I bought Edmund Pearson’s excellent (if unfortunately-titled) “Murder at Smutty Nose” as a vacation book last month. Enjoyed it so much that today I bought his “Studies in Murder” and “More Studies in Murder.” I love his stuff—he was the Dominic Dunne of the 1920s and '30s. Informative, chatty and often humorous, though he never loses sight of the fact that crimes were committed.
Who are your fave true-crime writers, and why?
Robert Lindsey’s A Gathering of Saints should be a textbook for nonfiction crime writers. It’s incredible and un-put-downable. I’ve read it probably a dozen times.
Sadly, his Irresistible Impulse is not as good. I keep meaning to read either of his Falcon books, but never seem to get around to them.
Vincent Bugliosi of Helter Skelter fame. He’s also written some others that are just as good - The Sea Will Tell and Tell Death Do Us Part. It’s interesting how well he can tell a really compelling story while filling one in on the finer points of law (he’s a lawyer himself).
I also liked Lorenzo Carcaterra’s Sleepers and A Safe Place, but there are questions about whether his stuff is really true. Either way, the stories will keep your eyes glued to the page and make your hair stand on end (if you’re into that kind of thing).
I also like some of Ann Rule’s books, but they are more of a trashy type thing :).
I like Harold Schecter. Both Deviant and Deranged were very well written. He also co-authored The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, which I think he uses as a text for a college course he teaches.
I’ll definitely look for Pearson’s work based on your recommendation Eve. Too man true crime authors go more for the shock value rather than trying to be coherent and well written.
Ann Rule, hands down. A Seattleite who was a police writer, and worked on a Crisis Line with a rather handsome young man who sat in the cubicle next to her. This was in the 70’s, during a crime wave when college co-eds were being murdered. Said young man used to walk her to her car every night to keep her safe. Said young man was also Ted Bundy. Her first book was “The Stranger Beside Me” – an excellent read!
Also enjoy reading Jack Olson, another Northwest Crime Writer. His book “Son”, about Spokane’s South Hill Rapist was also classic.
Vincent Bugliosi is also good, I loved Helter Skelter when it came out.
McGinnis’ “Fatal Vision” is still a ‘classic’, if one may use such a word for true-crime book. People tend to forget that it was a jury who convicted Macdonald of the murders. The book came long after and simply drove the nail in the coffin, so to speak.
P.D. James’ “Maul and the Pear Tree” is also very good, based on the Radcliffe Highway murders in old England.
There have been a number of excellent books about the Ted Bundy case, including a memoir by one of Ted’s girlfriends (“The Phantom Prince” now hard to find), and “The Only Living Witness” by two reporters who gave Ted a way to discuss the murders (by portraying himself as an expert on the phychology of devience) without actually admitting to them.
I’ve always been fond of the Brit writer William Roughead, author of BAD COMPANIONS, THE ART OF MURDER, THE ENJOYMENT OF MURDER, THE MURDERER’S COMPANION, and other light classics. His books also came out in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, and his specialty was 18th and 19th century crime.
He just had a sampler published last year called CLASSIC CRIMES, if you want to take a peek into Amazon.com.
Slightly Off-Topic but Jeffrey Archer is a ‘writer’ and he has committed true crimes. He’s not my favourite though.
Ohh. Max Haines! Max Haines! Canadian Curmudgeon of True Crime!
Jack Olsen’s “Doc” was fascinating. An in-depth account of a doctor who got away with molesting female patients in a tight knit Mormon community in Wyoming for over a decade. In fact I may try finding it & reading it again. All his books are very good.
Ann Rule’s earlier books were wonderful. I still enjoy her compliations, but they have become quick/trashy reads.
PETE EARLEY! Read “Circumstantial Evidence.” (Black man wrongly convicted of murder in a Southern town.) And, though “Hot House” is not really true crime, it is an amazing book about daily life in the hard-core Leavenworth prison. The author initially wanted to enter the prison population incognito to research his book, but authorities wouldn’t let him. He spent about a year visiting and getting to know some truly heinous men. Absolutely fascinating.
I’m bookmarking this thread…keep the ideas coming! (Thanks Eve.)
Another vote for Ann Rule. She always remembers the victims in her book. The only one I didn’t like was “Small Sacrifices” about Diane Downs. She ignore and passed over too many of the facts to make Downs look guilty. I’m not sure what happened in that case, but it could not have happened like the prosecuters said it did.
But I generally like her work. The Ted Bundy book is the scariest thing I’ve ever read. She points out that anyone you know could be a serial killer.
Soem great ideas for my own reading list . . . And I urge everyone to rush to your used-bookstores or online services to, umm, “dig up” Edmund Pearson. I am thoroughly enjoying his “More Studies in Murder.” Here’s a bit from the chapter ‘Mrs. Costello Cleans the Boiler’, in which a policeman who had an affair with the accused murderess testifies:
“This officer was called in hundreds of headlines ‘The Kiss-and-Tell Cop’. Kiss was but a schoolgirl’s feeble euphemism for what happened, but tell he certainly did. Before the grand jury he perjured himself like a gentleman, and everybody seemed to approve. Then, either the influence of religion caused him to fear hellfire or the power of the law caused him to dread being included in the indicment. For upon the witness stand he recited a tale which . . . sounded more like a fourteenth-century Florentine frenzy than the annals of Essex County, Massachusetts.”
Love him—the Dorothy Parker of True Crime!
Another vote for Jack Olson, I have enjoyed all of the books of his I can find, unfortunately most of the stores shelf space for true crime seems to be filled with Ann Rule, or the true crime equivalent of TV movies of the week “ripped from today’s headlines”…
Keith
I’m partial to Colin Wilson, mainly because he doesn’t restrict himself to big, flashy cases.
I thoroughly enjoyed Helter Skelter as well.
Robin
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was an excellent read. He approaches it like a mystery novel, and the eventual revelation of what happened is shocking and disturbing; it was not at all how I would have expected things to go down.
I was annoyed, however, that he seemed to have more sympathy for the murderers than for the victims.
It’s been a long time since once sentence made me want to read a book, but there you have it.
Oh, and don’t y’all forget your libraries when looking this good fellow up.
Knead—Ooooh, I’m so happy! Edmund Pearson really is brilliant, I’m delighted to have made another convert. His books are pretty easy to find cheaply on bookfinder.com, if your local libraries don’t have him. He wrote mostly in the 1920s and '30s, but was reprinted up through the '60s.
Alas, none of the titles my system has in by Pearson appear to be true crime. I guess it’s time to put the InterLibrary Loan machinery into action. 
Well, bless my soul! It turns out my exhortation to check your library was particularly appropriate: Pearson seems to have been a librarian.
NO ONE is as good as Ann Rule!!!