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True Crime


missybct

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I hope it is okay to post this in here, I was just wondering if anyone read books on true crime?

 

I did a Criminology degree and as a consequence read quite a few books based on serial killing as part of a module. I've always been fairly fascinated with the psychology behind criminal activity (hence the degree) so I like reading books that explore the past behaviours of criminals.

 

I know it's not to everyones taste (a lot of them can be very gratuitous and explicit) but there are some really good, non sensationalist books out there if anyone is interested.

 

Of course there are many volumes about Jack the Ripper (and I find it hard to know which one is best to read so have avoided it) but possibly the "best" book I have read about the story behind a criminal is Gordon Burn's book "Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son" which depicts the story behind Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper who terrorised northern England in the 70's and 80's. It's cut from a different kind of book to the masses that have been written about Sutcliffe - it really just charts the upbringing of the man and has chapters where the author has spoken with his family.

 

I really recommend the book if you are interested, like me, in the psychology or underbelly of why criminals perpetrate a crime.

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That Criminology degree of yours sounds really interesting! I wouldn't mind hearing more about the books you had to (and got to) read for that. Maybe you could also make some recommendations? :lol:

 

I like to read true crime novels but haven't actually read many of them so far. I've read Ann Rule's Stranger Beside Me, a book about Ted Bundy, maybe you've heard of it? It's the best one I've read so far, very chilling and very creepy! Ann Rule's book on Ted Bundy beats so many other novels because she happened to know Bundy herself and worked with him on a crisisline. I would recommend that book to anyone who's into true crime.

 

The other one that I've read and that comes to mind is Patricia Cornwell's Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed which was also great, I'd love to reread that one at some point.

 

I have also Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and A Stranger in the Family by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith on my bookshelf, waiting to be read.

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I have always wanted to read Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule - I have read a couple of articles about Ted Bundy and they mentioned this book but for some reason I never picked it up - unlike me as I found the Bundy case very interesting.

 

There is a book called My Life Among the Serial Killers by Helen Morrison. She is a psychiatrist who has interviewed at length some (in)famous serial killers like John Wayne Gacy, and delves into the history of their childhood (as to be expected). It's good because it doesn't focus entirely on the crimes which a lot of books of this ilk do. However, she does spend a lot of time talking about herself, and the way it flows feels a bit odd at times. I suspect it's as much a book about revealing her interviews as it is about boosting her public knowledge, but it is an okay book. I wouldn't really recommend it as she tends to believe that serial killing is created genetically or in infancy, whereas there is a lot of evidence that suggests otherwise.

 

I have read quite a few Ann Rule books such as "Empty Promises" which was good.

 

Another book I read (but found a bit hard to follow) was JonBenet - Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation by Steve Thomas, who was a leading detective on the case in the 90's. This was a part of a module by crimes perpetrated by family (although the Ramsey's have never been charged, there is an undercurrent of belief that they were responsible for the murder of their daughter which I tend to go with) and although it was a hard book to read (for many reasons) it was okay. There is a lot of talk about the legal process and the big mistakes made by the Boulder police department in the case, plus the unavoidable cover up by some of the higher police officials.

 

I will seek out that Jack the Ripper book, Frankie!

Edited by missybct
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I would definitely recommend you get a copy of the Stranger Beside Me book as well, missybct :lol:

 

John Wayne Gacy sounded familiar so I wikied him and found out that he's called the "Killer Clown", which reminded me that a friend recommended this book to me (Killer Clown: John Wayne: The John Wayne Gacy Murders), it's written by Terry Sullivan and Peter Maiken.

 

I'm adding My Life Among the Serial Killers to my wishlist, thanks for that :lol:

 

Also, I just remembered that my friend loaned me a copy of Ann Rule's Green River, Running Red which is supposed to be good, but I haven't had time to read it yet. It's about Gary Ridgway, the so-called Green River Killer.

 

I usually go for the cases that have been solved (I need to know that the killer's been caught and is locked up in prison or dead, otherwise I'll freak out). I also prefer books that concentrate on one person instead of a variety of different cases.

 

The JonBenet case is something I couldn't put myself through, just the idea of beauty pageants for anyone younger that 18 years is disgusting to me. And the case has never been solved either. I couldn't stand wondering if it was really her parents that did it, I couldn't live with that :lol:

 

I would also like to find a good book on Jeffrey Dahmer, any recommendations? I would also be interested in a book about this serial killer whose name I cannot remember, he used to make clothes out of the skin of his victims?**

 

Edit: Kell, I didn't know The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or The Murder at Road Hill House is a true crime novel?! I have it on my TBR but I always thought (for who knows why) that it was a old fictional whodunnit.

 

Edit 2: There's also In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, which is about the murder of Herbert Clutter and his family back in 1959. Capote visited the convicted murderer in prison and interviewed them several times.

 

** It was Ed Gein I was looking for!

Edited by frankie
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Edit: Kell, I didn't know The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or The Murder at Road Hill House is a true crime novel?! I have it on my TBR but I always thought (for who knows why) that it was a old fictional whodunnit.

I didn't realise until a friend who read it said, "I hadn't realised it was a true crime!" She didn't realise until after she'd read it - LOL!

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Frankie, I don't know of specific books with Ed Gein or Jeffrey Dahmer but I'm sure Amazon would come up with something. I think there is a book by Christopher Berry-Dee that is called Talking with Serial Killers which has a bit about Jeffrey Dahmer and I'm sure I once saw a book about Dahmer himself!

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True crime is an interesting read, I've got a friend (my best friend in fact) who will only read true crime (why, I don't know:irked:) so I borrow a few off her and have a few myself.

 

This one freaked me.

Sins of the Brother: The Definitive Story of Ivan Milat and the Backpacker Murders

Whittaker, Mark/ Kennedy, Les

 

 

John Grisham's An Innocent Man, a story about Ron Williamson who was sent to death row for a crime he did not commit was a very good read.

 

Lately I've read No Turning Back by Joanne Lees which I really enjoyed as it helped to clarify a lot of the bs that the media sensationalised.

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Guest velocipede2288

I could recommend these. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capot. Gentlemen at Crime. by Donald Mackenzie. The St Albans Poisoner, by Anthony Hoden. The Soho Don, by Michael Conner.A Man of Honour, by Joseph Bonanno.

Mad Frank, by Frankie Fraser. Gentleman Thief, by Peter Scott. And three books about the Cray Twins. Murder Without Conviction. My Story by Ron Cray. And The Brotherhood, by Leslie Payne.

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I would also like to find a good book on Jeffrey Dahmer, any recommendations?

 

 

Quite a while ago, I read a book called The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer (can't remember who wrote it) which looked at Dahmer's life and crimes. He had quite a tortured life himself and while the author didn't excuse his crimes, he makes you understand the possible reasons why Dahmer did what he did. I'm sure amazon would have it :lol: Have you seen the movie Dahmer? That's pretty good too.

 

I've read Helter Skelter and a few books about the Yorkshire Ripper over the years but haven't recently read any true crime. I'd like to read about Fred & Rose West as those murders happened in my lifetime and I don't know a lot about them.

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I nearly picked up Innocent Man today in fact.

 

The book by Joanne Lees, I have to say, wasn't a favourite of mine - it was interesting to read the portrayal of what happened to her as there was a lot of misguided reports when the story broke in 2001 but I found it a bit untidy and she spent a lot of time talking to the reader about the other things she did like holidays and jobs, which I suspect was the flesh out the book a little bit.

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I didn't realise until a friend who read it said, "I hadn't realised it was a true crime!" She didn't realise until after she'd read it - LOL!

 

What?? What are the odds of that! :readingtwo:

 

Nicola thanks for the Dahmer recommendation, it went straight to my wishlist :D

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The official(?) Black Museum books (two I am aware of, maybe there were more) are big enough (and concise enough) to cover a lot of cases that aren't as well known as the massive news story cases - Jack the Ripper type murders are given space as well, but there are smaller, more intimate crimes discussed as well. The photographs are well laid out in the pages as well. There was a long running part-work magazine in the UK back in the seventies (True Murder Something? Real Crime?) which was collected into a few oversized volumes in the eighties. One book runs to about 1000 pages of crimes, so I have no idea how many issues of the magazine were printed.

 

Those types of books can be too bitty for some - reading condensed versions of the cases gives the erronious impression that a lot of them were easy to solve. They are useful if you are hunting for general, rather than specific, information from a time period.

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I read a book on this subject some time back missybct. It is not one of those mentioned so far and I can't remember the title or the author! But he was a respected psychologist profiler who had worked on several high profile cases.

In it he espoused his own theory about what social conditions caused serial killers and some of the things they all had in common.

To be honest the book chilled me to the bone. The fact that it was all real and there are these people out there.

I will try to remember the title but it was a couple of years back.

 

Hey missy I just noticed how have you managed to get 68 posts in already? You came after me I think....

Edited by vodkafan
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Good observation, vodkafan! I'm a bit proflic on forums if I enjoy them, and I do have a lot of time on my hands :roll:

 

Was it The Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton? (Or Picking Up The Pieces, his other relatively similar book) I read both before I did my degree as a lot of people were talking about it, he is a very well known psychologist who was drafted into forensics to profile criminals.

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I bought Ann Rule's If You really Loved Me from a charityshop. It's about the shooting of Linda Brown, whose husband Dawid Brown figured that her stepdaughter Cinnamon must have shot her after a a fight. It takes years until the awful truth behind the events comes to light.

 

Has anyone read this?

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Was it The Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton? (Or Picking Up The Pieces, his other relatively similar book) I read both before I did my degree as a lot of people were talking about it, he is a very well known psychologist who was drafted into forensics to profile criminals.

 

Neither of those titles rings a bell missy...:ditto: So annoying when you can't remember the name of a book isn't it?

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I just remembered this true crime story, I've seen the movie called Bully, here's the plot summary from imdb.com:

 

After finding himself at the constant abuse of his best friend Bobby, Marty has become fed up with his friend's twisted ways. His girlfriend, a victim of Bobby's often cruel ways, couldn't agree more and they strategize murdering Bobby, with a group of willing and unwilling participants in a small Florida town. In the midst of their plotting, they find themselves contemplating with the possible aftermath of what could happen.

 

The movie is really disturbing, and it got more disturbing when I realised it was a true story. The book which is also called Bully (A True Story Of High School Revenge) is written by Jim Schutze. I've never read it myself but I would like to at some point.

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