18 books like The only living witness

What to read after The only living witness — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Echoes in the darkness Joseph Wambaugh · 1987 · ★ 3.6 · 415p · ≈ 13h · Moderate On June 25, 1989, the naked corpse of schoolteacher Susan Reinert was found wedged into her hatchback car in a hotel parking lot near Philadelphia's "Main Line." Her two children had vanished. The Main Line Murder Case burst upon the headlines--and wasn't resolved for seven years. Now, master crime writer Joseph Wambaugh reconstructs the case from its roots, recounting the details, drama,… Shares: Crime and criminals, Murderers, Criminals, True Crime

Killer Clown Terry Sullivan · 2000 · ★ 4.4 · 400p · ≈ 13h · Moderate He was a model citizen. A hospital volunteer. And one of the most sadistic serial killers of all time. But few people could see the cruel monster beneath the colorful clown makeup that John Gacy wore to entertain children in his Chicago suburb. Few could imagine what lay buried beneath his house of horrors—until a teenaged boy disappeared before Christmas in 1978, leading prosecutor Terry… Shares: Murder - General, Murderers, Criminals, True Crime

Nutcracker Shana Alexander · 1985 · ★ 4.1 · 453p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Nutcracker begins at the ballet but tells the story of a seemingly wholesome all-American family, whose tranquil life's surface erupted in shocking acts of avarice, theft and murder. The victim was Franklin Bradshaw, Mormon self-made millionaire, workaholic. The killer was Bradshaw's grandson, prep school student. The architect of the crime was said to be Frances Schreuder, Bradshaw's daughter,… Shares: Murderers, Criminals, True Crime, Murder

Mob star Gene Mustain · 1988 · ★ 4.3 · 269p · ≈ 8h · Moderate John Gotti is terminally ill; when he passes on to that great Mafia in the sky, co-author Capeci will be in great demand for interviews and will the plug the book.As he battles terminal cancer in a federal prison in Illinois, John Gotti, still the acting head of the Gambino Mafia family, is constantly in the news. Once Mr. Gotti ascends to Mafia heaven, he will be worldwide news-and Alpha will… Shares: Crime and criminals, Criminals, True Crime, Biography & Memoir

The profession of violence John Pearson · 1972 · ★ 3.5 · 336p · ≈ 11h · Moderate John Pearson details the lives of Reggie and Ronnie Kray, the infamous brothers who, for decades, ruled the criminal underground in London's East End. This biography of the identical twins is, at times, humorous and revealing, but always maintains a clear-eyed view of the seriousness of the brothers' crimes. An absorbing read. Shares: Crime and criminals, Criminals, True Crime, Crime

Hit #29 Joey. · 1974 · 248p · ≈ 8h · Moderate The New York Times–bestselling author of Killer: The Autobiography of a Mafia Hit Man reveals the true story of his most harrowing contract murder. "Joey the Hit Man" was a Bronx-born hired assassin who achieved widespread notoriety after writing a bestselling memoir and appearing on the David Susskind show. In this "down-to-earth realistic account," Joey tells the riveting story behind the… Shares: Murder - General, Criminals, True Crime, Murder

Dead by Sunset Ann Rule · 1995 · ★ 4.5 · 555p · ≈ 18h · Moderate The first 464 pages of this book are standard Ann Rule. A beautiful, brilliant attorney marries a psychopath and suffers dreadfully for her choice of mate. She bears him three beautiful, brilliant little boys while Brad runs through her money, accumulates girlfriends, and is never home when she and the boys need him/ Finally, Cheryl can't bear his abuse any longer. She files for a divorce, and… Shares: Murderers, Criminals, True Crime, Crime

The private diary of Lyle Menendez Lyle Menendez · 1993 · ★ 4.6 · 263p · ≈ 8h · Moderate The personal story of Lyle Menendez is based on a four-and-a-half-year intimate correspondence with the author and covers the murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez by Lyle and his brother Erik and the court trials that ended in hung juries. Shares: Criminals, True Crime, Murder, Biography & Memoir

A Talent to Deceive William Norris · 2006 · 327p · ≈ 10h · Moderate The kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's infant son, and the subsequent trial and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, have been a source of fascination for more than 70 years. Now, for the first time, William Norris delves into sources of information ignored by previous investigators and comes up with the identity of the true culprit. Lindbergh is exposed as having obstructed the… Shares: True Crime, Crime, Biography & Memoir

The Boston Strangler Gerald Frank · 1967 · ★ 3.4 · 408p · ≈ 13h · Moderate An account of Albert DeSalvo's reign of terror as the notorious Boston Strangler, an American serial killer who, when finally caught, confessed to the murders of 13 women Shares: Murderers, True Crime, Murder

Deadly Angel Fred Rosen · 2009 · ★ 3.2 · 227p · ≈ 7h · Moderate An astonishing true story of bizarre love and lethal obsession in America's last frontier. Mechele Hughes came to Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 4200), looking for a new life and easy money. As an exotic dancer at the Great Alaskan Bush Company in nearby Anchorage, she was soon earning thousands a night—and getting expensive gifts from admiring male clients. Three in particular fell under her spell. Each… Shares: Murderers, Criminals, True Crime, Murder

Seven Bones Peter Seymour · 2011 · 284p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Seven Bones is the story of one of the more bizarre murder investigations in Australia’s criminal history. Two wives die in suspicious circumstances: co-incidence or, as husband Thomas Keir describes it, ‘bad luck’?Arriving on the scene, Detective Peter Seymour realised he was dealing with the world’s unluckiest husband or a serial wife killer. Keir’s ‘grieving husband’ act was suddenly in… Shares: True Crime, Crime

Things a Killer Would Know Paula Doneman · 2006 · 278p · ≈ 9h · Moderate A no-holds-barred account of the deadly rampage of rapist and serial killer, Leonard Fraser.In April, 1999, schoolgirl Keyra Steinhardt was bashed, raped and murdered in a brazen daylight attack as she walked home from school in the central Queensland town of Rockhampton. The disappearance of Keyra made international headlines as the community and law enforcement officers hunted for the… Shares: Murderers, True Crime, Biography & Memoir

The unicorn's secret Steven Levy · 1988 · 352p · ≈ 11h · Moderate The harrowing tale of Ira Einhorn, who was Philadelphia’s leading 60′s hippie and 70′s New Age activist — supposedly a beacon for pacifism and good feelings. This all changed in 1979, when a search of his apartment for evidence related to the disappearance of his girlfriend 18 months earlier yielded her body, mumified in a trunk in his closet. Einhorn claimed frameup, and the powerful friends he… Shares: Murderers, Criminals, True Crime, Crime

Life Means Life Nick Appleyard · 2009 From sex-crazed fiends to cold-eyed professional assassins, only those convicted of the most terrible murders are told they will die behind bars.This book tells the stories of those most depraved killers whose crimes outraged society and demanded the harshest penalty available to a British court. Among a UK prison population of close to 100,000, fewer than 40 men and women have been told they… Shares: Murderers, True Crime, Murder, Biography & Memoir

Shadow play William Klaber · 1997 · ★ 4.0 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate On June 4, 1968, just after he had declared victory in the California presidential primary, Robert Kennedy was gunned down in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Captured a few feet away, gun in hand, was a young Palestinian-American named Sirhan Sirhan. The case against Sirhan was declared by the police to be "open and shut," and the court proceedings against him nine months… Shares: Murder - General, True Crime

You Can't Win Jack Black · 1926 · ★ 4.2 · 412p · ≈ 13h · Challenging William Burroughs, at the age of 13, was inspired by this book, as he mentions in a preface to Naked Lunch. You Can't Win is a memoir that explodes our ideas about the supposedly lawful past; Jack was a drifter, robber, junkie, and hustler that survived from the frontier times til the depression era...apparently. He became a librarian of sorts, wrote his memoir, and then vanished... Shares: Crime and criminals, Criminals, Biography & Memoir

Blood Relation Eric Konigsberg · 2005 · ★ 4.0 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Growing up in a household that seemed "as generic as midwestern Jews get," Eric Konigsberg never imagined there was anything remotely mysterious about his family—until he learned from an ex-cop groundskeeper that his great-uncle Harold "Kayo" Konigsberg had been a legendary Mafia enforcer, suspected by the F.B.I. of upwards of twenty murders.In Blood Relation, Eric Konigsberg unspools the lurid… Shares: Murderers, True Crime, Crime, Biography & Memoir

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