18 books like The Wrong Man

What to read after The Wrong Man — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

The trial of Dr. Adams Sybille Bedford · 1958 · 245p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Taken from a review: Here is the accused, Dr. John Adams, being tried for the murder of Mrs. Morell (after rumors connected with other ""mysterious"" deaths) six years previously (there were 16 other, earlier charges). Then come the nurses in attendance on Mrs. Morell, next the doctors in the hands of the prosecution. The defense takes over the cross-examination and, after the closing speeches,… Shares: Trials, True Crime

Final Analysis Catherine Crier · 2007 · ★ 3.4 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate In October 2002, Susan Polk, a housewife and mother of three, was arrested for the murder of her husband, Felix. The arrest in her sleepy northern California town kicked off what would become one of the most captivating murder trials in recent memory, as police, local attorneys, and the national media sought to unravel the complex web of events that sent this seemingly devoted housewife over the… Shares: Trials, True Crime, Investigation, Murder

Eye of the Beholder David B. Ellis · 2007 · ★ 3.9 · 394p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Edgar Award-winner David Ellis shifts gears to deliver a stunning new thriller where every character has a secret-and every secret has a price.David Ellis's In the Company of Liars is an audaciously inventive thriller. In a David Ellis novel, nothing is ever what it seems, and so it is with Eye of the Beholder, a heart-pounding novel filled with dark secrets and the horrific lengths that… Shares: Judicial error, Trials

A Burial at Sea Charles Finch · 2011 · 314p · ≈ 10h · Moderate In March 1873 aristocratic sleuth Charles Lenox undertakes a delicate espionage mission to Egypt, where five British agents have been killed, apparently by the French. But soon after Charles's ship sets sail, the captain calls on him to dust off his deductive skills when a crew member is murdered and left eviscerated on the deck. Shares: Investigation, Murder

Death's Shadow Jon Wells · 2013 · 248p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Victims and survivors, angels and demons, intersect along winding roads to imperfect justice.“Bare light bulbs shone against walls painted with graffiti and dried blood, the rooms reeking of a sweet pungent odour like burnt plastic …” So writes award-winning Hamilton Spectator journalist and author Jon Wells in one of four harrowing murder stories in Death’s Shadow. Wells take readers up close… Shares: True Crime, Investigation, Murder

The Innocent Man John Grisham · 2006 · ★ 3.9 · 414p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Murder and injustice in a small townJohn Grisham's first work of non-fiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet. In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big… Shares: Judicial error, Trials, True Crime

Cape May Court House Lawrence Schiller · 2002 · ★ 4.0 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate No one in Cape May Court House, New Jersey, was surprised when Eric Thomas, a popular young doctor, sued Ford Motor Company for the wrongful death of his pregnant wife, Tracy. The accident they were involved in was minor, and they were driving a big, powerful Explorer. Nevertheless, Tracy died in the accident, leaving behind her husband and cherished young daughter. Backed by the medical… Shares: Trials, True Crime, Murder

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: Trials, True Crime, Investigation, Murder

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: True Crime, Investigation, Murder

Snow White must die Nele Neuhaus · 2013 · ★ 3.0 · 387p · ≈ 12h · Moderate On a rainy November day police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic accident: a woman has fallen from a pedestrian bridge onto a car driving underneath. According to a witness, the woman may have been pushed. The investigation leads Pia and Oliver to a small village, and the home of the victim, Rita Cramer. On a September evening eleven years… Shares: Judicial error, Investigation, Murder

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: True Crime, Investigation, Murder

Convicted but innocent C. Ronald Huff · 1996 · 180p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Convicted but innocent: wrongful conviction and public policy. Shares: Judicial error, True Crime

Furious Hours Casey Cep · 2019 · ★ 3.9 · 336p · ≈ 11h · Moderate "'A triumph on every level. One of the losses to literature is that Harper Lee never found a way to tell a gothic true-crime story she'd spent years researching. Casey Cep has excavated this mesmerizing story and tells it with grace and insight and a fierce fidelity to the truth.'--David Grann,author of Killers of the Flower Moon."--Back of jacket. "The stunning story of an Alabama serial killer… Shares: Trials, True Crime, Investigation, Murder

Under the bridge Rebecca Godfrey · 2005 · ★ 3.8 · 346p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Now a Hulu limited series starring Lily Gladstone, Riley Keough, and Archie Panjabi! “A swift, harrowing classic perfect for these unnerving times.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation One moonlit night, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk went to join friends at a party and never returned home. In this “tour de force of crime reportage” (Kirkus Reviews), acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes… Shares: Trials, True Crime, Investigation, Murder

The Redbreast Jo Nesbø · 2007 · ★ 4.5 · 448p · ≈ 14h · Moderate Don’t Miss the Netflix series Detective Hole, based on Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, premiering March 26, 2026!“An elegant and complex thriller….Harrowingly beautiful.” —New York Times Book Review“The Redbreast certainly ranks with the best of current American crime fiction.” —Washington PostJo Nesbø, the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman, has solidified his spot as one of the most… Shares: Investigation, Murder

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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