Strange Piece of Paradise: A Return to the American West to Investigate My Attempted Murder - And Solve the Riddle of Myself


Terri Jentz - 2006
    As they lay sleeping in the central Oregon desert, a man in a pickup truck deliberately ran over their tent and proceeded to attack them with an axe. The horrific crime was reported in newspapers across the country, but no one was ever arrested. Fifteen years later, Jentz returns to the small town where she was nearly murdered and makes an extraordinary discovery: the violence of that night is as present for the community as it is for her. Shockingly, many say they know who did it, and he is living freely in their midst.Powerful, eloquent, and paced like the most riveting of thrillers, Strange Piece of Paradise is a startling profile of a psychopath, a sweeping reflection on violence and the myth of American individualism, and a moving record of Jentz's brave inner journey from violence to hope.

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders


Vincent Bugliosi - 1974
    What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Here is the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime. 50 pages of b/w photographs.

"If I Die...": A True Story of Obsessive Love, Uncontrollable Greed, and Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library)


Michael Fleeman - 2002
    He'd been shot at least four times in the head, decapitated, and set on fire. Who could have turned on the ambitious real-estate ace with such bloodthirsty fury? Even before the remains were found, circumstantial evidence was building against Rudin's tempestuous 52-year-old wife, Margaret, who stood to inherit a handsome share of her husband's fortune. Rudin's friends also suspected Margaret, and Rudin himself had thought that his wife was trying to poison him when he was alive. Then a chilling caveat was discovered in Rudin's living trust: that should he die under violent circumstances, an investigation should be conducted. By the time authorities closed in on Margaret Rudin, she'd disappeared. It would take two-and-a-half years to hunt the Black Widow down, and to discover the cold-blooded secrets at the heart of a poisonous marriage....BUT VENGEANCE WOULD COME-FROM THE GRAVE.... Now, reporter Michael Fleeman delivers a startling glimpse into the mind of a woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted as she drove the man who had promised to love and honor her to secretly fear her. Fleeman also details the relentless pursuit of justice that would lead authorities from the glamorous faade of Las Vegas to a squalid apartment on the outskirts of Boston to hold the remorseless wife accountable for her shocking and unfathomable crimes.

Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI


Robert K. Ressler - 1992
    Now the man who coined the phrase "serial killer" and advised Thomas Harris on The Silence of the Lambs shows how is able to track down some of today's most brutal murderers.Just as it happened in The Silence of the Lambs, Ressler used the evidence at a crime scene to put together a psychological profile of the killers. From the victims they choose, to the way they kill, to the often grotesque souvenirs they take with them--Ressler unlocks the identities of these vicious killers of the police to capture.And with his discovery that serial killers share certain violent behaviors, Ressler's gone behind prison walls to hear the bizarre first-hand stories countless convicted murderers. Getting inside the mind of a killer to understand how and why he kills, is one of the FBI's most effective ways of helping police bring in killers who are still at large.Join Ressler as he takes you on the hunt for toady's most dangerous psychopaths. It is a terrifying journey you will not forget.

Couple Found Slain: After a Family Murder


Mikita Brottman - 2021
    Joe, Florida and confessed that he’d shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he’d been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the murders on grounds of insanity.But after the trial, where do the "criminally insane" go? Brottman reveals Brian's inner life leading up to the murder, as well as his complicated afterlife in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where he is neither imprisoned nor free. During his 27 years at the hospital, Brian has tried to escape and been shot by police, and has witnessed three patient-on-patient murders. He’s experienced the drugging of patients beyond recognition, a sadistic system of rewards and punishments, and the short-lived reign of a crazed psychiatrist-turned-stalker. In the tradition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Couple Found Slain is an insider’s account of life in the underworld of forensic psych wards in America and the forgotten lives of those held there, often indefinitely.

Beyond Bad


Sandra Lee - 2002
    Cruel and evil, Katherine Knight showed no mercy when she butchered her lover in a crime that put her behind bars in an Australian prison for a record life sentence.Swinging from a meat-hook, John Price's entire skin was in one piece, including his hair, face, ears, nose, mouth, and genitals. Slashes and stab holes tore through the human pelt, a testimony to the wounds he suffered before dying.Knight, a 44-year-old abattoir worker, had stabbed father-of-three John Price 37 times, skinned his body, cooked his head, and served him up as a meal for his children. Drawing on first-hand accounts, Beyond Bad tells what motivated Knight to commit such a heinous act and how it rocked the small town where she lived. This is a horrifying story of love, lust, revenge, and murder that is all the more shocking because it really happened.©2002 Sandra Lee; (P)2003 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession


Rachel Monroe - 2019
    In the 1940s, a bored heiress began creating dollhouse crime scenes depicting murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Known as the “Mother of Forensic Science,” she revolutionized the field of what was then called legal medicine. In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, a young woman moved into Sharon Tate’s guesthouse and, over the next two decades, entwined herself with the Tate family. In the mid-nineties, a landscape architect in Brooklyn fell in love with a convicted murderer, the supposed ringleader of the West Memphis Three, through an intense series of letters. After they married, she devoted her life to getting him freed from death row. And in 2015, a teenager deeply involved in the online fandom for the Columbine killers planned a mass shooting of her own.Each woman, Monroe argues, represents and identifies with a particular archetype that provides an entryway into true crime. Through these four cases, she traces the history of American crime through the growth of forensic science, the evolving role of victims, the Satanic Panic, the rise of online detectives, and the long shadow of the Columbine shooting. In a combination of personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the twentieth and twenty-first century, Savage Appetites scrupulously explores empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of violence.

The Girl With No Past


Kathryn Croft - 2015
    It is a lonely life, without a social life or friends until – longing for a connection – she meets Julian. For the first time she dares to believe she can live a normal life.Then, on the fourteenth anniversary of that day, she receives a card. Someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won’t stop until they’ve destroyed the life Leah has created.But is Leah all she seems? Or does she deserve everything she gets?Everyone has secrets. But some are deadly.

The Peyton Brooks, FBI Box Set: Volume One: Books 1-5


M.L. Hamilton - 2018
    Over 1,000 pages of action and adventure from San Francisco’s top special agent. The Peyton Brooks, FBI series follows the career of Special Agent Peyton Brooks and her team, the Ghost Squad, as they tackle crimes around the world. This compilation includes titles: Zombies in the Delta, Mermaids in the Pacific, Werewolves in London, Vampires in Hollywood, and Mayan Gods in the Yucatan.

A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming


Kerri Rawson - 2019
    When she opened it, an FBI agent informed her that her father had been arrested for murdering ten people, including two children. It was then that she learned her father was the notorious serial killer known as BTK, a name he’d given himself that described the horrific way he committed his crimes: bind, torture, kill. As news of his capture spread, Wichita celebrated the end of a thirty-one-year nightmare. For Kerri Rawson, another was just beginning. She was plunged into a black hole of horror and disbelief. The same man who had been a loving father, a devoted husband, church president, Boy Scout leader, and a public servant had been using their family as a cover for his heinous crimes since before she was born. Everything she had believed about her life had been a lie.Written with candor and extraordinary courage, A Serial Killer’s Daughter is an unflinching exploration of life with one of America’s most infamous killers and an astonishing tale of personal and spiritual transformation. For all who suffer from unhealed wounds or the crippling effects of violence, betrayal, and anger, Kerri Rawson’s story offers the hope of reclaiming sanity in the midst of madness, rebuilding a life in the shadow of death, and learning to forgive the unforgivable.

Filthy Rich


James Patterson - 2016
    A college dropout with an instinct for numbers--and for people--Epstein amassed his wealth through a combination of access and skill. But even after he had it all, Epstein wanted more. And that unceasing desire--especially a taste for young girls--resulted in his stunning fall from grace. From Epstein himself, to the girls he employed as masseuses at his home, to the cops investigating the appalling charges against him, FILTHY RICH examines all sides of a case that scandalized one of America's richest communities. An explosive true story, FILTHY RICH is a riveting account of wealth, power and the influence they bring to bear on the American justice system.

Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction That Changed America


Les Standiford - 2011
    In the aftermath of that six-year old's abduction and slaying in 1981, everything about the nation's regard and response to missing children changed.The shock of the crime and the inability of law enforcement to find Adam's killer put an end to innocence, and altered our very perception of childhood itself - gone forever are the days when young children burst out the doors of American homes with a casual promise to be home by dark. And, due in large part to the efforts of Adam's parents, John and Reve Walsh, the entire mechanism of law enforcement has transformed itself in an effort to protect our children.Before Adam went missing, there were no children's faces on milk cartons and billboards, no Amber Alerts, no national Center for Missing and Abused Children, no national databases for crimes against children, no registration of pedophiles - in fact, it was easier to mobilize the FBI to search for a stolen car or missing horse than for a kidnapped child. Such facts may be sad testimony to the weariness of a modern world, but there is also an uplifting aspect to Adam's story - the 27 years of undaunted effort by decorated Miami Beach Homicide Detective, Joe Matthews, to track down Adam's killer and bring justice to bear at long last.Bringing Adam Home tells the story - the good, the bad, and the ugly - of what it took for one cop to accomplish what an entire system of law enforcement could not. Matthews' achievement is a stirring one, reminding us that such concepts as hard work, dedication, and love, survive, and that goodness can prevail.

The Prison Doctor


Amanda Brown - 2019
    From miraculous pregnancies to dirty protests, and from violent attacks on prisoners to heartbreaking acts of self-harm, she has witnessed it all. In this memoir, Amanda reveals the stories, the patients and the cases that have shaped a career helping those most of us would rather forget.

Tower of Lies: What My 18 Years of Working with Donald Trump Reveals About Him


Barbara A. Res - 2020
    

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.