true crime

In Paris in the late 1800s, with hypnotism as a popular form of entertainment, a strange murder case captivated the world. Gabrielle Bompard claims to have been hypnotized on numerous occasions since childhood, and everyone from her lovers to her family doctor concur that she is very susceptible to suggestion. When she is captured after having worked with Michel Eyraud, kills a man, and then lives on the run, her defense is that she can not be held responsible for her part in the crime, because, not only was the murder Eyraud's idea, but he had a hypnotic power over her, and she was not a

"You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark."

Michelle McNamara’s book investigating the Golden State Killer is a truly masterful work. The author explains her obsession with this case and her hopes of discovering the identity of the killer. She presents a staggering amount of research and information in such an engaging and organized way, while her clarity of writing and ever-present empathy enhance the reading experience.

Foolishly, I was not prepared to read about the truly haunting crimes that the Golden State Killer committed in the 1970s and 1980s. The author never divulges

On the morning of May 6, 1963, Jeff Thompson and his sisters, Margaret, Patty, and Amy, departed for school. By that afternoon, their lives had irreparably changed. Their mother had been murdered, and their father soon was a suspect. Events leading up to the murder, as well as the immediate aftermath, are presented in the first half of the book, in the section titled Carol and Cotton. The relationships between family and friends following the murder provide the background for the second half of the book, Brother and Sisters, which tells of Carol and Cotton’s children’s lives after the murder. 

Did Michael Peterson kill his wife Kathleen, or was her death--as he claims--a tragic accident? This is the question addressed by the 2005 documentary The Staircase, directed by Academy Award winning (for his previous documentary, Murder on a Sunday Morning) filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. Starting mere weeks after Kathleen's death and continuing throughout the trial, the team of filmmakers has seemingly complete access to Peterson, his defense team, his children, and other supporters. The viewer is so completely enmeshed in Peterson's life and version of the story, and his defense team's

In the late 1980's, a quiet young man with began working as a nurse in a burn ward in New Jersey.  Whether initially tempted by pity or a need for control, it was there that Charles Cullen, dubbed by the media as the Angel of Death, murdered his first patient with an insulin overdose.  Over the course of the next sixteen years, he murdered many more, possibly over three hundred people all told, all within the sterile confines of hospital wards.  Journalist Charles Graeber first encountered Cullen while writing an article about the murderer's desire to donate a kidney from prison, and now uses

Ann Rule is one of the best true crime writers of this generation. No one else does so much detailed research about murderers (serial or otherwise). I have read all of her books and eagerly anticipated the publication of Bitter Harvest since it dealt with a local crime. Bitter Harvest takes place in Prairie Village, Kansas and involves Dr. Debora Green, her husband Mike and their three children. Debora Green was truly one of those people who “had it all”, intelligence, money and three lovely children. Rule takes us step by step from Debora’s and Mike’s wedding to the night of October 23, 1995