Staff Picks
True Crime - Murder Most Multiple
- Sara M.
- Thursday, January 03, 2019
Collection
Do you enjoy trips into the darkness? Like your true crime bloody? These are for you: book about serial killers and mass murderers guaranteed to keep you up at night.
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf2019 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
Why We Love Serial Killers
The Curious Appeal of the World's Most Savage Murderers
Published in 2014
Helter Skelter
The True Story of the Manson Murders
Published in 1994
Prosecuting Attorney in the Manson trial, Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the twentieth century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. 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.
Columbine
Published in 2009
Ten years in the making and a masterpiece of reportage, "Columbine" is an award-winning journalist's definitive account of one of the most shocking massacres in American history.
Death in the Air
The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City
Published in 2017
My Friend Dahmer
Published in 2017
We all have that one friend from school -- the strange kid, the class freak, the guy whose antics amused, entertained, and maybe even alarmed us. The one who sticks in our heads even with the passing of the years. That classmate is invariably left behind when we graduate, vanishing into memory, filed away with our old yearbooks and other teenage mementos. But every now and then we wonder, whatever happened to that friend? For one man who grew up in a small town in Ohio, that questions was by every media outlet in the world on July 22, 1991, when Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested for the murder of seventeen young men and teenage boys. My Friend Dahmer is a graphic novel from political cartoonist Derf Backderf in which he tries to make sense of the future serial killer with whom he shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides.
The Good Nurse
A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
Published in 2013
After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history. Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in this piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, the author, a journalist presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, this book weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal. The author's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost. This work does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. This book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Published in 2017
Presents a true account of the early twentieth-century murders of dozens of wealthy Osage and law-enforcement officials, citing the contributions and missteps of a fledgling FBI that eventually uncovered one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
The Man from the Train
The Solving of a Century-old Serial Killer Mystery
Published in 2017
"Using unprecedented, dramatically compelling sleuthing techniques, legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applies his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together, faces covered with cloth. Some of these cases, like the infamous Villasca, Iowa, murders, received national attention. But few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station. When celebrated baseball statistician and true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal. In turn, they uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America. Riveting and immersive, with writing as sharp as the cold side of an axe, The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history"-- Provided by publisher.
Blood Will out
The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade
Published in 2014
The true story of a young novelist who meets and befriends an eccentric, privileged New Yorker when he delivers a crippled hunting dog to him from an animal shelter, and later discovers that his friend was a serial imposter and brutal double-murderer.
Lost Girls
An Unsolved American Mystery
Published in 2013
"A literary account of the lives and presumed serial killings of five Craigslist prostitutes, whose bodies were found on the same Long Island beach in 2010. Based on the New York magazine cover story"-- Provided by publisher.
The Devil in the White City
Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Published in 2003
People Who Eat Darkness
The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up
Published in 2012
Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, chronicles the 2000 disappearance, massive search, long investigation, and the even longer murder trial behind the gruesome murder case of Lucie Blackman in Japan.
The Monster of Florence
Published in 2008
New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston teams up with Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to present a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy. The Monster of Florence is a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide--and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi are caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.--From publisher description.
Green River, Running Red
The Real Story of the Green River Killer ... America's Deadliest Serial Murderer
Published in 2005
Traces the serial murders of the Green River Killer, profiling Gary Ridgway as a happily married man who worked for the same company for thirty years, and discusses the DNA breakthroughs that established his link to the killings.
The Stranger Beside Me
Published in 2009
The #1 "New York Times"--Bestselling true crime writer tells the chilling tale of how she came to learn that Ted Bundy, her close friend and colleague at a Seattle crisis hotline, was in fact a savage serial killer.
Sons of Cain
A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present
Published in 2018
"From the author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters ... an in-depth examination of sexual serial killers throughout human history, how they evolved, and why we are fascinated by their horrifying crimes"--Back cover.