We hope that you are enjoying the 2022 Reading Challenge! If you’re not already, be sure to follow along in our Better World Books 2022 Reading Challenge Facebook Group, subscribe to our text messages, or email list to stay up-to-date. This month, our category is Chilling True Crime. Whether you like organized crime, creepy serial killers or unsolved mysteries, this category has something for everyone! Whatever true crime means to you is what we want you reading!
Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime
by Ron Stallworth
#1 New York Times Bestseller and the extraordinary true story and basis for the Academy Award winning film BlacKkKlansman. When detective Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, comes across a classified ad in the local paper asking for all those interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan to contact a P.O. box, Detective Stallworth does his job and responds with interest, using his real name while posing as a white man. A few weeks later the office phone rings, and the caller asks Ron a question he thought he’d never have to answer, “Would you like to join our cause ?” This is 1978, and the KKK is on the rise in the United States. Ron answers the caller’s question that night with a yes, launching what is surely one of the most audacious, and incredible undercover investigations in history.
Mindhunter
by John E., Olshaker, Mark Douglas
Now a Netflix original series Discover the classic, behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas’ twenty-five-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of the country’s most notorious serial killers and criminals. In chilling detail, the legendary Mindhunter takes us behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases–and into the darkest recesses of our worst nightmares. During his twenty-five year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement, pursuing some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time: the man who hunted prostitutes for sport in the woods of Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle’s Green River killer, the case that nearly cost Douglas his life.
The Devil’s Cinema: The Untold Story Behind Mark Twitchell’s Kill Room
by Steve Lillebuen
In October 2008, Johnny Altinger, a 38-year-old Edmonton man, was on his way to a tryst with a woman he had met on an online dating website when he emailed the directions to their rendezvous to a concerned friend. He was never seen again. Two weeks before Altinger’s disappearance, independent filmmaker Mark Twitchell began shooting a low-budget horror film about a serial killer who impersonates a woman on an online dating website to lure his victims to their gruesome deaths. But these are just the starting points of the stranger-than-fiction case of Mark Twitchell, a man with a startling plan to turn his life-long love of fantasy and desire for fame into reality.
Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System
by Roberto Saviano
A groundbreaking, major bestseller in Italy, Savianos gripping nonfiction account chronicles the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal.
Party Monster: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland
by James St. James
When Disco Bloodbath was first published, it created a storm of controversy for its startlingly vivid, strikingly fresh, and outrageously funny depiction of the hedonistic world of the New York City club kids, for whom nothing was too outre — including murder. Nominated for the Edgar Award for best true-crime book of the year, it also marked the debut of an audaciously talented writer, James St. James, who himself had been a club kid and close friend and confidant of Michael Alig, the young man convicted of killing the drug dealer known as Angel.
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
by Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry
The #1 bestselling true crime book ever, this revised edition tells what really happened in the murders carried out by the Manson family. Taking a look at the man, the method and the madness, the book now features a new Afterword. of photos.
Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
by Jessica McDiarmid
In the vein of the astonishing and eye-opening bestsellers I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and The Line Becomes a River , this stunning work of investigative journalism follows a series of unsolved disappearances and murders of Indigenous women in rural British Columbia.
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.
Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery
by Robert Kolker
Award-winning investigative reporter Robert Kolker delivers a humanizing account of the true-life search for a serial killer still at large on Long Island, and presents the first detailed look at the shadow world of online escorts, where making a living is easier than ever and the dangers remain all too real. A triumph of reporting, a riveting narrative, and “a lashing critique of how society and the police let five young women down” (Dwight Garner, New York Times ), Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.
The Stranger Beside Me
by Ann Rule
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Rule, “America’s best true-crime writer” (Kirkus Reviews), her unforgettable classic account of the horrifying murders in the Pacific Northwest and her shock when she discovered her friend–Ted Bundy–was not only a suspect but also one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Meeting in 1971 at a Seattle crisis clinic, Ann Rule and Ted Bundy developed a friendship and correspondence that would span the rest of his life. Rule had no idea that when they went their separate ways, their paths would cross again under shocking circumstances. The Stranger Beside Me is Rule’s compelling firsthand account of not just her relationship with Bundy, but also his life–from his complicated childhood to the media circus of his trials.
