INSIDE (One Man's Experience of Prison) A True Story


John Hoskison - 1998
    This work recounts his time inside one of Britain's toughest prisons following the incident: the squalor, violence, noise, stench, brutality, drugs and danger.

Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud


Elizabeth Greenwood - 2016
    So off she sets on a darkly comic foray into the world of death fraud, where for $30,000 a consultant can make you disappear--but your suspicious insurance company might hire a private detective to dig up your coffin...only to find it filled with rocks.Greenwood tracks down a British man who staged a kayaking accident and then returned to live in his own house while all his neighbors thought he was dead. She takes a call from Michael Jackson (no, he's not dead--or so her new acquaintances would have her believe), stalks message boards for people contemplating pseudocide, and gathers intel on black market morgues in the Philippines, where she may or may not obtain some fraudulent goodies of her own. Along the way, she learns that love is a much less common motive than money, and that making your death look like a drowning virtually guarantees that you'll be caught. (Disappearing while hiking, however, is a way great to go.)Playing Dead is a charmingly bizarre investigation in the vein of Jon Ronson and Mary Roach into our all-too-human desire to escape from the lives we lead, and the men and women desperate enough to give up their lives--and their families--to start again.

A Taste For Murder


Burl Barer - 2016
    His wife and step-daughter are in shock, and so is the medical examiner when he performs the autopsy. Aside from being dead, Frank is in perfect health. Demanding to know the cause of her husband’s death, Angie Rodriguez badgers the police, insisting that Frank was murdered. The cops attribute her assertions to overwhelming grief, but soon they too believe that Frank didn’t die of natural causes. When the police enlist their number one suspect to help in the investigation, things spiral out of control until police are dealing with a daring plot to murder Angie’s best friend, and allegations of another homicide so evil and perverse that even seasoned L.A County Detectives are shocked beyond belief ... and so will the readers!

The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator


Joakim Palmkvist - 2017
    When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on—except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime—and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden. But not for Therese Tang. For two years, this case was her obsession.A hard-working ex-model, mother of three, and Missing People investigator, Therese was willing to put her own safety at risk in order to uncover the truth. What she found was a nest of depraved secrets, lies, and betrayal. All she had to do now, in her relentless and dangerous pursuit of justice, was prove that it led to murder.

Forward: A Memoir


Abby Wambach - 2016
    Abby shows us by example how to overcome problems and live a happier, braver life." —Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, New York Times Bestselling author of Lean In “This is the best memoir I’ve read by an athlete since Andre Agassi’s Open. I could not put it down, and you will not want it to end.”  —Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and TakeAbby Wambach has always pushed the limits of what is possible. At age seven she was put on the boys’ soccer team. At age thirty-five she would become the highest goal scorer—male or female—in the history of soccer, capturing the nation’s heart with her team’s 2015 World Cup Championship. Called an inspiration and “badass” by President Obama, Abby has become a fierce advocate for women’s rights and equal opportunity, pushing to translate the success of her team to the real world.As she reveals in this searching memoir, Abby’s professional success often masked her inner struggle to reconcile the various parts of herself: ferocious competitor, daughter, leader, wife. With stunning candor, Abby shares her inspiring and often brutal journey from girl in Rochester, New York, to world-class athlete. Far more than a sports memoir, Forward is gripping tale of resilience and redemption—and a reminder that heroism is, above all, about embracing life’s challenges with fearlessness and heart.

"Please ... Don't Kill Me": The True Story of the Milo Murder


William C. Dear - 1989
     Dean Milo was a phenomenally successful businessman who had built a tiny family business into a 50 million-a-year corporation. Along the way he had established a lengthy list of enemies that began with his immediate family and stretched throughout the social and business community. His fast-track ride to the top came to a violent halt on August 11, 1980, when Milo was found dead in his luxurious Ohio home, shot twice in the head. A blank telegram form lay nearby. Four months after his death, the investigation remained a confusing collection of non sequiturs. Clues pointed toward Milo's involvement with the Mafia, the drug world, and the gay community. His own family refused to cooperate with the authorities. And time was ticking by … In desperation, Maggie Milo turned to Texas private eye Bill Dear. This is the gripping story of the remarkable collaboration between Dear and the police detectives of Akron, Ohio, that led to eleven convictions, an Ohio record. It is also a tale of the human weakness, desperation, and overwhelming greed that led to a sudden death.

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker


Kevin D. Mitnick - 2011
    While other nerds were fumbling with password possibilities, this adept break-artist was penetrating the digital secrets of Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation, Nokia, Motorola, Pacific Bell, and other mammoth enterprises. His Ghost in the Wires memoir paints an action portrait of a plucky loner motivated by a passion for trickery, not material game. (P.S. Mitnick's capers have already been the subject of two books and a movie. This first-person account is the most comprehensive to date.)

Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias


Jane Velez-Mitchell - 2013
    The grisly nature of his death made instant headlines: with twenty-nine knife wounds, his throat slit, and a gunshot to the head, Travis was left to die. The prime suspect in the case was Alexander’s ex-girlfriend, the attractive and soft-spoken Jodi Arias. Though Arias initially said that she was nowhere near the scene of crime, little about this case was as it seemed, and before long she had been caught lying to police. As the investigation progressed, her lies evolved multiple times before finally resting on an appalling claim: she had killed Travis in self-defense. Along the way, startling details emerged about the Mormon couple’s relationship, and soon graphic stories of their lurid sexual encounters and jealousy-driven blowouts revealed a dark side to their life together. These revelations launched a trial filled with sex and deception but also raised substantial questions about Arias’s deceit, as people from across the country struggled to understand the bizarre world of Jodi Arias.Now, award-winning broadcast journalist and bestselling author Jane Velez-Mitchell, a veteran of some of the most storied court cases in recent memory, goes behind the scenes of the trial and into the mind of a killer. Using insider accounts from friends who knew Travis and Jodi, Velez-Mitchell turns her sharply-focused lens on Arias and offers her seasoned perspective on the case’s most pressing questions. Separating fact from fiction, she reports on the bizarre and explicit stories that have both shocked and fascinated the American public—from Jodi’s romantic history before meeting Travis, to their torrid sex life together, to the complicated role their Mormon faith played in the relationship’s demise. With unbridled access to the evidence and the case’s key players, Velez-Mitchell unearths Jodi’s contentious life with those closest to her, examining the paranoid and erratic behavior behind each relationship and illustrating the disturbing pattern of a murderer in the making.Complete with photos from the case and Jane Velez-Mitchell’s fresh insights on the crime, Exposed takes readers behind closed bedroom doors to uncover the truth behind the secret and sordid life of Jodi Arias.

Murder in Room 305


Gary C. King - 1994
    King spins a gripping real-life tale of a woman caught in a deadly web of lust and violence...a riveting story of love gone horribly, tragically wrong. Kathryn Ann Martini graduated from Yale with a bright future in the banking business. Young, beautiful and ambitious, she had everything going for her. Until she met Michael David Lissy, the sleazy proprietor of a scuba diving school who was a coke addict that consorted with pimps, prostitutes and other known criminals. Burned out and broke, he had nothing going for him. Then he met Kathryn...a match made in hell.On July 6, 1984, the raped and mutilated body of Kathryn Martini Lissy was found at the Valley River Inn in Eugene, Oregon. Soon afterward, police arrested Michael David Lissy, Kathryn's husband of one year. A few months earlier, Lissy had taken out a large insurance policy on Kathryn's life, naming him as sole beneficiary. Then he hired an underworld assassin to stalk and kill his wife. After one of the most sensational trials in Eugene's history, Lissy was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.Notice to readers: This book was previously published as Web of Deceit.

Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: The Uncensored Story of the JonBenet Murder and the Grand Jury's Search for the Truth


Lawrence Schiller - 1999
    A brilliant portrait of an inscrutable family thrust under the spotlight of public suspicion and an affluent, tranquil city torn apart by a crime it couldn't handle, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town uncovers the mysteries that have bewildered the nation.Why were the Ramseys, the targets of the investigation, able to control the direction of the police inquiry?Can the key to the murder be found in the pen and writing pad used for the ransom note?Was it possible for an intruder to have killed JonBenét?

Chase Darkness with Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders


Billy Jensen - 2019
    Every story he wrote had one thing in common―they didn't have an ending. The killer was still out there.But after the sudden death of a friend, crime writer and author of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara, Billy became fed up. Following a dark night, he came up with a plan. A plan to investigate past the point when the cops had given up. A plan to solve the murders himself.You'll ride shotgun as Billy identifies the Halloween Mask Murderer, finds a missing girl in the California Redwoods, and investigates the only other murder in New York City on 9/11. You'll hear intimate details of the hunts for two of the most terrifying serial killers in history: his friend Michelle McNamara's pursuit of the Golden State Killer and his own quest to find the murderer of the Allenstown Four. And Billy gives you the tools―and the rules―to help solve murders yourself.Gripping, complex, unforgettable, Chase Darkness with Me is an examination of the evil forces that walk among us, illustrating a novel way to catch those killers, and a true-crime narrative unlike any you've read before.

Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir


Aspen Matis - 2020
    Both sought to redefine themselves beneath the stars. By the time they made it to the snowy Cascade Range of British Columbia—the trail’s end—Aspen and Justin were in love.Embarking on a new pilgrimage the next summer, they returned to those same mossy mountains where they’d met, and they married. They built a world together, three years of a happy marriage. Until a cold November morning, when, after kissing Aspen goodbye, Justin left to attend the funeral of a close friend.He never came back. As days became weeks, her husband’s inexplicable absence left Aspen unmoored. Shock, grief, fear, and anger battled for control—but nothing prepared her for the disarming truth. A revelation that would lead Aspen to reassess not only her own life but that of the disappeared as well.The result is a brave and inspiring memoir of secrets kept and unearthed, of a vanishing that became a gift: a woman’s empowering reclamation of unmitigated purpose in the surreal wake of mystifying loss.

Murder myself, Murder I am.


Jon Keehner - 2014
    He was supposed to be home by four o’clock that afternoon. Two days later, police discovered his abandoned car in the small town of Darrington, Washington. As my mother desperately struggled to get law enforcement to help find her husband, his killer set out to cover up his crime and evade detection. Once he was eventually captured, the shocking truth about the killer’s violent past and early release from prison deepened my mother’s resolve on her relentless quest to ensure, that despite a favorable plea deal that would have released him on January 27, 2014, that he would never walk free again.

John Christie of Rillington Place: Biography of a Serial Killer


Jonathan Oates - 2012
    Much has been written about the Christie killings and the fate of Timothy Evans who was executed for murders Christie later confessed to the story still provokes strong feeling and speculation. However, most the books on the case have been compiled without the benefit of all the sources that are open to researchers, and they tend to focus on Evans in an attempt to clear him of guilt. In addition, many simply repeat what has been said before. Therefore, a painstaking, scholarly reassessment of the evidence - and of Christies life - is overdue, and that is what Jonathan Oates provides in this gripping biography of a serial killer.

The Trial of Lizzie Borden


Cara Robertson - 2019
    Reporters flocked to the scene. Well-known columnists took up conspicuous seats in the courtroom. The defendant was relentlessly scrutinized for signs of guilt or innocence. Everyone—rich and poor, suffragists and social conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—had an opinion about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence.The popular fascination with the Borden murders and its central, enigmatic character has endured for more than a hundred years, but the legend often outstrips the story. Based on transcripts of the Borden legal proceedings, contemporary newspaper articles, previously withheld lawyer's journals, unpublished local reports, and recently unearthed letters from Lizzie herself, The Trial of Lizzie Borden is a definitive account of the Borden murder case and offers a window into America in the Gilded Age, showcasing its most deeply held convictions and its most troubling social anxieties.