True Crime Books for Readers Who Are Uncomfortable with True Crime as a Popular Obsession

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In the first episode of My Favorite Murder, podcast hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark talk about the way they bonded over true crime at a party. At the time, true crime still felt like a niche interest, but the genre quickly bloomed into a mainstream obsession. Like most people in 2015, I listened to Serial and watched Netflix’s Making a Murderer, but as true crime grew in popularity, a question of ethics began to play on my mind. I’d always been a morbid person, but as I watched Etsy explode with cutesy slogan t-shirts and serial killer colouring books, it all began to feel a little distasteful – a little vulgar. I still wanted to read the books that interested me, but I began to relate less and less to the ‘wine and true crime-ification’ of the genre. 

This was the jumping off point for my novel, Death of a Bookseller, which introduces two very different bookshop employees: Roach is a loner and murder obsessive, and Laura is a popular gal with a deep aversion to true crime media due to personal tragedy. If you’re true crime curious like Roach, but feel there’s a fine line between compassionate writing and frank exploitation like Laura, here’s a list of some of my favourite examples of the genre that influenced my debut.

Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson

I read The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson in one go on a train from London to Provence in 2017, and it was the first truly personal true crime narrative that I’d ever read. It’s about the murder of Nelson’s aunt Jane in 1969. Thirty-five years later, Nelson was on the brink of publishing Jane: A Murder – a poetry collection that blends original poetry with Jane’s diary entries, giving Jane a voice within her own story – when new DNA evidence reopened the case. The Red Parts documents the subsequent trial, and covers familial grief, trauma, and growing up under the shadow of such a devastating loss. It’s an incredible read, and the poetry collection is a beautiful contextualising companion piece. 

Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe

I spotted the hardback of Savage Appetites in a bookshop in New York, and was immediately outraged to discover it still hasn’t found a publisher in the UK. Monroe explores four women’s individual relationships with crime – aligning themselves with detective in the form of Frances Glessner Lee; victim, and the murder of Sharon Tate; defendant, and the West Memphis Three; and killer, looking at the disturbing internet fandom that grew around the Columbine high school massacre. I loved this compassionate and intelligent book, and it greatly informed Roach’s not-like-other-girls approach to true crime. 

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

This is both the story of a murder investigation, and one woman’s hunt to find a killer. A life-long true crime obsessive, Michelle McNamara was haunted by a specific cold case: the Golden State Killer, who terrorised California in the 1970s and 1980s, and was responsible for over fifty sexual assaults and ten brutal murders, before disappearing into thin air. McNamara tragically and unexpectedly passed away before the book was completed, and just months after the posthumous publication of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, new evidence emerged, the Golden State Killer was unmasked, and retired police officer Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested. Gillian Flynn sets the book up with a killer intro and McNamara’s husband Patton Oswalt finishes it with a bittersweet epilogue. It’s a literary triumph. 

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

Interweaving the true story of convicted killer Ricky Langley with their own traumatic childhood experiences of abuse, author Alex Marzano-Lesnevich explores their relationship with the justice system in this searing debut. One summer, whilst interning with a defence firm in Louisiana, Marzano-Lesnevich came across a harrowing case that felt achingly familiar – and challenged their personal politics for the first time. This is such a difficult and disturbing read, but Marzano-Lesnevich is an incredible writer and their prose absolutely crackles.

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold 

Jack the Ripper remains a subject of obsession for many true crime aficionados – so much so, ‘ripperologists’ even have their own dorky moniker. In The Five, author Hallie Rubenhold is less interested in Jack the Ripper and the grisly details of his crimes, and more interested in researching, documenting and honouring the lives of the five canonical victims of Victorian London’s most infamous killer: Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. A social history of vulnerable, working-class women in Victorian London, it’s a truly unique take on an otherwise well-trodden subject.  

Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime by Val McDermid

So far, we’ve covered the personal, the fanatical, the political and the historical: now let’s take a look at the professional. In Forensics, writer Val McDermid uncovers the nuts and bolts of forensic medicine and details the fascinating and unexpected ways in which modern science can unlock the secrets of the grave. From blood spatter evidence and DNA analysis to entomology, fingerprints and more, its accessible approach makes it the perfect intro to the more scientific side of true crime. 

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