Overbooked Book Lists

True Crime Stars

Page Modified: June 19, 2009

Cops, Robbers, Murderers, Trials and more. Present day and historical crime nonfiction titles are included on this list.

• My Life With Bonnie & Clyde
  Author: Barrow, Blanche Caldwell
  Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma $ 29.95 ISBN: 0806136251 Date: 2004
  LJ
  Blanche Barrow's previously unknown memoir of her life on the run with Bonnie and Clyde.
  Updated 11.2.04
• London Monster: A Sanguinary Tale
  by Bondeson, Jan
  Publisher: UPA $ 29.95 ISBN: 0812235762 Date: 2000
  Kirkus
  A century before Jack the Ripper, another predator held sway on the streets--the London Monster. Bondeson, the author of A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, now writes a lively and detailed account of the psychopath who violently slashed over 50 women during a two-year crime spree in the 1780s.
  
• Killing Pablo: The Hunt for Pablo the World's Greatest Outlaw
  by Bowden, Mark
  Publisher: Atlantic $ 25 ISBN: 0871137836 Date: 2001
  KirkusPW
  In a gripping, up-close account, acclaimed journalist Mark Bowden exposes the details of how U.S. military and intelligence operatives covertly led the mission to find and kill the world's most dangerous outlaw: Colombian cocaine cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar. This riveting nonfiction technothriller is from the author of the bestselling Black Hawk Down.
  
• Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family
  Author: Bowden, Charles
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 27 ISBN: 0684853434 Date: 2002
  KirkusBooklist
  In this real-life version of the award-winning movie, Traffic, one of the foremost writers of nonfiction today initiates an investigation into the shadows of the drug war.
  Updated 10.28.02
• Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
  Author: Boyle, Kevin
  Publisher: Holt $ 26 ISBN: 0805071458 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  Boyle recounts the electrifying story of the sensational 1925 Ossian Sweet murder trial, an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times, a city divided, and the advent of the civil rights struggle in Detroit.
  Updated 8.2.04
• A Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century
  Author: Brewer, John
  Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374261032
  Kirkus
  Leading historian Brewer reexamines a 235-year-old crime of passion whose true story seems hopelessly obscured by an intermingling of fact and fiction.
  Updated 3.25.04
• Kansas Charley: A Boy Murderer from the American Past
  Author: Brumberg, Joan Jacobs
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 067003228x Date: 2003
  LJ
  Most Americans regard "kids who kill" as a problem unique to our era. But in historian Brumberg's important new work, she reminds readers that it is, tragically, a long-standing dilemma.
  Updated 8.14.03
• Midnight Assassin: A Murder in the America's Heartland
  Author: Bryan, Patricia
  Publisher: Algonquin $ 23.95 ISBN: 1565123069 Date: 2005
  PW
  The authors' research into a 1900s murder develops into an examination of the harsh realities of farm life at the turn of the century and the plight of women--legally, socially, and politically during that period.
  Updated 2.14.05
• Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
  Author: Burrough, Bryan
  Publisher: Penguin $ 27.95 ISBN: 1594200211 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  Both a hugely satisfying entertainment and a groundbreaking work with powerful echoes in today's news, Burrough's account of America's greatest crime wave and the birth of the FBI is the definitive history of America's first war on crime.
  Updated 6.30.04
• The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill
  Author: Buss, David
  Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1594200432 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  Featuring a detailed study of 400 murders, plus FBI files, this title will appeal to readers interested in profiling, true crime and murder mysteries, and the inner workings of the human mind. Based on groundbreaking research, this is a psychologist's fascinating investigation of why everyone is "wired to kill."
  Suggested Reading: CSI stars
  Updated 3.25.05
• Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception
  by Carrerre, Emmanuel
  Publisher: Holt $ 22 ISBN: 0805065830 Date: 2001
  KirkusLJ
  Carrere presents the shocking, true story of a respectable doctor, 18 years of lies, five murders, and the extremes to which ordinary people can go. The Adversary--another name for the Devil in the Bible--is also a meditation on the mystery of identity, evil, and the desperate logic by which it is easier to kill than confess.
  
• Blue Blood
  Author: Conlon, Edward
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 26.95 ISBN: 1573222666 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklistPWLJ
  With brio and a thrilling literary style, Conlon depicts his life on the force--from his first days walking a beat in the South Bronx to his ascent to detective. The pace is relentless, the stories hypnotic, the scope nothing less than grand.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Adult Books for Teens
  Updated 4.5.04
• When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down
  Author: Cooley, Robert & Hillel Levin
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 26 ISBN: 0786713305 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Former Chicago mob lawyer Cooley tells of living a double life in order to turn on his cronies and help the federal government take down America's most corrupt criminal justice system.
  Updated 10.4.04
• Teasing Secrets from the Dead: My Investigations at America's Most Infamous Crime Scenes
  Author: Craig, Emily A.
  Publisher: Crown $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400049229 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  A forensic anthropologist recounts her unlikely career, which has ranged from murder victims discovered in the backwoods of Appalachia to some of the highest-profile cases of our time.
  Updated 6.30.04
  Suggested Reading: CSI Stars - Crime Scene Investigations | Adult Books for Teens
• Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath
  Author: Cummins, Jeanine
  Publisher: New American Library $ 12.95 (paper) ISBN: 0451210530
  PW
  This intimate memoir tells of one family's immediate and widely publicized story of surviving a shocking crime and suffering in the aftermath.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 4.19.04
• No Backup: My Life as a Female FBI Special Agent
  Author: Dew, Rosemary
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 13.95 ISBN: 0786714913 Date: 2005
  LJ
  This is a memoir of a female special agent's 13 years with the FBI, an expose of the Bureau's sexist practices, and a warning about how failings that affect our nation's security are passed from generation to generation of FBI agents.
  Updated 2.7.05
• Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches form the Wrongly Convicted
  by Dwyer, Jim, Peter Neufield, and Barry Schenk
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 038549314x Date: 2000
  PW
  In the last decade, DNA testing has uncovered stone-cold proof that 55 completely innocent people have been sent to prison and death row. In Actual Innocence, the authors relate the harrowing stories of ten of these individuals and tell of the heroic efforts to free them.
  
• Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments
  by Dunne, Dominick
  Publisher: Crown $ 24 ISBN: 0609608738 Date: 2001
  PWKirkus
  In this fascinating collection, the world's most accomplished chronicler of the crimes of the wealthy writes on some of the most notorious trials of our times, including the explosive Martha Moxley murder case, the trials of O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, and Dunne's heartrending report of the trial of his daughter's killer.
  
• The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison
  Author: Emsley, John
  Publisher: Oxford $ 30 ISBN: 0192805991 Date: 2005
  PW
  The author offers a fascinating account of five of the most toxic elements--arsenic, antimony, lead, mercury, and thallium--describing their lethal chemical properties and highlighting their use in some of the most famous murder cases in history.
  Updated 4.19.05
• Trail of Blood: A Father, A Son, and a Tell-Tale Crime Scene Investigation
  Author: Evans, Wanda Webb
  Publisher: New Horizon $ 23 ISBN: 0882822616 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Updated 3.16.05
• True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa
  Author: Finkel, Michael
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 006058047x Date: 2005
  PW
  True Story is the remarkable account of the relationship between a man accused of killing his entire family, and of the "New York Times Magazine" writer he impersonated while on the run.
  Updated 3.21.05
• Invisible Eden: A True Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod
  Author: Flook, Maria
  Publisher: Broadway $ 24.95 ISBN: 0767913744 Date: 2003
  KirkusLJBooklist
  A literary investigation of a story that riveted the nation: how a globe-trotting fashion writer who had retreated to a simpler life as a single mother on Cape Cod became the victim of a brutal, still unsolved murder.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 6.30.03
• The Cyanide Canary
  Author: Hilldorfer, Joseph & Robert Dugoni
  Publisher: Free $ 26 ISBN: 0743246527 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklist
  In this true story of a horrific environmental crime, written by an EPA Special Agent, a brave young man suffers severe brain damage after being pulled from a poison-saturated 25,000-gallon storage tank.
  Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
  Updated 6.30.04
• The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad
  Author: Horn, Stacy
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670034193 Date: 2005
  KirkusPWLJ
  Following four cold cases from inception to resolution, Horn depicts the world of the victims and their murderers, along with the scientific advancements that don't always yield hoped for answers, and the harrowing politics and tangled history of the NYPD and its cold case unit.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 6.29.05
• Bloodsworth: the True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA
  Author: Junkin, Tim
  Publisher: Algonquin $ ISBN: 1565124197 Date: 2004
  LJ
  A shocking, page-turner of a book that, as Scott Turow says, "may well be the most incredible and important true story ever written about a death row convict's daily battle for survival, both in the cell block and in the courtrooms."
  Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
  Updated 6.17.04
• The Brass Wall: the Betrayal of Undercover Detective #4126
  Author: Kocieniewski, David
  Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805065334 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  In 1993, Vincent Armanti, Undercover Detective #4126, agreed to infiltrate the branch of the Lucchese family responsible for the homicide of a beloved fireman. Here, in all his humanity, is an unforgettable hero, battling for his honor and survival.
  Updated 7.8.03
• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
  Author: Krakauer, Jon
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 0385509510 Date: 2003 Date: 2003
  KirkusLJ
  Krakauer shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief in this true story of an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers who insist God commanded them to kill.
  Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars
  Updated 6.30.03
• All the Centurions: A New York City Cop Remembers His Years on the Street, 1961-1981
  Author: Leuci, Bob
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0380976269 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  Leuci takes readers into the world of the New York City Police Department at a time when the city was crumbling under its own weight, drugs were taking over the poorer neighborhoods, and crime was rampant on the streets and subways.
  Updated 4.26.04
• Arsenic Under the Elms: Murder in Victorian New Haven
  by McConnell, Virginia A.
  Publisher: Praeger Publishers ISBN:0-275-96297-0 $ 26.95 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  Attorney and crime researcher Virginia McConnell delves into two unrelated, unsolved murders in late-1800s New Haven to provide a fascinating view of Victorian Connecticut. The colorful characters involved in tile commission, investigation, and prosecution of these crimes emerge as real, vibrant individuals, and their stories, compelling in themselves, reveal much about Victorian sex and marriage, drugs from arsenic to aphrodisiacs, early forensic medicine, and 19th-century courtroom antics. - Publisher marketing.
  
• Wainewright the Poisoner: The Memoir of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright - Regency Author, Painter, Swindler, and Probable Murderer - Brilliantly Woven from Historical Fragments
  by Motion, Andrew
  Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0375402098 Date: 2000
  KirkusBooklistLJ
  A celebrated British biographer has researched letters, journals, newspaper dispatches, and other historical sources to illuminate the life of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, a Regency author and painter who fell into debt, attempted a number of scams, and allegedly committed at least one murder.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Platt
  by Olsen, Jack
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 27.50 ISBN: 0385493673 Date: 2000
  Booklist
  Last Man Standing is an unforgettable chronicle of the 27-year struggle to break a conspiratorial abuse of power and free one of America's most famous political prisoners. He is Geronimo Pratt, unjustly convicted of murder in the late 1960s as part of an FBI counter-intelligence program.
  
• "I": The Creation of a Serial Killer
  Author: Olsen, Jack
  Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312241984 Date: 2002
  Booklist
  Armed with full access to one of the most sadistic serial murderers in American history, an acclaimed crime journalist reveals the inner thoughts of a psychotic killer in this inside story of Keith Hunter Jesperson, Oregon's Happy Face Killer, who strangled eight innocent women in the 1990s.
  Updated 6.30.02
• And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank
  Author: Oney, Steve
  Publisher: Pantheon $ 35 ISBN: 0679421475 Date: 2003
  KirkusPWBooklistLJ
  On April 27, 1913, the bludgeoned body of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was discovered in the basement of Atlanta's National Pencil Factory. The girl's murder would be the catalyst for an epic saga that to this day holds a singular place in America's collective imagination--a saga that would climax in 1915 with the lynching of Leo Frank, the Cornell-educated Jew who was convicted of the murder. - Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 10.2.03
• Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America's Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle
  Author: Queen, Wiliam
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400060842 Date: 2005
  PW
  A breathless, adrenaline-charged read, Under and Alone puts readers on the street with members of America's most violent outlaw motorcycle gang and with the law-enforcement agents who risk everything to bring them in.
  Updated 3.21.05
• Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World
  Author: Rehder, William J.
  Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393051560 Date: 2003
  KirkusLJ
  Americans have always been fascinated by bank robbers: Jesse James, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde. In Where the Money Is FBI Special Agent Rehder chronicles the lives and crimes of bank robbers in today's Los Angeles who are as colorful and exciting as the legends of long ago.
  Updated 5.9.03
• The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives and Broken Hearts
  Author: Rubenstein, Julian
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0316071676 Date: 2004
  PW
  Elmore Leonard meets Franz Kafka in the wild, improbably true story of Attila Ambrus, the legendary outlaw of Budapest.
  Updated 8.23.04
• Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer - America's Deadliest Serial Murderer
  Author: Rule, Ann
  Publisher: Free $ 26 ISBN: 0743238516 Date: 2004
  PW
  America's master of true crime presents her biggest book yet: the long-awaited story of the terrifying Green River killings, with more than 48 young women victims, and the "man next door" murderer who hid his horrific addiction for two decades.
  Updated 8.30.04
• Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation
  by Salamon, Julie
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375500227 Date: 2001
  PWKirkus
  Faced with depression and then delusion, Robert Rowe killed his three children and his wife with a baseball bat. The author not only tells the Rowes' tragic story, but explores the lives of others drawn into it, addressing the questions of how human beings cope with the burdens that chance inflicts upon them, and what constitutes moral and legal guilt and innocence.
  
• Unholy Messenger: The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer
  Author: Singular, Stephen
  Publisher: Scribner $ 23 ISBN: 0743291247 Date: 2006
  Kirkus
  Updated 2.8.06
• The Smoking Gun: Day by Day Through a Shocking Murder Trial With Gerry Spence
  Author: Spence, Gerry
  Publisher: Scribner $ 30 ISBN: 0743246969 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  Spence, renowned for his work on the cases of Karen Silkwood and Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, offers the true account of a trial that exposes the unrelenting power of the state that so often crushes all who come before the bar of justice--guilty or innocent.
  Updated 6.30.03
• A Cop's Life: True Stories from the Heart Behind the Badge
  Author: Sutton, Randy
  Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312338961 Date: 2005
  PW
  This collection of funny, charming, exciting, haunting stories about murder investigations, missing children, bungling burglars, car chases, lonely and desperate shut-ins, routine traffic stops, officers killed in the line of duty, and the life-changing events of 9/11 offers a broad and thoughtful look at the many facets of police life.
  Updated 5.16.05
• Death of Innocence; The Story of the Hate Crime That Changes America
  Author: Till-Mobley, Mamie
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400061172 Date: 2003
  LJ
  Speaking out for the first time, Mamie Till-Mobley offers a memoir of the 1955 slaying of her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till--the teenager whose murder galvanized the civil rights movement.
  Updated 9.08.03
• Blood Done Sign My Name: A Memoir
  Author: Tyson, Timothy B.
  Publisher: Crown $ 24 ISBN: 0609610589 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  Tyson sheds a new light on the struggle for racial justice as he weaves together childhood memories with the realities of present-day Oxford, NC--his hometown--where a young black man was killed in the town square by a Klansmen in 1970 and acquitted by an all-white jury.
  Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction
  Updated 4.19.04
• Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America
  by Walker, Kent & Marke Schone
  Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0060188650 Date: 2001
  Booklist
  The chilling life story of Kent Walker, whose mother, Sante Kimes, and younger brother, Kenny, made national headlines when they were arrested for the 1998 murder of a wealthy New York City widow. Walker reveals how he survived four decades of growing up as the oldest son of a bloodthirsty killer/con artist, and presents a twisted tale of theft, greed, and murder.
  
  
• Pointing From the Grave
  Author: Weinberg, Samantha
  Publisher: Miramax $ 25.95 ISBN: 1401351956 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  An astonishing account of the murder of a young scientist, this is the story of how she helped bring her killer to justice from the grave.
  Updated 2.23.03
• American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps
  Author: Weiss, Philip
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060096861 Date: 2004
  PW
  Twenty-five years after a young Peace Corps volunteer was murdered and her killer set free, Weiss unravels the truth behind what happened on the South Pacific island and why the government suppressed the case.
  Updated 6.1.04
• The General: The Godfather of Crime
  Author: Williams, Paul
  Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765306247 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  In a 20-year career marked by secrecy, brutality, and meticulous planning, Martin Cahill, a.k.a. The General, rose through the ranks of the Irish underworld until he became an international celebrity. This is the #1 internationally bestselling story of this Irish Mob boss and working class hero.
  Updated 3.13.03
• Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend
  Author: Zuckoff, Mitchell
  Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 1400060397 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  While it lasted, Ponzi's scheme made some people rich beyond their wildest dreams, most of all Ponzi himself. When it ended, it rocked the nation with a spectacular fiscal explosion. Ponzi's Scheme is the first nonfiction account of the irresistible scoundrel who launched the most successful bit of financial alchemy in history.
  Updated 2.15.05