I give another vote to Capote and In Cold Blood. There have been only three books in my life I literally could not put down. That was one of them.
I have read most of the other authors mentioned and while they are good, none of them hit me like In Cold Blood.
TV
Mostly what people look for in `true crime’ appears to be murderers, but I’m fascinated with the lives of thieves. Usually these will be the collected memories of a thief as told to somebody with a tape recorder. Some of my favorites:
The Thief by Wayne Burke, as told to Ted Thackeray
In the Life by Bruce Jackson
A Thief’s Primer by Bruce Jackson
The Home Invaders by Frank Hohiemer
Hustler by Henry Williamson
Box Man by Bill Chambliss
Beyond belief by Emelyn Williams. This is about the “Moors Murders” of several children in 1960’s England. This is a well written book that makes you wonder why people can act in so brutal a way. On a lighter note “Selling Hitler”, by Robert Harris,about how so many famous people and publishing houses were conned out of a lot of money over the fake Hitler Diaries
Thanks again, Eve, for the recommendation on Edmund Pearson! I’m reading Studies in Murder now and it’s great!
I generally don’t read true crime, but I feel like it’s appropriate to mention The Excecution’s Song by Norman Mailer in this thread. This book was a psyche-shattering experience for me. Maybe I was just young and impressionable, but I felt transported physically into another world the entire time I was reading it. Like a deeply sleeping person being shaken awake during a dream, I’d return to the real world, and I could never quite be sure I was in it.
Strictly speaking, however, the book is fiction, based on the facts of the case of Gary Gilmore, who was executed in Utah in 1979, I think. It led to the reinstitution of the death penalty in this country. He was also the brother of Mikal Gilmore, who used to write for Rolling Stone. (He may still; I don’t read it any more.)
This doesn’t really count as a response, but I just finished In His Garden by Lou Damore (I hope I spelled that correctly). It’s the true story of a serial killer on Cape Cod in 1968-1969 and is truly bone-chilling. It’s quite long and I don’t want to give anything away, but if you’re tempted to give up on it, don’t.
Knead—Glad you’re enjoying! if you’re looking for more by him, “Murder at Smutty Nose” is much better than “More Studies in Murder.”
Yes, this one was incredible. I was very pleased with it myself, and I couldn’t predict it, either.
I can’t imagine Capote could do much with the victims, though. After all, the murderers were better documented than the victims. That’s what happens to your private life when you lose your rights: the state keeps better notes on your day-to-day actions. Sympathy for murderers is always disturbing—even when it can be justified. An excellent book, to be sure.
My favorite true crime book was All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward—though I guess that’s not exactly what this thread is about, is it? Heh heh…
If you read The Executioner’s song, as Ellen recommends above, you should also check out Mikal Gilmore’s book Shot in the Heart. As Ellen mentioned, he’s a writer, and he’s Gary Gilmore’s brother. Shot is an autobiographical look back at his and Gary’s childhoods, and an attempt on Mikal’s part to understand and explain what motivated Gary.
It’s a haunting book, and an excellent read.
Ooo, Interrobang, thank you! I’m very interested in reading Mikal’s story.
Eve, is Murder at Smutty Nose the same double-murder used in Weight of Water by Anita Shreve?
“Eve, is Murder at Smutty Nose the same double-murder used in Weight of Water by Anita Shreve?”
—Dunno, never read Weight of Water. It’s about a murder on a small island off New England in the 1870s. REALLY creepy.
I am compelled to add James Ellroy’s “My Dark Places”. Ellroy is, in my opinion, the finest crime-fiction writer out there, and “My Dark Places” is a nonfiction account of his mother’s murder and his later search for the killer and everything that it implied for him…
Can’t even come up with enough superlatives for Ellroy.
The Weight of Water Gotta be the same one – two women murdered on a remote, desolate island? The Shreve book offers a solution, which apparently was hinted at in the actual case. It’s vurry creepy, too.