When I saw that Peter Vronsky had published another book, I couldn’t wait to read it. I had read his previous book Sons of Cain (2018) and found its overall argument compelling and original. Sons of Cain did an excellent job of not only drawing a thread between some of the earliest serial killings known …
Wish You Were Here by John Allore and Patricia Pearson
“I found myself asking, what would my sister have made of all this? Was I championing her cause or making a fool of myself? Our series had taken the police and the school totally off guard, and I was enjoying every minute of it. But was Theresa laughing alongside me, or scorning me for being …
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The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick
Here at True Crime Index, we are especially interested in the intersection of true crime and memoir. The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick (Simon and Schuster, 2018) is a text I was drawn to because it is so interested in combining these two genres. The Hot One is so much more than its salacious tagline, …
When She Was Bad by Patricia Pearson
Thoroughly researched and unflinchingly strong-willed, Patricia Pearson’s When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away with Murder (2021) is a stunning addition to the true crime genre and, in 1997 as much as today, gives readers a lot to think about. Pearson’s text is a reprint of her 1997 book of the same …
Cold Case North by Deanna Reder, Eric Bell and Michael Nest
The synopsis for Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett (University of Regina Press, 2020) captured me immediately. Two prospectors, Jim Brady and Abbie Halkett disappeared from the Northern Saskatchewan bush in 1967. After an extensive ground, water, and air search, nothing of note was found and the RCMP assumed they …
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The Dark Heart by Joakim Palmkvist, Agnes Broomé (Translator) by Rachel Friars
It would be easy to scoff at the amateur detectives out there searching, climbing, and snooping, or to dismiss the whole thing as shadow chasing, as if Therese and her colleagues were merely out on a ghost hunt, looking for shapeless bogeymen and imagined perpetrators, dreaming up convoluted conspiracy theories. Yes, they could be dismissed …
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The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg
In Emma Copley Eisenberg’s The Third Rainbow Girl (Hachette Books, 2020), Eisenberg vividly describes the mountains of West Virginia. She explains that, on some mornings, the mountains would be partially obstructed by a dense kind of fog that is particular to the area. Little by little, as the day wears on, more and more of …
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Missing from the Village by Justin Ling, by Rachel M. Friars
Justin Ling’s Missing from the Village (2020)is a thorough, timely, and incredibly thoughtful work of Canadian true crime that is a credit to the genre as a whole. Furthermore, the book is a powerful intervention into what we think we know about the way true crime is written. The text’s full title, Missing from the …
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The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
I have read many true crime books. I have consumed the good, the bad, and the ugly of this genre. I have been totally unaffected by some books, and unable to sleep because of others. The reaction I had to Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir (Flatiron Books, 2017) …
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Unspeakable Acts (2020) edited by Sarah Weinman
Perhaps one of the most fascinating and self-aware collections of true crime writing to date, Unspeakable Acts (2020) is an anthology that is not to be missed, perfect for both the earnest true crime scholar and the casual reader who prefers shorter, episodic stories that capture the essence and moral/emotional/political crux of a crime and …
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