Home

Great Expectations

True Crime

  1. A Death in Belmont
    Junger, Sebastian
    Bessie Goldberg was strangled to death in her home, in March of 1963.  Was this the work of Alberto DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler or was this the work of Roy Smith, who was convicted for the crime? Junger was a child at this time but  he had a connection to DeSalvo. The day of the killing Alberto DeSalvo was working in the Jungers' home.

  2. The Devil in the White City: murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America
    Larson, Erik
    Larsen works two threads into this account.  One thread follows Daniel Burnham, the architect responsible for the construction of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  The second thread follows H. H. Holmes, serial killer.  The distractions of the fair fit his purposes and a disquieting sense of dread settles on the fair. 

  3. Fire Lover: a true story
    Wambaugh, Joseph
    A serial arsonist was setting fires in the Los Angeles area with an incendiary-timing device consisting of a lit cigarette and three matches wrapped in paper and secured with a rubber band.  One of the fires caused the death of three adults and a young child.  John Orr was a fire fighter who rose through the ranks to become an arson investigator.  In an ironic twist he is suspected of being the arsonist. The spate of fires ends with the conviction of John Orr, whose fingerprint is on one of the papers found on the scene.

  4. Helter Skelter: the true story of the Manson murders
    Bugliosi, Vincent
    This is the disturbing account of the Manson killings in 1969 and the trial which followed. Charles Manson and the followers who were willing to kill for him, were prosecuted by Bugliosi.

  5. In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
    Capote, Truman
    Capote transformed crime writing in this work. The senseless killing of the Clutters on November 15, 1959, in Holcomb Kansas is reconstructed in a narrative that relentlessly continues to the trial and execution of their killers.

  6. Manhunt: the twelve-day chase for Lincoln's killer
    Swanson, James L.
    On the fourteenth of April, 1865, President Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth.  This work follows Booth for twelve days as he is sought, caught, and shot.

  7. News of a Kidnapping
    Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
    Returning to his trade as a journalist, Garcia Marquez writes of the kidnapping of ten Colombians in 1990.  The kidnappings were tied to Pablo Escobar, who was pressuring the government to ban extraditions of Colombians to the United States to stand trial.

  8. The Story of Chicago May
    O'Faolain, Nuala
    May Duigan begins her life of crime in Ireland by taking her family's savings and the first ship to the States. What follows is a rich retelling of the seamy side of life in the 1890s.

  9. The Stranger Beside Me
    Rule, Ann
    This is the first of Rule's many published works of true crime writing.  Rule was a friend of serial killer, Ted Bundy, and she writes of him and his crimes from this perspective.

  10. Who Killed Jackie Bates?
    Waiser, W. A.
    It cannot be denied that on December 5, 1933, Jackie Bates was killed by his parents in a rented car in rural Saskatchewan.  What is in question is why it came to that desperate end.