Augment your spooky season with these spine-chilling true mysteries.

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Unspeakable acts : true tales of crime, murder, deceit, and obsession / [edited by] Sarah Weinman

Sarah Weinman brings together an exemplary collection of recent true crime tales. She culls together some of the most refreshing and exciting contemporary journalists and chroniclers of crime working today. Michelle Dean’s “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick” went viral when it was first published and is the basis for the TV show, The Act. Pamela Colloff’s “The Reckoning” is the gold standard for forensic journalism.

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The case of the vanishing blonde : and other true crime stories / Mark Bowden

The Case of the Vanishing Blonde collects six of his most riveting pieces-accounts spanning four decades of searing characters and unsettling tales to illustrate all manner of crimes and the ways technology has progressively altered criminal investigation. Also available as an ebook on hoopla.

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Cults : inside the world’s most notorious groups and understanding the people who joined them / Max Cutler with Kevin Conley

Mystery. Manipulation. Murder. Cults are associated with all of these. But what really goes on inside them? More specifically, what goes on inside the minds of cult leaders and the people who join them? Based on the hit podcast Cults, this is essential reading for any true crime fan.

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Deer Creek Drive : a reckoning of memory and murder in the Mississippi Delta / Beverly Lowry

The details of a 1948 murder in small-town Mississippi anchor a personal account of class, race, and justice.

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The angel makers : arsenic, a midwife, and modern history’s most astonishing murder ring / Patti McCracken

In the 1920’s a sharp-minded village midwife, a “smiling Buddha” known as Auntie Suzy, distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév, Hungary. In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses. But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead.

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Blood & Ink : the scandalous jazz age double murder that hooked America on true crime / Joe Pompeo

Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo investigates the notorious 1922 double murder of a high-society minister and his secret mistress, a Jazz Age mega-crime that propelled tabloid news in the 20th century.

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The lost sons of Omaha : two young men in an American tragedy / Joe Sexton

On May 30, 2020, in Omaha, Nebraska, amid the protests that rocked our nation after George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, thirty-eight-year-old white bar owner and Marine veteran Jake Gardner fatally shot James Scurlock, a twenty-two-year-old Black protester and young father. What followed were two investigations of Scurlock’s death, one conducted by the white district attorney Don Kleine, who concluded that Gardner had legally acted in self-defense and released without a trial, and a second grand jury inquiry conducted by African American special prosecutor Fred Franklin that indicted Gardner for manslaughter and demanded he face trial.

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American demon : Eliot Ness and the hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper / Daniel Stashower

In his latest true-crime thriller, bestselling popular historian Stashower turns his attention to the so-called “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” aka the “Cleveland Torso Murderer,” a still-unidentified maniac seemingly responsible for a dozen or more murders in Depression-era Cleveland. Also available as an ebook and audiobook on Libby/OverDrive.

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I’ll be gone in the dark : one woman’s obsessive search for the Golden State Killer / Michelle McNamara

A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer — the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade — from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case. Also available as an ebook and audiobook on Libby/OverDrive and as an ebook on hoopla.

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The art thief : a true story of love, crime, and a dangerous obsession / Michael Finkel

Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly ten years-in museums and cathedrals all over Europe-Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. Also available as an ebook and audiobook on Libby/OverDrive.

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Savage appetites : four true stories of women, crime, and obsession / Rachel Monroe

In this illuminating exploration of women, violence, and obsession, Rachel Monroe interrogates the appeal of true crime through four narratives of fixation. A combination of personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Savage Appetites is a journey into obsession, scrupulously exploring empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of crime.

October 2023: AI