension that ratcheted up to a suspenseful ending.
A young woman is found brutally murdered, and the main suspect is the victim's fiance, a hideously scarred Iraq War vet known as the Burned Man. But railroad police Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell, brought in by the Denver Major Crimes unit to help investigate, can't shake the feeling that larger forces are behind this apparent crime of passion.
In the depths of an icy winter, Parnell and her K9 partner, Clyde-both haunted by their time in Iraq-descend into the underground world of a savage gang of rail riders. There, they uncover a wide-reaching conspiracy and…
For the last 19 years, I have worked narcotics K-9s for a private company called Sherlock Hounds Detection Canines. I recently retired from the K-9 work, but over the years, I loved seeing how dogs solve crimes in real life. Not only do they help us solve crimes, but dogs have a way of reaching people and changing lives. Dogs are quite literally “man’s (or woman’s) best friend,” and because of that, they become the best partners for many characters in books. There’s nothing better than discovering a new K-9 series that depicts the real-life love and bond between K-9 and handler.
I love books set in the Colorado mountains and, of course, a great K-9 character. In the first book of the Tin Star K-9 series, the reader is introduced to Caitlyn Reed and her dog, Renegade. Unlike many K-9 series, this story starts before Caitlyn and Renegade become law enforcement officers and shows their journey into that career.
The family dynamics in this book create great tension throughout the story. I love Caitlyn as a character because she’s a strong female who isn’t easily deterred from investigating a murder. I appreciated that Burnett’s K-9 was a Malinois-German Shepherd mix—a combo that is being bred more often for law enforcement purposes. Burnett did a great job of weaving together a strong plotline with murder, revenge, and hidden secrets.
Caitlyn Reed and her dog, Renegade, are thrown into the midst of murder and intrigue when they discover a dead body while on a trail ride in the black hills of Wyoming.
The local sheriff is hell bent on a conviction, and Caitlyn’s brother, Dylan, is in his crosshairs. Desperate to prove his innocence, Caitlyn turns to Deputy Colt Branson for help, but she must grapple with their rocky romantic past to gain his aid.
As Caitlyn and Renegade pursue the killer, the investigation catapults their lives in a dangerous new direction, one with mysterious strangers,…
I am the mother of six and a voracious journaler. I am also a novelist. Though I’ve found that the facts of family adventures are often more fascinating than fiction. I bring in-the-moment observations as well as decade-seasoned insights to the world of family life. I also love reading about other families with all their quirks and joys.
I highly recommend this book to every parent. It is filled with gentle, practical wisdom in the setting of a frontier family. The father takes the time to teach through everyday experience and vivid analogies. We use his analogy of the “character house” all the time in our family. The mother has her own quiet strength, which the author shows more in the following books of the series. The book is also filled with the high energy and pranks of children, and the adventures of growing up on a ranch. A lovely true story, though be warned, you will cry at the end.
Ralph Moody was eight years old in 1906 when his family moved from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Through his eyes we experience the pleasures and perils of ranching there early in the twentieth century. Auctions and roundups, family picnics, irrigation wars, tornadoes and wind storms give authentic color to Little Britches. So do adventures, wonderfully told, that equip Ralph to take his father's place when it becomes necessary. Little Britches was the literary debut of Ralph Moody, who wrote about the adventures of his family in eight glorious books, all available as Bison Books. Purchase the audio edition.
The United States Old West is a legend, a myth, a land of contradictions. I grew up and have never left this vast land of scorching deserts, soaring peaks, misty coasts, and redwoods that touch the heavens. I grew up on the myths – Tombstone, Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, Pearl Hart. What I love most are the stories of the women of the West, who survive with grit, wiles, and no small amount of courage. I love finding the lesser known women through novels and research and seeing their lives bloom before my eyes. Cowgirls, sufragettes, doctors, ex-slaves, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, cattle rustlers, homesteaders, dancehall girls.
This novel follows the journey of Mattie Spenser, a young bride who leaves her comfortable city life behind to settle in the harsh and unforgiving Colorado frontier.
As she faces numerous challenges, including isolation and the demands of homesteading, Mattie's inner strength and resilience shine through. Mattie's determination, the vivid depiction of frontier life, and the exploration of women's roles in the Old West pulled me right into her world.
A truly unique voice that absolutely enthralled me.
Unexpectedly married to the man considered the catch of her hometown, a young woman finds herself traveling via covered wagon to Colorado in search of a new start, with only her reticent husband and her personal journal to keep her company
