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Do You Read True Crime?
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I read The Devil in the White City thinking it was fiction. Oh my. No, I don't generally read true crime. I do have David Simon's book in my to be read pile.
I ADORE true crime! I have 3 shelves in one of my bookcases dedicated to it. My "favorite" is In Cold Blood. I also love (if that's the word for it) Columbine. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, I have plenty of access to true crime. Ann Rule lives here and is always gathering new cases. Also, Puget Sound is/was the home of Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer. (I was lucky enough to have come to Seattle just before they caught the Green River Killer, so I have the headlines from it.)I find it fascinating that people can actually act the way they do in these stories. What happened to them or how are their brains wired? In many ways I find it more fascinating than mysteries because there usually isn't a nice tie-up. These people may go to jail, but that doesn't explain what they did. We rarely find a real motive. We can't get in their heads like an author can in a mystery.
It's a fascinating look at a side of life we tend to push into the corner. People are capable of horrible things, just like in the crime and mystery novels; it isn't made-up stuff. And I doubt any fiction writer can top what some of these criminals do.
But how do we deal with it? Are some people just born bad? Is it wiring in the brain or neuronal misfiring? Does it have to do with their treatment while growing up? Is it all mental illness issues?
True crime, as the article mentions, doesn't have to deal with murder. Think All the President's Men and Catch Me If You Can. While collar crime is in the newspapers daily and people who say they don't read true crime obviously don't realize it's in the paper everyday. And I don't mean the usual killings and such. Bernie Madoff may be a worse criminal that Ted Bundy every was.
I have a shelf full of Ann Rule books - both read and to be read. Though from the list given I think The Stranger Beside Me is the first Rule book I read. I do like reading true crime but sometimes it is easier to watch on TV then to read before I go to sleep.
never been much of a true crime reader but helter skelter was a good book i might check out the others on the list
I've read five of these, though I have Homicide: A year on the killing Streets on my TBR list. I'll have to add a few more now.I'd also add The Black Dahlia, which is a mystery based on the real Black Dahlia case. Technically not a true crime, but a great book.
For some reason True Crime doesnt interest me much. Maybe I just havent read the right one
I have only read a few true crime books. I think it is difficult to do them well and I think the genre has suffered due to a glut of so-so books. I should read the Capote one to see how it is really done.
I used to love true crime, but I agree with Leigh - The overwhelming number of bad/so-so true crime books hasn't done the genre any favors. It's a large part of the reason I stopped reading them - The other reason is that I see a lot of "true crime" in my job and I generally prefer fictional accounts now when reading for pleasure. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to read a very well-written true crime book and might have to check out some on the above list (Columbine, btw, was very good).
I have read some Ann Rule , last one was The Stranger Beside Me, I most admit it scared me more that fiction.I have Devil in The White City on my list.
I am a big fan of true crime. Even though, as some have mentioned, there are some kind of attention-seeking elements in certain books, but I like to read and try to see which angle the author is on. However these true crime books, more often than not, are information packed, its hard to digest if you read book after book, it took a toll on me.Devil in the white city is on my to-read list, I think its based on the HH Holmes crimes.
It is, Estelle. It's a GREAT book. Larsen writes well and I went to graduate school at the University of Chicago where the World's Fair was when he was active. Now as I think back on the locations, it's exciting (if that's the word) to think that such horrible things happened in the same location I was in many years before.
Nonfiction is definitely superior to fiction, but, as this admits, true crime is often trashy. I love literary true crime and have read most of these "top ten." I'm glad to have this list so I can read the others. Also THE GOOD NURSE has been on my to-read list since I saw the story on 60 Mintes.
The only true crime book I can recall reading in recent memory isStolen in the Night: The True Story of a Family's Murder, a Kidnapping and the Child Who Survived. I'm apathetic about true crime, for the most part.
True Crime may be trashy, but not any more so than the detective stories and pulp fiction during the '20s and '30s in the US. Kind of a no-brainer thriller. After all, people read People magazine and the other, to me, ridiculous "true" story "fanzines" and true crime is no worse, just for a different audience. It does take a particular type of person, but I wonder how many of the people who says they really aren't interested in true crime read the fanzines.One is better than the other. Just that we all have our preferences!!!
Linda wrote: "...I wonder how many of the people who says they really aren't interested in true crime read the fanzines."Actually, I read neither. Just haven't found a true crime book that I want to read. Years ago, probably when it came out, I attempted to read In Cold Blood, but, never finished it.
I do not read fanzines. Oh, I'll leave through one if that's all that's at my Drs. office. But, my problem there, is I really don't know any of the people being written about. I am not a follower. by any means, of pop culture.
I used to read a lot of true crime, and I'm actually still very interested in it. However, I've heard so many accounts of true crime books that were embellished or over exaggerated that I don't really trust that I'm actually reading "true crime." There are so many stories that I'm interesting in reading about, but if the facts aren't true I figure what's the use. Is there a way to know if a author is truly reputable? I would love to get back into true crime, but only if the facts are on the up and up. If anyone can suggest such books, PLEASE do.
I find crime books absolutely fascinating. I agree that some of them can be pretty schlock-y and tabloid(-y?), but when the author really has something to say – rather than just seemingly having a great time describing horrible crimes – I think they can be really interesting.Has anybody read any John Douglas or Robert Ressler, who were both criminal profilers with the FBI? If not, I would definitely recommend them both, especially Journey Into Darkness, which I thought was amazing.
There is also a criminal profiler called Paul Britton (in the UK), who wrote a book called The Jigsaw Man: The Remarkable Career of Britain's Foremost Criminal Psychologist. I would definitely recommend this too. Paul Britton became quite notorious in some ways for his involvement in a high profile murder case (Rachel Nickell) some years ago, and it is interesting to see his take on what happened.
I absolutely love true crime, although I am picky on who I read. Most I have read have been very good without a lot of tabloid feel. Some can be hard to read cause of the crimes themselves. I think I'm drawn to them cause of the psychology part. I find myself looking into the killers mind of what sets them off.
Britney wrote: "I absolutely love true crime, although I am picky on who I read. Most I have read have been very good without a lot of tabloid feel. Some can be hard to read cause of the crimes themselves. I think..."Same here Britney. The psychology of it is fascinating.
I haven't read many true crime books, but the ones I have read are the one that I keep returning to. I remember reading Helter Skelter 30 years ago and I still own that copy. I am fascinated by the JFK assassination and consequently own quite a few books written from different viewpoints. As a Brit and a Yorkshire lass , I've also 'enjoyed' books about Peter Sutcliffe aka the Yorkshire Ripper and Donald Neilson aka the Black Panther. I think what really draws me in are not the crimes themselves, but the process of investigation.
Jed wrote: "I haven't read many true crime books, but the ones I have read are the one that I keep returning to. I remember reading Helter Skelter 30 years ago and I still own that copy. I am fascinated by the..."Ooooo, these sound very interesting. I am adding them to my list!!!
The Line-Up (from Open Road Media) has an article about 6 Victorian True Crime books:http://www.the-line-up.com/media/vict...
The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief
by Ben MacintyreMr Briggs' Hat: A Sensational Account of Britain's First Railway Murder
by Kate ColquhounThe Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
by Kate SummerscaleDid She Kill Him?: A Victorian Tale of Deception, Adultery, and Arsenic
by Kate ColquhounLondon 1849: A Victorian Murder Story
by Michael AlpertThe Murder of Helen Jewett
by Patricia Cline Cohen
From "The Lineup":7 DISTURBING BOOKS ABOUT SERIAL KILLERS
http://www.the-line-up.com/8-disturbi...
From Ted Bundy to the Genesse River Killer, get inside the heads of history's most notorious serial murderers.
The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy The Shocking Inside Story
by Ann RuleNote: Ann Rule sadly died last night.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-n...
Body Dump: Kendall Francois, the Poughkeepsie Serial Killer
by Fred RosenThe Misbegotten Son
by Jack OlsenLove Me to Death: A Journalists Memoir of the Hunt for Her Friends Killer
by Linda WolfeSilent Rage: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer
by Michael NewtonForever and Five Days: The Chilling True Story of Love, Betrayal, and Serial Murder in Grand Rapids, Michigan
by Lowell CauffielBind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door
by Roy Wenzl
Since my last post here, I did read
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. My library system has an ebook copy of it and I read it on my Kindle for PC reader. While I did like it, he wrote it more as a novel than as a non-fiction book, I doubt that I'll read many more true crime books. Rather have the fictional versions.
I love true crime as I read it quite a bit. I have a bookshelf dedicated to all my true crime books I have read. First true crime author was Ann Rule and though I have read quite a few books from her, I still haven't read everything she has written. But I do branch out and read other authors as there seems to be a lot out there now days.
I don't read true crime that much. However, about a year or so ago, I read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. And, enjoyed it. But, more normal for me is to read crime fiction. Not any real reason, I just prefer reading fiction.
I am realizing how what I want to read has changed over the years. I used to only read mysteries, thrillers and crime fiction. But I read Patricia Cornwell’s book that gives the reader a plausible real name for ‘Jack the Ripper.’ I think it’s entitled Ripper, but in case I’m mistaken, look for it by her name as author. Now I’m in love with true crime!
Mod
Not much except for In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I’m more wary about reading true crime, unless it’s by an author I like, and/or what the author is trying to accomplish by writing it. Thankfully, In Cold Blood was satisfying on both counts. I’m more likely to read true crime fiction, i.e. fictional stories inspired by a true crime or criminal, for instance fiction based on Jack the Ripper, in particular Sherlock stories based on it. The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, by Michael Dibdin was an interesting take on it.
Crime, Mysteries & Thrillers
Books mentioned in this topic
In Cold Blood (other topics)In Cold Blood (other topics)
The Misbegotten Son (other topics)
Body Dump: Kendall Francois, the Poughkeepsie Serial Killer (other topics)
Love Me to Death: A Journalist's Memoir of the Hunt for Her Friend's Killer (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Truman Capote (other topics)Truman Capote (other topics)
Michael Newton (other topics)
Jack Olsen (other topics)
Fred Rosen (other topics)
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Charles Graeber's top 10 true crime books
The true crime genre has a bad reputation, often providing pulp with tabloid appeal, but there are some stone-cold classics
The most prolific serial killer in American history refused to speak with anybody. Then he started talking to me. Eight years later, the result is The Good Nurse, a book which, as a work of non-fiction with murder involved, is shelved in the genre of true crime. Which isn't, strictly speaking, a compliment.
You'll find no section in your bookseller for true history, or true memoir or true politics (though perhaps you should). Only crime gets treated like a criminal. It's as if the unethical subject matter has rubbed off on the writer and the writing.
Some of that reputation is deserved. Many "true crime" offerings are pulpy quickies with a tabloid heart and tabloid brains – human tragedy served as porno McNuggets. (Actually, that description fails. I'd like porno McNuggets, they sound yummy. But these books turn out the opposite – stale and flat as cardboard, and, frankly, "untrue".)
Happily, hidden among this genre are a heap of fulfilling standouts. The term given to books like these is "literary true crime". It's the triple-modified backhanded compliment and the term still seems a bit overwrought. Try introducing your lover as a "lovely, devout and a reformed prostitute" and you'll understand.
Whatever the genre title, this section marks the sweetspot of highbrow and low, truth and art, and among the thugs of the genre you'll find master craftspeople holding dirt but wielding the same literary toolkit available to the investigative journalist, the novelist and the poet, creating dirty and deep page-turners with the pacing of a thriller and a setting in the dirtiest of all worlds: the real one.
Narrowing them down to a "top 10" is impossible, but here are some of the best.
1. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by Jon Krakauer
Krakauer is a master journalist and a storyteller who is unfettered by and unafraid of the true crime mantle. Here, he transcends the genre with a story of Mormon brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insisted God gave them commands (commandments?) to kill. Krakauer pries open the golden doors to one of the newest and fastest-growing religions to set the stage for the non-fiction drama.
2. All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Is it too much to ask that a book not only provide a riveting read, but also inform a nation, and change the world? Answer: no. This one took down a presidency. The details are fascinating to journalists and normal people alike, the pacing is surprisingly engaging, and the result is a gumshoe news procedural with a rather happy ending, and a true crime book which became true history.
3. Columbine, by Dave Cullen
Like most folk, I thought I knew what happened during the Columbine, Colorado "trenchcoat mafia" school shooting in on 20 April, 1999. Dave Cullen proved me wrong. He spent a decade pulling out fresh sources and details about the lives of teen murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, then artfully pieced them into a ticking narrative which culminates in a moment-by-moment account of the massacre itself. You'll be ducking under your desk as you read.
4. Blood and Money, by Thomas Thompson
Noir classics such as The Thin Man or The Maltese Falcon are famous partly for the menagerie of bizarre and desperate characters encountered along the way to solving a crime. Investigative journalist and author Thompson finds the same in real-life Texas, as he digs into the 1969 murder of an oil heiress and Houston socialite. Truth here is far stranger than fiction.
5. The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer
A literary epic about real crime. In terms of scope and ambition and ego, not to mention length, it's hard to top Mailer's doorstopper about the life, crimes and execution of a Utah murderous drifter named Gary Gilmore. But who cares about the dirtbag - the meat of this book comes from Mailer's partnership with a Hollywood player, which gave him access to the meta-story, as agents and middlemen shamelessly jockey to secure rights to Gilmore's story and execution. It's too good, if too long, and hey, it won the Pulitzer.
6. The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy, the Shocking Inside Story, by Anne Rule
Before Rule became one of the best known American true crime writers, she had a day job working side by side at a suicide hotline centre with Ted Bundy – who she knew as a handsome, charismatic friend, and who the world would later know as a brutal serial killer. Unsettling and personal stuff.
7. Homicide: a year on the Killing Streets, by David Simon
Simon took a hiatus from his job as a Baltimore newspaper reporter to embed with homicide detectives in one of the most dangerous cities in the US, and then a few more to masterfully weave the stories together from all sides – players and the played, cops and baddies and innocents. Aside from providing grist for anyone attempting to understand the hard truths of life in an American warzone, this one of the most readable books here, particularly if you've ever lost a month bingeing on The Wire – a series based largely on this book.
8. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry
You can't deny the all-time bestseller of the genre, or the detail-driven dive into the world of Charles Manson and his addled cult known as "the family", written by a prosecutor of the Tate-LaBianca murders with access to all the grim details, partnered with a solid historical writer in Gentry.
9. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
This classic cannot be denied, even if sullied by recent questions about Capote's liberties with the facts and his poor treatment of his former friend and researcher, Harper Lee. Capote revelled in shattering notions of what a crime book could be, and the first to raise it to the novelistic level. His dissection of a 1959 home invasion and murder in rural Kansas is as much a drill down on disparate lives and family secrets as it is of the brutal crime itself, and his exclusive access to one of the young murderers is both sympathetic and damning.
10. People Who Eat Darkness: the Fate of Lucie Blackman, by Richard Lloyd Parry
A recent read, and a favourite. In April of 2000, Lucie Blackman was a blonde 21-year-old from Kent who suddenly disappeared into an unmarked door within the labyrinth of Tokyo's "hostess" bar culture. Parry is an award-winning UK foreign correspondent who spent an obsessed decade down the rabbithole of a curious story which got curiouser with each dirty turn. Take on a few chapters and get drawn into the rabbithole yourself. It won't take you 10 years, I promise.
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The group read The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America a few months ago; do you read true crime? If you do, what are your favorites? If you don't why not?