Considering True Crime through academic and popular perspectives with reviews, interviews and more.
In The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder (Dutton, 2006) Daniel Stashower unravels the sensational tale of the ghastly murder of the young and beautiful Mary Rogers while simultaneously recounting the life of Edgar Allan Poe and the inspiration he drew from this murder case. On 28 July 1841 the …
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If you’re looking for the perfect winter read that will truly thrill and haunt you in equal measure, I cannot recommend Gregg Olsen’s Starvation Heights: The Chilling True Story of the Doctor who Starved her Patients to Death (Thread Books 1997 [reissued 2023]) more. By turns captivating and heartbreaking, Starvation Heights kept me guessing until the very end. Olsen’s …
One of my top murder cases to study and read about is that of Bobby Franks at the hands of the murderous pair, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two young men who seem to share the same face if you look at them long enough. With two similar faces along with two oddly similar surnames, their union …
Nicola Stow’s new anthology-style work of true crime, The Real-Life Murder Clubs: Citizens Solving True Crimes (Ad Lib Publishers 2022) is one of the first fascinating looks into some lesser-known citizen sleuths and the networks they use to solve cold cases and identify unknown murder victims. The Real-Life Murder Clubs is a timely and insightful look into what citizen …
The Forever Witness: How Genetic Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder (Dutton 2022) by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Edward Humes is one of the best works of true crime published this year. The Forever Witness is bound to inform readers’ understanding of criminal investigation and DNA testing. The text recounts the murder investigation and close …
In Deadly Triangle: The Famous Architect, His Wife, Their Chauffer, and Murder Most Foul (Dundurn Press, 2022), the most recent publication by award-winning Canadian author Susan Goldenberg, the author chronicles a gruesome but scintillating tale of scandal, adultery, and murder. In 1925, renowned British-born Canadian architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury shocked Victoria, BC society when he divorced his …
Rebecca Reisner’s new book, Forensic Files Now: Inside 40 Unforgettable True Crime Cases (Rowman & Littlefield 2022) is a hugely innovative and interesting text that will appeal to almost any true crime fan. Reisner’s text focuses on the television show that, for many of us, foregrounded our interest in true crime programs. Since its premiere in 1996, Forensic …
Steve Ryan’s new memoir, The Ghosts That Haunt Me: Memories of a Homicide Detective (Dundurn 2022), is an anthology-style text that recounts some of Ryan’s most memorable cases as a homicide and cold case detective with the Toronto Metropolitan Police. Across his career of over a decade, Ryan walks the reader through several infamous murder cases from …
Paul Fischer’s The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies (Simon & Schuster 2022) is a rather misleading title. Yes, it is about the man who invented motion pictures, on record as being the first man to record a moving photograph, but it is not at all about obsession, murder …
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The latest gripping true crime text from prolific crime writer John Glatt, The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family (St. Martin’s Press, 2022), is the absolutely gripping account of the Vallow/Daybell murder case. The first book published on the very recent crimes, Glatt brings his research expertise and precise writing …
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