True crime, my guilty pleasure

One of my guilty pleasures is reading true crime books. Good true crime books. And there are a lot of bad true crime books out there, so you have to choose carefully.

This guilty pleasure started for me in 1974, when I read Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter. I was so fascinated by the genre, that I turned to that classic true crime book, In Cold Blood (1966). Although Truman Capote did not invent the genre—many true crime pamphlets and magazines appeared as early as 100 years before Capote’s book—he did popularize the genre and bring it in the mainstream of literature. I’ve read dozens of true crime books since then.

And although Capote has been criticized since the book’s publication for taking liberties with the facts, it still remains one of the most important books in American literature.

Some people in my household do not share my fascination. Some think it’s creepy and weird that I like true crime books, crime fiction, movies and TV shows about crime. But I think it stems from a desire for justice, to see the guilty held to account. For me, that accountability seems to restore some balance to a universe filled with injustice.

And what, exactly makes a true crime book good? First, it should be based on first-hand experience or meticulous research or a combination of both. Bugliosi, the attorney who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and his followers for the Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, of course had intimate knowledge of the crime and the trial.

Capote began working on his groundbreaking book before the arrest of killers Hickock and Smith, and worked for six years, finishing after the killers were hanged. He was assisted by his childhood friend, Harper Lee. And although Capote does not footnote his work, the book is based on hundreds of hours of interviews, including extensive interviews with the killers as they awaited their sentences to be carried out.

Another criterion for judging true crime literature is whether it enlightens us somehow. Does it demonstrate a truth about human nature? Does it reveal irony? Does it ask us to question our assumptions, beliefs, or biases? Good true crime books, like all good literature, offers us more than just a voyeuristic peek at another’s tragedy.

And good true crime books respect the victims, the survivors, and those that bring the guilty to justice. Good true crime also holds accountable those involved in the case who do not share that respect: those that are incompetent, overzealous, or corrupt.

Finally, a good true crime book is readable. The prose must be precise and inviting. The dialog should be realistic. The descriptions must be detailed. It must be a rewarding read, even the parts that are heart-wrenching and disturbing.

So, what are my favorites? Probably too many to mention. However, I do want to tell you about some that I particularly liked. First, each of Gary LaVergne’s three books about killers is well worth the read. The Sniper in the Tower (1997), about the Charles Whitman murders, Worse Than Death (2003), about the Dallas nightclub murders, and Bad Boy from Rosebud (1999), about prolific serial killer Kenneth Allen McDuff, who was sent to death row in two different cases two decades apart, all focus on important criminal cases in Texas.

The Devil in the White City (2003) by Erik Larson is a modern masterpiece. Not only does it recount the crimes of one of the nation’s first and most prolific serial killers, it also details the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago to celebrate the 500^th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the western hemisphere. This world’s fair introduced people to the many products and inventions that would come to define the 20^th century: Juicy Fruit gum, Shredded Wheat, Quaker Oats, books printed in Braille, the Ferris Wheel, elevators, the electric chair, the moving sidewalk, electric dishwashers, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Westinghouse successfully winning the bid to provide electric light at the fair ended the war between direct and alternating current once and for all. There was even an assassination at the end of the exposition.

Some more recent titles include I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2019), in which author Michelle McNamara searches for the Golden State Killer. Ironically, McNamara died suddenly at age 46 just two years before the killer was apprehended. In Death in the Air (2017) by Kate Winkler Dawson, London serial killer John Reginald Christie operates hidden by the killer fog of 1952 that resulted in thousands of deaths.

Whether true crime is already a genre you enjoy, or a genre you have yet to explore, you can find dozens of lists of titles in the web, as well as dozens of titles by searching the catalog at the public library.