20 of the best true-crime books: Part 1
20 of the best true-crime books: Part 1
Great research, vivid writing, historical context – here's my selection of the first 10 of 20 outstanding non-fiction crime books…
Oswald’s Tale by Norman Mailer 1995
Forget the grassy knoll, mafia hitmen, Castro malcontents, CIA plotters, aliens – it was Lee Harvey Oswald what done it. Norman Mailer created a convincing portrait of a pathetic nobody who wanted to make a name for himself. He’d flirted with celebrity by ‘defecting’ to Russia in 1959, marrying a Russian, and attempting to shoot a general. Then, when he heard the President’s motorcade was passing the book depot where he’d just got a job, he reached for his $22 rifle. An unforgettable book.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara 2018
Not many true-crime authors can be said to have solved an historic case. Michelle McNamara, however, may eventually get some credit for the arrest made in 2018 in the Golden State Killer investigation. She was a journalist who wrote here of her obsession with this grotesque series of home rapes and then murders. Sadly, the author died before the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, a former cop suspected or 50 rapes, 13 murders and many burglaries. However, her proposal for the use of ancestral DNA and geographic profiling may have played a part in the police taking a new approach to the unsolved case. An absolutely must-read, genre-busting book.
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale 2008
Kate Summerscale found and brought to life a remarkable, hidden crime story from Wiltshire, 1860. The Kent family awoke one morning in their beautiful country home to make a horrific discovery – the brutal murder of three-year-old Saville Kent. The original country-house murder mystery, it became a national sensation. Much more than a crime story, however, the book is a gripping time journey into Victorian England. It gives us an extraordinary prototype detective in Jack Whicher – who didn’t get his villain – and a fascinating end story. A haunting, engrossing case.
Handsome Brute by Sean O’Connor 2013
Why do people read true crime? Probably to learn about, wonder at and be appalled by figures such as Neville Heath. He’s the former-RAF playboy and conman who after a lifetime of cheating, lying and fleeing justice, eventually turned to murder. His trial in 1946 fascinated and horrified Britain. Not sure I agree with the author’s emphasis on Heath’s wartime trauma as a significant factor in his homicidal endgame – he was a callous abuser of people before that – but this is a superb portrait of the period and one of its darkest figures.
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann 2017
Shocking account of the way in which members of the Osage nation in Oklahoma were targeted and murdered once oil was discovered beneath their land in the 1920s. The perpetrators of this deep conspiracy also murdered many of those who tried to investigate it. David Grann introduces us to some fascinating figures, from victims to agents in the fledgling FBI – in particular, former Texas Ranger Tom White – to the sinister, bespectacled cattleman William Hale. An emotional and haunting account of a terrible racist plot, it was also the source material for Martin Scorsese’s recent big-screen treatment.
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson 2003
HH Holmes was truly terrifying. This was a serial killer who didn’t skulk round dark alleys to find victims. Instead, he built a hotel with secret rooms and passages in which to snare and murder female guests. Unusually, Erik Larson counterpoints Holmes’s chilling murder campaign with wider historical events. These are the efforts of architect Daniel H Burnham to build a ‘White City’ for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. An entrepreneur of death, Holmes erected his hotel to attract the influx of female visitors drawn to Burnham’s beautiful fair. It’s hard to comprehend the scale of Holmes’s crimes.
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer 2011
This was made into a decent mini-series starring Andrew Garfield. The book, which I found a little wayward in trying to meld history with an horrific contemporary murder, does, however, ask a fascinating question – what is the nature of religious belief? Under the spotlight here is Mormonism; the crime is the ghastly killing of a Latter-Day Saint mother, Brenda Wright Lafferty, and her toddler daughter, Erica, by her brothers-in-law, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who claimed direction from God in committing the homicides. In charting how unquestioning and self-serving devotion to a belief can lead certain people to commit nightmarish crimes without conscious, this book was dismaying and infuriating, but compelling.
The Curious Habits of Doctor Adams by Jane Robins 2013
Dr John Bodkin Adams might have been something of a forerunner of murdering doctor Harold Shipman. In the genteel milieu of 1950s Eastbourne, Adams befriended well-heeled patients, worked his way into their wills, and then… Well, he was cleared of murder in 1957 during a trial for the death of one woman, while some 163 of his patients died while in comas (132 having left him money in their wills). Was he a mass killer? Jane Robins conjures a fascinating depiction of a long-lost era, while investigating the career of a very suspicious-looking GP. And you have to wonder what the forces of law and order were up to in going so easy with the charges.
The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey by Julia Laite 2021
In 1910, 16-year-old Lydia Harvey was slogging away in a low-paid job in Wellington, New Zealand, when a glamorous couple invited her to join them in Buenos Aires. Unable to resist an opportunity for adventure, she accepted their invitation – and disappeared. The glamorous couple were sex traffickers. This brilliantly researched book took me on an eye-opening journey into a world of international crime I never knew existed in this period. Events move around the globe, until Lydia is discovered on the streets of Soho, London, where detectives tracking an international gang spot her. An unforgettable read.
Catching a Serial Killer by Stephen Fulcher 2017
In 2011, a 22-year-old woman called Sian O’Callaghan failed to return home from a night out in Swindon. This is former Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher’s account of his team’s hunt for her, and how he eventually confronted cab driver Christopher Halliwell. It also explores the dilemma Fulcher faced. Hoping Sian was still alive and Halliwell might lead police to her, Fulcher got a murder confession from the cabbie before cautioning him for a third time and reminding him he could have legal representation. Fulcher unmasked a serial killer, but got punished for breaking the rules. A gripping account, and one that exposes some hypocrisy by the police hierarchy, and the fact that the PACE rules probably need reform.
Part 2 of this selection of non-fiction crime books will follow soon…
The wonderful Only Murders in the Building got there first, but here’s an upcoming comedy that takes the true-crime riff and goes to a slightly darker place. Coming to Netflix on 9 May, and starring Siobhán Cullen, Will Forte and Robyn Cara, here’s a taster for Bodkin…