Daniel Barban Levin’s Slonim Woods 9: A Memoir (Penguin Random House, 2021) tells the story about his experience in the so-called “Sarah Lawrence Cult.” Levin’s experience in this cult began when he was attending Sarah Lawrence College his housemate’s father—Larry Ray, who had just gotten out of prison—moved in with Levin and the rest of his housemates. Ray proved …
Lost in the Valley of Death by Harley Rustad
Harley Rustad’s new book, Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas, recounts the strange and tragic story of one travel blogger’s disappearance into the Himalayan mountains. With journalistic excellence, however, Rustad connects this mystery to a number of other strange disappearances in India, asking important questions about …
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Rachel’s Top Five True Crime Texts of 2021
This week, we finish up our top five series with Rachel's top texts of 2021. Check them out below! 1) When She Was Bad by Patricia Pearson (Penguin Random House, 2021) Pearson’s text, as a reprint of the same 1997 edition with a new chapter, is shockingly still relevant. I loved this book’s meditation on the way …
Jesyka’s Top Five True Crime Texts of 2021
As we near the end of 2021, all of us at True Crime Index have been looking back on a year of excellent books. We wanted to share these favourites with you in hopes that you too will give them a read. Up first is Jesyka's Top Five: Empire of Pain: The Secret History of …
The Beatle Bandit by Nate Hendley
Nate Hendley’s The Beatle Bandit: A Serial Bank Robber’s Deadly Heist, A Cross Country Manhunt, and the Insanity Plea that Shook the Nation (Dundurn Press, 2021) is a sad and shocking tale about Matthew Kerry Smith, a twenty-four year old man who robbed a bank in North York, Ontario in 1964 while wearing a Beatle wig. During …
True Crime Holiday Gift Guide – True Crime Index
This year at True Crime Index, we have been fortunate enough to read some of the best and most-anticipated true crime texts published this year. Covering an array of crimes and historical periods, the texts we reviewed this year featured something that appealed to nearly every true crime buff. Therefore, we’ve decided to put together …
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A Killer by Design by Ann Wolbert Burgess
For fans of John Douglas’ Mindhunter (1995) and Robert Ressler’s Whoever Fights Monsters (1992), foundational true crime texts on the history and genesis of FBI criminal profiling, Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess’s new book A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and my Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind (Hachette Books 2021) is the culmination of an …
Death as a Living by Doyle Burke
Doyle Burke and Lou Grieco’s new book, Death as a Living: Investigating Murder in America’s Heartland (Inkshares 2021) is a complex text that is part memoir, part police procedural, and part geographical history set in the unlikely location of Dayton, Ohio. The text recounts key episodes in the life of homicide detective Doyle Burke. Burke’s …
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
Even though it has been a few weeks since I finished Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (Penguin Random House, 2021), the book does not feel over for me. The book has not left me. Part of the reason why I still feel very much in the middle of this …
The Donnellys: Powder Keg (Vol. 1) by John Little
In The Donnellys: Powder Keg, 1840-1880, Vol. 1 (ECW Press, 2021), author John Little delves into the history of the infamous Irish-Canadian family known as the ‘Black’ Donnellys. The notoriety of the Donnelly family has lived on within the popular imagination of many Canadians, their crimes and escapades often being recounted by academic historians and writers of popular history …
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