The 23 Best True Crime Books to Read Right Now

For the reader still reeling from the Louvre heist

Michael Finkel’s 2023 book tells the story of Stéphane Bréitwieser, perhaps the most prolific art thief of all time—he’s admitted to stealing artworks from museums across Europe at a rate of about one every two weeks between 1995 and 2001, when he was finally caught. Finkel spent plenty of time getting up close and personal with Bréitwieser to describe his many spur-of-the-moment heists, as well as his subsequent downfall.

For the reader with a...complicated childhood

A hybrid of memoir and investigative nonfiction, this is the story of Liza Rodman's lonely girlhood on Cape Cod in the 1960s. Her mother worked at a hotel and enjoyed the nightlife in Provincetown. While she was out, the handsome hotel handyman babysat Rodman and her sister. They'd go get popsicles in his truck and hang out in his "secret garden" in the woods of Truro. Turns out, their nice-guy sitter was also a serial killer. Some of his dismembered victims were buried in that woodsy glade. Decades later, Rodman made the connection between her buddy and the splashy murder headlines and became obsessed with researching the case.

For the reader who supports women's rights and wrongs

This collection of true tales about hot women committing cold-blooded crimes follows a multitude of cases from 1850 onwards. Attorney and true crime historian Laura James asks whether these women—such as Glasgow socialite Madeline Smith, who poisoned one lover to move on to the next—got away with murder (and other mayhem) because of their good looks. Smith's lawyer used gender bias in her favor, making the case that someone so pretty and feminine couldn't possibly be a killer.

For the scammer-obsessed reader

A roundup of the most notorious female con artists by the author of Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History, this book is perfect for anyone fascinated by the likes of faux-blood test entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and N.Y.C. society trickster Anna Delvey. Tori Telfer reaches back to 1700s France, when a woman claimed to be Marie Antoinette's BFF for scamming purposes (think: loads of jewels), tracing scams through to the present day, as New York sisters Kate and Maggie Fox started a movement by claiming to speak with spirits. Telfer examines what we love about these devious women and why.

For the reader curious about what happens after the case is closed

True crime fans love to follow the trail of a whodunit. However, this book interestingly analyzes what happens after. The author, a psychoanalyst, writes about how Brian Bechtold, who was 22 in 1992, walked into a Florida police station and confessed that he'd shot his parents back home in Maryland. Saying he was possessed by the devil at the time, Bechtold was judged not responsible for the murders on grounds of insanity. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he lived for decades in a limbo of psychiatric hospitals—complete with escape attempts, being shot by police, and seeing several patient-on-patient murders. It's an insider's view of life in the psych ward and the long aftermath of an act of violence.

For the cult-fanatic reader

OneTaste was founded in 2004 to spread the philosophy of “orgasmic meditation” as a mindfulness practice. It all came crashing down in 2018, however, when an exposé article by Ellen Huet revealed allegations of founder Nicole Daedone's cultlike approach of manipulation and abuse behind the scenes, leading to an investigation by the FBI and, ultimately, Daedone’s 2025 conviction. Huet chronicles the whole sordid tale in this book, which recaps and expands upon her years of investigative reporting on the company.

For the reader whose favorite required reading was To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee shot to stardom for a book centering on a high-stakes criminal trial. But it was a very different trial that captured her attention in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird’s publication. As described by Casey Cep, Lee spent years working on a book about the real-life 1978 case of a rural preacher accused of killing five family members. Lee never published the book, but Cep used her notes to create this multifaceted story of the trial—and the racial and social constructs at play—and of Lee herself.

For the nature-loving reader

This much-anticipated book is from Mary Roach, the master of the weirdly delightful dive into scientific nonfiction. But this is less "when animals attack" and more of "when moose jaywalk" or "when macaques mug." Roach's books, including Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, have a cult fandom. This book looks at how we conflict with nature—and, just maybe, can learn to coexist.

For the reader passionate about ending gender-based violence

Two teenage girls in a tiny Indian village were so close that they were known by a single name. One summer night in 2014, the pair went missing. A few hours later, the girls were found hanging in a mango orchard. The investigation into their murders started a national soul-searching about violence against women in India. At first, the girls's families refused to let the bodies be cut down and demanded an investigation. But what happened? Was it murder, death by suicide, or an honor killing?

For the reader prone to getting sucked into cold-case rabbit holes

As the subtitle implies, true crime journalist Michelle McNamara became determined in the 2010s to uncover the identity of the person responsible for a long list of rapes, murders, and burglaries across California in the 1970s and ‘80s and began documenting her efforts for eventual publication. Though she died in 2016, before the Golden State Killer had been caught and her book was complete, her husband, actor Patton Oswalt, and others finished the book and published it in 2018. Just a few weeks later, California police arrested the man who later pleaded guilty to many of the crimes; they credited McNamara’s work with boosting awareness of the case.

For the reader who's unlearning the myths of U.S. history

This 2017 book shone a light on a historical event that’s all too often been swept under the rug: a string of murders in Oklahoma’s Osage Nation in the early 20th century. In a sweeping narrative that was later adapted into a Best Picture-nominated film directed by Martin Scorsese, Grann provides a deep dive into the crimes, a product of the long-running abuse of Indigenous populations on their own land by white settlers and the U.S. government.

For the reader diving into queer history

In the '90s, an elusive serial killer preyed on gay men in N.Y.C. Instead of merely examining the crimes and turning the killer into an object of fascination, author Elon Green feelingly portrays the lives of the victims; from the bars where they felt free that turned out not to be safe spaces to a maintenance worker who found the bagged remains of the first victim at a Pennsylvania rest stop. The nicknamed "Last Call Killer" took advantage of an era when it was, for many, difficult to be visibly and openly gay.

For the reader who wants a behind-the-scenes look at crime-solving

A bit of a meta take on the true crime genre, this book is less about a specific crime, focusing more on the scientific advances that have helped crack so many otherwise unsolvable cases. Laurah Norton is the host of the popular “The Fall Line” podcast, which digs into murders and disappearances in Georgia that didn’t receive much media attention and center on people from marginalized communities. In this book, she maps the history of forensic science, stretching from the primitive techniques of the Roman Empire to the wildly advanced technologies used today. We also get to see those modern methods put to use, as Norton describes the work she put in alongside a forensic anthropologist to solve a 1993 cold case. If you really want to call yourself a true crime expert, you’ll need to give this one a read.

For the reader who would do anything for their sister

Driven by a powerful combination of grief and rage, Cristina Rivera Garza traveled from Texas to Mexico City in 2019 to dive into an investigation of her sister’s murder nearly 30 years before. This is her account of that work: Not only does she document her relentless quest for justice in Liliana’s death, but she also meticulously crafts an image of her beloved sister, all the way up to her relationship with the abusive boyfriend who would ultimately kill her. Liliana’s Invincible Summer was a finalist for the National Book Award and an entry on several prestigious “best books of 2023” lists, and it’s sure to fill you with the same feelings of heartbreak and devastation—not to mention an undying rage at the all-too-common crimes of femicide and intimate partner violence—that have shaped Garza’s life and work.

For the reader poring over every update to Gypsy Rose Blanchard's story

Tales of Munchausen by Proxy always make for particularly devastating, headline-grabbing true crime stories, as they so often revolve around mothers abusing their own children. In that respect, this book is no different: It offers a trio of shocking up-close looks at MBP investigations. But it also goes several steps further than many other true crime stories by attempting to clear up misinformation about the diagnosis and offering possible solutions.

For the reader looking for powerful stories of survival

Published shortly after her death by suicide in early 2025, Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s intense and sharply written memoir reframes the narrative of her life as far more than a survivor of horrific abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Along with documenting those experiences, it also charts her courageous escape from the pair's control, her refusal to stay silent, and her subsequent years-long fight for justice not only for herself, but for other victims of abuse around the world.

For the reader curious about the urban underbelly

Journalist Jesse Katz’s award-winning 2024 book delves into the tangled story of Giovanni Macedo, who, in 2007, as a teenager desperate to join one of L.A.’s most notorious gangs, accidentally killed a baby while failing to execute the undocumented street vendor he’d been assigned to take out. A subsequent hit on Giovanni was also botched, giving him the chance to seek redemption for his crime and testify against the gang. The gang's predatory practices detailed in the book are only one factor in the impossible situation afflicting the city’s vulnerable immigrant population, along with the constraints of the U.S. government and justice system.

For the crusader-for-justice reader

In a time between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, white schoolgirl Marie Smith was brutally killed in the seaside town of Asbury Park, New Jersey. This book weaves together two narratives surrounding the case. One thread tells of a pedophile, a sheriff, a detective on his first murder case, and the Black laborer who was wrongfully accused of murder and narrowly avoided being lynched. The other story involves Ida B. Wells, the crusading Black journalist, abolitionist, and feminist who led an anti-lynching campaign in the 1890s. Through her writings, she was instrumental in helping found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization at the forefront of current events today.

For the reader who binged Derry Girls in one sitting

This 2018 bestseller—which has since been turned into a Hulu drama series—is both a true crime account and a history of an era that you may not know much about: the Troubles of Northern Ireland. Amid a chronicle of the decades-long bloody conflict over whether Northern Ireland should be part of the U.K. or the Republic of Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe homes in on one 1972 abduction. The book is packed with extensive details, plus a fascinating look at the still-reverberating effects of The Troubles following their 1998 end.

For the reader continually outraged by the long history of misogyny

This powerful book is really a chronicle of a wide variety of mysteries and misdeeds. It centers on not just the erasure of the woman who invented the first rape kit in the 1970s and her subsequent disappearance, but the lack of attention paid to rape cases by law enforcement for decades, and the massive rape kit backlog discovered in recent years. Additionally, the author weaves in her own experiences with sexual assault, and together, this makes for an intensely moving portrait of a still-ongoing fight for justice.

For the reader who loves an unreliable narrator

“Grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented.” Those words—and, more commonly, their acronym, GUBU—are often used to describe a shocking series of events that occurred in Ireland in the summer of 1982, which are described in Mark O’Connell’s book. The events explored surround Malcolm Edward MacArthur, a socialite who was running out of money and decided to turn to robbery—and an escalating series of subsequent crimes—to help keep funding his lifestyle. O’Connell’s book is based on many hours of conversations with MacArthur, who was released from prison in 2012 after 30 years, and it explores the often-murky line between MacArthur’s version of the story and the facts of the case.

For the reader who might get a bit obsessive about true crime

This riveting memoir is by a reporter-turned-private investigator who looks back at the case that snagged her imagination. It also inspired her change of profession. As a reporter for The Miami Herald, Ellen McGarrahan covered the execution of Jesse Tafero for the murder of two police officers. Years later, she dives back into the criminal world of Miami in the 1960s and '70s to take another look at that case. As she follows the threads of evidence—court files, interviews, and articles—looking for the truth, she realizes that the questions of who is innocent and who is guilty are complex and difficult to untangle.

For the reader still holding out for the resurgence of the Occupy movement

A young British college student named Stephen Jackley was obsessed with the inequalities of the global financial crisis that began in 2007. A modern-day Robin Hood, Jackley planned to steal from the rich (banks) and give to the poor. It actually worked—he robbed a series of banks using disguises, elaborate escapes, fake guns, and all—until it didn't. Journalist Ben Machell had access to Jackley and his diaries for this combination psychological thriller and heist story.