Category Archives: True Crime

Edited by Sarah Weinman Overall: This collection of previously published essays and articles provides an overview of what’s on the minds of writers who engage with crime and the criminal justice system in America.  As someone who reads the occasional non-fiction book about crime (The Art Thief, We Keep the Dead Close, The Trial ofContinue reading “Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning”

by Michael Finkel Overall: I love a good true crime tale, and The Art Thief falls into an interesting niche: the notorious but non-violent crime.  Stéphane Breitwieser managed to steal hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and historic and decorative objects across Europe – many of them priceless – over eight years.  He never sold any ofContinue reading “The Art Thief”

by Becky Cooper Overall: I picked up this book because I attended Harvard and was curious about this cold case.  In 1969, Jane Britton, a graduate student in anthropology, was found murdered in her apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Becky Cooper first heard the story as a kind of legend when she was an undergrad; herContinue reading “We Keep the Dead Close”

by Rick Emerson Overall: In Unmask Alice, journalist Rick Emerson delves into a series of diaries published beginning in the early 1970s. These purported to be the words of troubled teenagers, and they received a lot of attention. The most famous of the diaries (and we can quibble about whether these are the “most notorious”Continue reading “Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’ Most Notorious Diaries”

by Cara Robertson Overall: A meticulously researched deep dive into the murder of Andrew and Abby Borden in 1893, The Trial of Lizzie Borden describes the crime, its aftermath, the “investigation” (if you can call it that) by the police force, the trial, and what followed.  If all you know about Lizzie Borden is theContinue reading “The Trial of Lizzie Borden”