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 …
Tag: literary
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
A best seller when it was first published just over two decades ago, Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Harper Perennial, 1999) remains a captivating read for the contemporary reader. Although today physical copies have been made largely obsolete by internet …
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Helltown by Casey Sherman
True Crime writer Casey Sherman’s latest book, Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod (Sourcebooks, 2022), is a fascinating and unflinching look at the crimes of Tony Costa and the two great American writers who were inspired by him. Tony Costa’s crimes have been given less attention in the true crime …
Cults by Max Cutler and Kevin Conley
Podcast host Max Cutler and Kevin Conley’s new book, Cults: Inside the World’s Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People who Joined Them (Gallery Books, 2022), is a new anthology that delves into the minute details of some of the most famous cults in history. Divided into a series of chapters, each dealing exclusively with …
The Colony (2022) by Sally Denton
In investigative journalist Sally Denton’s new book, The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land (W.W. Norton & Company 2022), she explores the long and complex history of the Mormon church, women’s place within that history, and what factors led to the violent deaths of nine women and children on a fateful day in …
The Ballad of Jacob Peck by Debra Komar
Debra Komar’s The Ballad of Jacob Peck (Goose Lane, 2013) is a noteworthy attempt to resurrect one of New Brunswick’s earliest murder cases from the murkiness of the historical record and the well-meaning, but often inaccurate retellings of amateur historians over the decades. In the bleak early months of 1805, self-styled preacher Jacob Peck arrived …
Murder in the Neighborhood by Ellen J. Green
Ellen J. Green’s new novel, Murder in the Neighborhood: the True Story of America’s First Mass Shooting (Thread 2022) is an in-depth look at the gun violence in post-war America through the lens of one man’s violent crime in a small community. The text begins in East Camden, New Jersey on 6 September 1949, when …
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Snake Eyes by Bitty Martin
Snake Eyes: Murder in a Southern Town by Bitty Martin (Rowan & Littlefield 2022) is a straightforward and classic example of true crime that focuses on a little-known case, beginning in 1960s Arkansas, and the complex people and events that led to its resolution years later. Martin’s book begins with the sudden and shocking death …
Shadowman by Ron Franscell
Shadowman: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profilingby Ron Franscell (Berkley Books 2022) was an expertly paced and thoroughly researched true crime book about a strange and tragic series of crimes and the early days of FBI profiling that had me on the edge of my seat until the very end. Franscell’s …
The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale
In her award-winning book The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder in Victorian London (Penguin Books, 2017), Kate Summerscale provides a vivid narrative of the life of Robert Allen Coombes, who at age thirteen murdered his mother in her sleep. Born in 1882, Coombes and his younger brother Nattie spent most of their childhood in the …
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