The Best Recent Nonfiction Crime Books

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A look at the most notable nonfiction crime books from the spring.

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Mark Bowden, Life Sentence
(Atlantic)

“A scorching true-crime narrative. . . Bowden pulls no punches in his indictment of the ways in which the richest country in the world has allowed Black children for decades to be born into blighted urban neighborhoods, and saddled them with burdens that they must struggle to surmount to lead meaningful lives. This account of ‘young men growing up in a place where murderous violence has become a way of life’ will haunt readers long after they finish it.”—Publishers Weekly

David Grann, The Wager
(Doubleday)

“’The Wager’ is a soaring literary accomplishment and seductive adventure tale… enthralling, seamlessly crafted… ‘The Wager’ then, is an accomplishment as vividly realized and ingeniously constructed as Grann’s previous work, on par with Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm. Welcome a classic.” –Minneapolis Star Tribune

Timothy Egan, Fever in the Heartland
(Viking)

“Powerful . . . As a narrative, ‘A Fever in the Heartland’ is gripping; as a rumination on the moral obscenity of white supremacy — whatever guises it wears — the book is damning.” —The New York Times Book Review

Gabrielle Paluch, The Opium Queen
(Rowman and Littlefield)

“When investigative journalist Paluch worked as a reporter for a government-censored newspaper in Myanmar (formerly Burma), she learned of Jin Xiu “Olive” Yang, a near-mythical opium warlord…The author uncovers many details: Yang used she/her pronouns but male honorifics, such as Uncle Olive; her family forced her to marry her cousin and bear a child; she left her husband and had women lovers; she used her influence as the member of a noble family to make her opium-trade fortune; and she helped negotiate a handshake-ceasefire in Kokang. This well-written, well-researched book portrays a central figure who never quite emerges from her shroud of legend.” –Library Journal

Lisa Belkin, Genealogy of a Murder
(Norton)

“[Belkin] masterfully builds hand-wringing anticipation…. [and] creates an impressive work of in-depth narrative journalism that artfully conveys the countless paths a life can follow and exposes the instinctual human desire for alternative endings. An absorbing, thought-provoking inquiry into what it means to change and defy the odds.” –Kirkus Review

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