18 books like The serial killers

What to read after The serial killers — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Blind Faith Joe McGinniss · 1981 · ★ 3.7 · 448p · ≈ 14h · Moderate The Marshalls were the model family of Tom’s River, New Jersey, living the American dream of all that money could buy. Rob Marshall was the big breadwinner, king of the country club set. Maria Marshall was his stunningly beautiful wife and the perfect mom to their three great kids. Then one night Rob, his head bloodied, reported Maria had been brutally slain. Sympathy poured in—until… Shares: Case studies, True Crime

Crimes of Passion Howard Engel · 2001 · 239p · ≈ 7h · Moderate The very term "crimes of passion" evokes deep-seated, atavistic responses in everyone's heart. These are the crimes that are born in the emotional core of women and men who are pushed to do the unthinkable. There are never - well, hardly ever - any of the crass considerations of financial gain, no taint of reward; only release. These crimes are direct responses to betrayal, to broken hearts and… Shares: Case studies, True Crime

A rip in Heaven Jeanine Cummins · 2004 · ★ 4.2 · 302p · ≈ 10h · Moderate It was a headline story in the New York Times and USA Today. It was covered by Court TV and profiled on the Ricki Lake Show. Now, here is the intimate memoir of a shocking crime and its aftermath...one family's immediate and unforgettable story of what victims can suffer long after they should be safe. Shares: Case studies, True Crime

Serial Killers Peter Vronsky · 2004 · ★ 4.0 · 422p · ≈ 14h · Moderate A comprehensive examination into the frightening true crime history of serial homicide—including information on America’s most prolific serial killers such as:Jeffrey Dahmer • Ted Bundy • “Co-ed Killer” Ed Kemper • The BTK Killer • “Highway Stalker” Henry Lee Lucas • Monte Ralph Rissell • “Shoe Fetish Slayer” Jerry Brudos • “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez • “Unabomber”… Shares: Case studies, Serial murders, True Crime

No way of knowing Pamela Donovan · 2003 · 246p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Examining "old media" treatment of crime legends: news reports, fictional film and television depictions, and "new media" interactive discussions: versions and discussions circulating in Internet newsgroups and via electronic mail lists, this text examines a social context vastly changed from the height of rumour research in the mid-20th century. Shares: Case studies, True Crime

Dark dreams Roy Hazelwood · 2001 · ★ 4.0 · 281p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Profiler Roy Hazelwood is the world's leading expert on the strangest and most dangerous of all aberrant offenders--the sexual criminal. In Dark Dreams he reveals the twisted motives and perverse thinking that go into the most reprehensible crimes. He also catalogs the innovative and remarkably effective techniques--techniques that he helped pioneer at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit--that… Shares: Criminal or forensic psychology, Serial murders, True Crime

Severed John Gilmore · 1994 · 237p · ≈ 7h · Moderate The Black Dahlia murder hit post-War Los Angeles like a bombshell . . . an impenetrable mystery—the haunting crown jewel of LAPD’s “unsolved” murders. Even before her savage death, beautiful 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, an aspiring starlet and nightclub habitué, was known as the Black Dahlia—now a magnetic icon in American pop culture, an almost mythical symbol of noir Hollywood. In this expanded… Shares: Case studies, True 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: Case studies, True Crime

The Boston stranglers Susan Kelly · 2002 · ★ 3.4 · 519p · ≈ 17h · Moderate In the only definitive book on this case, Susan Kelly investigates Albert DeSalvo's false confession to eleven murders committed in New England in the early 1960s -- and exposes the real killers. Shares: Case studies, Serial murders, True Crime

Bringing Adam home Les Standiford · 2011 · ★ 4.4 · 305p · ≈ 10h · Moderate This is the story of an unfathomable crime that would forever embed itself into the collective American psyche and lead to sweeping legislative changes in the way that missing person cases are handled. In 1981, Adam Walsh was a healthy and bright 6 1/2 year old boy with his entire life ahead of him. On the afternoon of July 27th, Adam accompanied his mom, Revé, to the local Sears department store… Shares: Case studies, True Crime

A Descent Into Hell Kathryn Casey · 2008 · ★ 4.0 · 383p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Bright, attractive, and both from good families, University of Texas college student Colton Pitonyak and vibrant redhead Jennifer Cave had the world at their beckoning. Cave, an ex-cheerleader, had just landed an exciting new job, while a big-money scholarship to UT's prestigious business school lured Pitonyak to Austin. Yet the former altar boy had a dark, unpredictable streak, one that ensnared… Shares: Case studies, True Crime

The Monster of Florence Magdalen Nabb · 1996 · ★ 3.3 · 344p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Marshal Guarnaccia feels out of his league when he is assigned to help track down a serial killer, especially when he assigned to work under Simonetti, a man so dedicated to achieving a conviction that he is blinded to the consequences. Shares: Case studies, Serial murders, True Crime

Never Enough Joe McGinniss · 2007 · ★ 4.0 · 320p · ≈ 10h · Moderate At thirty-nine, Nancy Kissel had it all: glamour, gusto, garishly flaunted wealth, and the royal lifestyle of the expatriate wife. Not to mention three young children and what a friend described as "the best marriage in the universe." That marriage -- to Merrill Lynch and former Goldman Sachs investment banker Robert Kissel -- ended abruptly one November night in 2003 in the bedroom of their… Shares: Case studies, True Crime

The killer department Robert Cullen · 1993 · ★ 4.0 · 258p · ≈ 8h · Moderate The spellbinding true tale of the discovery, chase, capture, and execution of Andrei Chikatilo, a serial killing madman who sexually assaulted, mutilated, and killed at least 53 women and children near Rostov-on-Don, Russia, between 1978 and 1986. The story is told by Colonel Vicktor Burakov, Soviet Militia, a brilliant, tenacious investigator who would be the very last man I'd want pursuing me… Shares: Case studies, Serial murders, True Crime

The shadow of death Philip E. Ginsburg · 1993 · ★ 4.5 · 406p · ≈ 13h · Moderate This is a true crime book about an area in Connecticut River valley of Vermont/New Hampshire that experiences three serial killers in the 1980s and 1990s. Ginsburg was a good writer who didn't sensationalize the storeis, letting the events speak for themselves as they played out. Shares: Serial murders, True Crime

Invisible Darkness Stephen Williams · 1996 · ★ 4.0 · 553p · ≈ 18h · Moderate Invisible Darkness is the story of one of the more bizarre cases in recent memory--killings so sensational that they prompted the Canadian government, in the interests of justice, to silence its national press and to lock foreign journalists out of the courts.To all appearances, Paul and Karla Bernardo had a fairytale marriage--beautiful working-class girl weds bright upper-middle-class guy and… Shares: True Crime

Nice Girl Rachael Jane Chin · 2011 Nice Girl? is a 1941 American musical comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Deanna Durbin, Franchot Tone, Walter Brennan, Robert Stack, and Robert Benchley. Based on the play Nice Girl? by Phyllis Duganne, the film is about a young girl who finds herself attracted to one of her fathers business partners who comes to town to give her father a scholarship for his dietary studies. Shares: True Crime

Outlaws Adam Shand · 2011 What's it like to be an outlaw biker? 'We're dd magnets,' one of them tells Adam Shand. 'Drunks in bars like to test themselves against a so-called outlaw.' Once seen as a free-wheeling, brawling, pleasure-seeking bunch of misfits rolling down the highways, bikers are now cast as social bogeymen. If you believe the dire warnings of the media and politicians, they are an organised crime threat on… Shares: True Crime

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