12 Gripping (And New-ish) True Crime Reads

by Kathryn Miles

On the 20th anniversary of the murder, a journalist starts looking into the lives of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, who were killed while backpacking in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, revealing evidence of cover-ups and incompetence that possibly led to the apprehension of the wrong suspect.

by Tom Sancton

This gripping story about the famous 1970s Patty Hearst-style kidnapping of Baron Edouard “Wado” Empain is juxtaposed with the story of his famous grandfather, the first Baron, who built the Paris Metro, all with the fascinating alternating backgrounds of both Belle Epoque and 1970s high-fashion Paris.

retold by Alia Trabucco Zerán; translated by Sophie Hughes

Analyzes four homicides carried out by Chilean women over the course of the twentieth century. Drawing on her training as a lawyer, Alia Trabucco Zerâan offers a nuanced close reading of their lives and crimes, foregoing sensationalism in favor of dissecting how all four were perpetrators of grievous violent acts at the same time as being victims of another, more insidious kind of violence.

by Dick Lehr

Tells the gripping true story of an averted case of domestic terrorism in one of the most remote towns in the US where a militia group plotted to bomb a mosque, aiming to kill hundreds and inspire other attacks against Muslims across America.

by Stephen L. Carter

Carter delves into his past and discovers the inspiring story of his grandmother’s extraordinary life. Eunice Hunton Carter was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s—and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted.

by Benjamin Gilmer

A rural physician examines the case of his predecessor, who strangled his father, and, discovering he is plagued by mental illness, enlists a This American Life journalist to get him the help he needs, pitting them against a prison system that cares little about the mental health of its inmates.

by Gus Garcia-Roberts

In 1979, the gruesome slaying of a thirteen-year-old boy riveted the suburbs of Suffolk County, New York. As the county hustled to bring the case to a dubious resolution, a wayward local teenager emerged with a convenient story to tell. For his cooperation, Jimmy Burke was rewarded with a job as a cop and became one of the most feared figures in law enforcement. Jimmy the King is the story of the rise, reign, and paranoiac fall of a corrupt cop and his regime.

by Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel

A pair of award-winning journalists describes the story of a notorious maritime hijacking and the subsequent murder of a maritime surveyor who inspected the damaged vessel and discovered more questions than answers resulting in an expose of international shipping corruption.

by Sonia Faleiro

On a summer night in 2014, Padma and Lalli went missing from their small village in India. Hours later they were found hanging in the orchard behind their home. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the people left behind. Slipping deftly behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honor, The Good Girls returns to the scene of their short lives and shameful deaths, and dares to ask: What is the human cost of shame?

by Susan Jonusas

Describes the true-crime story around the 1873 discovery of the remains of numerous bodies beneath an apple orchard, thought to be the work of the Benders, a family of four who seemed to be respectable homesteaders in Labette County, Kansas.

by Ron Franscell

This edge-of-your-seat, real-life thriller tells the true story of the first time in history the FBI created a psychological profile to catch a serial killer—a profile that fit the killer to a T when he was finally caught.

by David Dominé

This true crime saga—with an eccentric Southern backdrop—introduces the reader to the story of a murder in a crumbling Louisville mansion and the decades of secrets and corruption that live within the old house’s walls.