Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: True Crime

Traces the author's experiences as a child born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, describing her participation in her family's paranoid stockpiling activities and her resolve to educate herself well enough to earn an acceptance into a prestigious university and the unfamiliar world beyond.
(Description from NoveList)

At the core of this book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. (Description from NoveList)

The author chronicles her experience at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory and, of course, progress. (Description from NoveList.)

In the early hours of July 16, 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend. A life full of promise and hope, cut tragically short, Liliana's story instead became subsumed into Mexico's dark and relentless history of domestic violence. With Liliana's case file abandoned by a corrupt criminal justice system, her family, including her older sister Cristina, was forced to process their grief and guilt in private, without any hope for justice.
(Description from catalog)

Jana Monroe was no ordinary cop. One of the first analysts in the world-renowned FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit at Quantico, she consulted on more than 850 homicide cases, including infamous serial killers Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Edmund Kemper, and Aileen Wuornos. Monroe was also the model for Clarice Starling in the movie version of The Silence of the Lambs; she even helped train Jodie Foster for her Oscar-winning role. Monroe’s later years found her dealing with the aftermath of Columbine, heading up the FBI’s post-9/11 investigation in Las Vegas, and much more.
(Description from Amazon)

The head of the FBI's investigative unit that deals with serial killers demonstrates his celebrated talent for getting inside their minds. (Description from NoveList)

From New York Times bestselling author Alex Tresniowski comes a page-turning, remarkable true-crime thriller recounting the 1910 murder of ten-year-old Marie Smith, the dawn of modern criminal detection and the launch of the NAACP. (Description from catalog)

Weaving together themes of power, gender and justice, the author, who was just eight years old when her mother was brutally murdered, recounts her drive to know her mother, and in the process, reckons with contradictions of what a woman is allowed to be and what a "true" victim looks like.
(Description from NoveList)

From true-crime legend T. J. English, the epic, behind-the-scenes saga of “Los Muchachos,” one of the most successful cocaine trafficking organizations in American history. A story of glitz, glamour, and organized crime set against 1980’s Miami.
(Description from NoveList)

Revisits the mysterious 1832 death of Sarah Maria Cornell, intertwining historical investigation with modern forensic techniques to uncover the truth behind her demise and the trial of Reverend Ephraim Avery, while reflecting on the impact of women who challenged societal norms in their pursuit of justice.
(Description from NoveList)

A terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond--a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence.
(Description from NoveList)

Follows four mothers who, driven by a shared fascination with true crime and a desire to reclaim their sense of purpose, undertake their own investigation into a decade-old double homicide, uncovering new evidence, confronting real risks, and challenging the boundaries of amateur sleuthing.
(Description from NoveList)

In June 1990, UCLA student Ronald Baker was found stabbed to death near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. LA detectives Rick Jackson and Frank Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one Black and one white. What emerges is a story of betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of the Rodney King scandal.
(Description from NoveList)

Framed around one salacious trial in 1891 London, a fascinating and vividly told true-crime narrative about the hunt for one of the first known serial killers, whose poisoning spree in the US, Canada, and England coincided with the birth of forensic science as well as the public's growing appetite for crime fiction such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels. (Description from catalog)

In the gripping true crime story, three courageous and strong sisters band together to escape their sadistic mother’s unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture and psychic terrors, which resulted in multiple murders. (Description from NoveList.)

A chilling true story--part memoir, part crime investigation--reminiscent of Ann Rule's classic The Stranger Beside Me, about a little girl longing for love and how she found friendship with her charismatic babysitter--who was also a vicious serial killer. (Description from catalog)

From New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman, a gripping contemporary true crime narrative for everyone fascinated by the Murdaugh murders, about Nathan Carman, who was found floating on a raft in the North Atlantic and was later accused of murdering his mother to gain access to his family's fortune of more than $40 million.
(Description from NoveList)

Fans of Mindhunter and true crime podcasts will devour these chilling stories of serial killers from the so-called "surge" or epidemic years of serial murder. (Description from catalog)

A New York writer presents a memoir of her childhood spent on the run in a series of homes in five different countries under an assumed name, describing her discovery of her father's fugitive status and his half-billion-dollar marijuana smuggling operation, her self-destructive youth and her efforts to reconcile her family's past with her own realities. (Description from NoveList)

The true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown.
(Description from NoveList)

The Last Outlaws is the thrilling true story of the last of the great gang of outlaws. The Dalton Gang consisted of four brothers and their rotating cast of accomplices who saw themselves as descended from the legendary James Gang. They soon became legends themselves, beginning their career as common horse thieves, before graduating to robbing banks and trains.
(Description from catalog)

An account of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 relates the stories of two men who shaped the history of the event--architect Daniel H. Burnham, who coordinated its construction, and serial killer Herman Mudgett. (Description from NoveList)

Part true crime, part memoir, The Accidental Picasso Thief uncovers the Rummel family's incredible brush with art history, crime, and one man's decades-long search for a lost masterpiece.
(Description from NoveList)

Drama abounds on the high seas and in the courtroom in journalist Cohen’s rollicking dissection of “one of the most famous cases in Western law”.
(Description from NoveList)

n 2017, Jay Austen and Lauren Geoghegan quit their well-paying Washington jobs to pursue a different American Dream-a bike trip around the world. On July 29, 2018, were brutally murdered by five ISIS terrorists.
(Description from NoveList)